Our ‘Spotlight on…’ series aims to travel across the company to bring you the people behind the medicines. Our second spotlight features Clara Carter, Director of UK Commercial Sales, Accord UK.

Offering her insight and experience, we caught up with Clara to find out her thoughts on how to build lasting key customer relationships and her top career advice. There is no denying that the current pandemic is changing the world, will it have a lasting effect on the pharma workforce and what skillsets remain as important as ever? No one knows at this stage, but there are certainly many changes that we can learn from and take into the next phase and see how the landscape changes and how we all operate within it.

With a career spanning 17 years+ in the pharmaceutical industry, and 12 of those with Accord, we took some time with Clara for our latest ‘Spotlight On’ piece. Clara’s role involves running the commercial team and looking after our key wholesale partners and national chains.

1. What made you want to work within the pharmaceutical industry? And what is the biggest change you have seen in the last 5 years?

I wanted to do something that made a difference to people and helped them – what we aim to do is to help make people better and improve the quality of their life.  My first role was in Marketing for two over the counter (OTC) brands – that’s when I got the “bug” and decided this was the industry for me.

The biggest change I’ve seen in the last 5 years is around the need for working closer with our customers in partnership – it’s about how we both talk honestly together to find workable solutions for opportunities, challenges and issues.

2. As the industry continues to move at such a pace, what sets your team apart?

We can react and adapt quickly to changing customer needs. With our UK manufacturing capabilities, we can turn around customer requirements within weeks – we recently had a customer asking for a product and we sorted the supply through Barnstaple within 6 weeks. There aren’t many supply chains that can do that. We’re strongly supported by our Indian and global supply chain network and UK footprint in both Barnstaple and Newcastle.

That’s part of what sets us at Accord apart I feel, we are agile, work closely with others to assess the landscape and look to react to market conditions. In this instance, we supported our customer in getting essential medicines out and that’s what we keep our focus on.

3. What three qualities do you think it takes to work within the pharmaceutical industry?

I think within generics specifically it’s around being able to adapt – I always say generics is like dog years, as you get seven years in one! Listen – that’s key, as what you’ve planned may need to change course. And finally, ensure you action and do what you say you were going to do. If you can’t, then explain why – don’t avoid it. Overall, you need to be driven to ‘play your part’ in getting essential medicines to patients. It’s what spurred me on and what continues to get me out of bed each day.

4. This year has been no doubt challenging, how have you overcome any challenges you or your team have faced?

We talk – albeit on Teams or Skype but we talk as a team and individually. This year has meant lots of change for everyone in the way we work with our customers, head office and as a team. We’ve had meetings on media that I didn’t think would be possible, but they work. Sometimes people rely too much on email and a face to face discussion is so much better. That’s something I will stick with in the future, remembering the power of a quick call / chat to get things done whether that be with a customer or team member.

5. And finally (and most importantly), what does the future hold for you at Accord?

I’m very fortunate that I love my job – every day is different – I’m sure that the future holds lots of exciting opportunities including the move towards utilising digital platforms more than we do now. COVID-19 has certainly accelerated our use of media internally to communicate and I know this will continue and grow for us and our customers. Being agile and responsive to our customers will be key over the foreseeable future as we adapt to new ways of doing things.

Look out for our next ‘Spotlight On…’ piece in the coming months. If you missed our latest chat with Mark Butcher, Director of Marketing, Communication & PR at Accord UK, then please click here.