Exploring Leadership With Subhanu Saxena

Exploring Leadership With Subhanu Saxena

Exploring Leadership is a series of conversations hosted by Kathryn Goldman Schuyler in which she introduces viewers to leaders who dance with possibility and whose creativity, depth, and vision bring leadership to life — people from many arenas whose lives add vitality and meaning to our planet.

This episode is part of a series on Creative Leadership to Transform the World recorded during the 2020 novel coronavirus pandemic. In the series, Kathryn interviews people whose work can help us think about how we want our society to be on the other side of this crisis — whose approaches make a difference for what we can imagine and do as the immediate crisis passes.

In this episode, Kathryn talks with Subhanu Saxena, the Director of Innovation Introduction at The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Subhanu describes the challenges of introducing innovations in healthcare in the developing world that can make a difference during this global pandemic.
 

Kathryn Goldman Schuyler has many years of experience in leadership development, organizational consulting, research, and somatic learning. She has helped hundreds of executives to cultivate healthy organizations and is Professor Emeritus of Organization Development at Alliant International University. Kathryn has published widely on leadership and change and is the author of Inner Peace – Global Impact (IAP, 2012) and the lead editor of Leading With Spirit, Presence, and Authenticity (Jossey Bass/Wiley, 2014), and Creative Social Change: Leadership for a Healthy World (Emerald, 2016).

Her recent research focuses on awareness and mindfulness at work: her published work in this area highlights how being fully present enhanced participants’ connectedness with others and with the natural environment and renewed their sense of purpose in their work. She has studied mindfulness and awareness with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Mingyur Rinpoche, Lama Tharchin Rinpoche, and other masterful teachers of meditation. Kathryn and her husband, a composer, live overlooking San Francisco, a view that encourages them to pause and appreciate gleaming sunsets and foggy mornings, the calls of ravens and the circling of hawks, and the sparkling city lights.

Subhanu Saxena is the Director of the Innovation Introduction team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He spearheads key cross-functional initiatives for the foundation and is building capabilities to enhance the Foundation’s ability to support introduction of new innovations at scale. Subhanu is a highly accomplished global executive whose experience has spanned markets in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia. He has worked in various industries including pharmaceuticals, consulting, and banking. Subhanu graduated with an MBA from INSEAD - France, Fontainebleau, and a MA (Hons) in Engineering Science from Oxford University, both with distinction. Prior to his current role, Subhanu was Managing Director and Global CEO of Cipla, a pharmaceutical manufacturing company with a presence in over 170 countries. Before that, he was a member of Novartis' Pharmaceutical Executive Committee where he was Head of Global Product Strategy and Commercialization, responsible for marketing, sales, global medical affairs, and health economics. On the non-professional side, Subhanu loves music and teaches Sanskrit and Vedanta.