Read the Conversation
Conversation highlights:
- Mission in Action: Delivering better health with humanity, embodying Haleon's mission.
- Haleon's extensive footprint: Collaborating for impact beyond healthcare, supporting sustainable production sites in Ireland.
- Global Health Impact: Impact of OTC products in alleviating economic burden and increasing health value. Producing 8.5 billion Panadol pills for global distribution.
- Localized Portfolio Strategy: Managing a broad portfolio, and tailoring it to Irish local needs: Pain Management, Oral Health, Respiratory, and Vitamins.
- Empowering Self-Care: Distinguishing between self-care and self-medication, promoting consumer health literacy. Focusing on extending health span over lifespan through consumerizing self-care.
- Leadership Through Learning: The importance of exhibiting leadership through continuous learning, active listening to both team and consumers.
- Advancing Women’s Health: Championing women’s health and increasing its visibility within the company.
- AI-Driven Innovation: Utilizing AI technology to accelerate innovation and identify better patient solutions.
- Commitment to Sustainability: Focusing on sustainability, innovation, and long-term global health solutions.
EF: What attracted you to Haleon, and what mission have you set for yourself?
MB: I’ve joined Haleon from a path of around 25 years in health and beauty, and most recently, experience in biotechnology.
I’ve grown my career by learning in different types of organizations, from big multinationals, family-owned companies, and most recently, a start-up, scaling from Series B to Series C funding. That richness of experience has made me reflect more deeply on purpose in my career. It is this reflection on purpose that motivated me to join Haleon, a business with a very clear and inspiring purpose: to deliver better everyday health with humanity.
From my time working in biotechnology, I learned that it is not enough for people to simply live longer: people need and want more healthspan, to live longer in better health. This is why Haleon’s purpose resonates so strongly with me. Our products, like Panadol, Sensodyne, and Centrum, which are easily accessible to consumers in retailers and pharmacies, can empower individuals to manage their own health and take preventative actions that can deliver benefits in the future too. This is really important when health systems globally, and here in Ireland, are under significant pressure.
My mission is to help translate our global ambition as part of our Win as One strategy, to contribute, in Ireland, to reaching 1 billion more consumers worldwide by 2030.
To do this, we will need to really understand the needs of our consumers and help empower people to self-care. We know that there are people in Ireland with conditions that they are not managing or treating well, and we can help serve this unmet need. We know that 31% of people globally suffer daily pain, yet only 58% of those who suffer from pain take pain medication, like Panadol. That challenge exists in Ireland, too, and closing that gap will help us reach more consumers.
EF: You mentioned you just came from the leadership team meetings. What are your key takeaways?
MB: The thing I’m the most passionate about in our Win as One framework is the focus on the development of our team. ‘Grow myself and others’ is one of our key behaviors at Haleon, and it was this behavior that we really focused on during our recent Great Britain and Ireland leadership team meeting here in Dublin.
We spent time together discussing how we can support the growth and development of our teams by being positive role models – taking time to learn for ourselves, enrolling in development programs, and coaching and mentoring colleagues in the business. Coaching and mentoring are something I’m really passionate about as a member of the LEAD network, which has been created to attract, retain, and advance women in the consumer goods and retail sector in Europe.
The reason we focused on this behavior during our leadership team meeting was that the meeting coincided with Growing at Haleon Week. This is a week organized by our global team, and designed with programs you can join at any time to hear from internal experts, leadership, and even external speakers. The sessions focused on a broad range of topics, from building an ‘enterprise mindset’, to the use of data and AI, to how we can reach lower-income consumers.
With this in mind, my takeaway from Growing at Haleon Week and the Great Britain and Ireland leadership team meeting is that it is critical that we unlock the power of our teams to help us achieve our Win as One ambitions, and that there are plenty of resources available that I can share with my team to help us achieve those aims together.
EF: Can you elaborate on the importance of Ireland for Haleon, its footprint, and how it translates into Ireland?
MB: Delivering better everyday health relies on the strength of our portfolio and how it resonates with our consumers in Ireland. Haleon is a worldwide leader in self-care, with a well-balanced portfolio across six diverse categories, including pain management, oral health, vitamins, minerals and supplements, and respiratory. Consumers in Ireland will be familiar with our brands Panadol and Voltarol in pain management; Sensodyne in oral care; and Centrum in Vitamins, Minerals, and Supplements (VMS).
Ireland is a really important market for Haleon as it is home to one of the largest global production sites. Our site in Dungarvan has over 750 employees, and it produces two of our biggest-selling global power brands: Polident – known as Poligrip in some markets - and Panadol. The oral health facility in Dungarvan produces over 147 million tubes of Poligrip fixative paste and over 3 billion Denture Cleansing tablets annually. The over-the-counter facility in Dungarvan produces 6.4 billion Panadol products annually.
Dungarvan has recently seen investment of around £45 million in fully automated production lines to keep up with demand, underscoring its importance to Haleon. It is also very focused on achieving our sustainability goals. In 2024, the site achieved a Net Zero carbon status, a target set by the global business along with the Alliance for Water Stewardship, ahead of schedule. It is also extremely important to the local community. It is a major local employer, and since 2022, the site has contributed €90,000 in support of local charities.
EF: What is the pitch that you use to attract investment into Ireland?
MB: First, the consumer healthcare sector, including in Ireland, is growing, and we need to build an understanding of what that means. Many people think about life sciences in Ireland as just being traditional pharmaceuticals, but it is so much broader than that. Our products - based on sound science and R&D, like the pharmaceutical sector - can be used to support people in self-care using a product that can be easily bought in pharmacies or in retailers.
Our products are regulated, like in pharmaceuticals, and our regulator, the HPRA, is well-respected globally. The science base required to develop one of our products relies on similar talent to the pharmaceutical industry, where we know Ireland has a great reputation. Ireland has a long history of supporting pharmaceutical manufacturing, with strong links between the universities and industry. We have strong links to the Universities and schools close to our Dungarvan site, and we recently relocated our Dublin commercial office to be closer to Dublin universities and talent. This talent pool is important for us for the success of our business, and means Ireland, one of the most educated countries in Europe, with over half of the population aged between 25-64 having a bachelor’s degree or higher, is a great place for consumer health to grow.
Second, consumer healthcare is a 200-billion-dollar market globally that is growing at 3-4%. There are global trends driving this growth that are pertinent here in Ireland as well, like an aging population, pressure on public health services, and an increased consumer focus on health and wellness. There is a big opportunity to help grow our sector by supporting more people in self-care.
In Ireland, we are extremely lucky: 96 percent of the population trusts their local pharmacist. The average adult in Ireland visits a pharmacy about 15 times a year, which translates to more than once a month and adds up to around 120 million pharmacy visits every year. This presents a significant opportunity to drive more consumers towards self-care, with benefits for individuals, society, and the economy.
It is estimated that over 19 million minor health cases are treated by self-care in Ireland per year, generating savings for the healthcare system and society. In total, €727.30 million is already saved by patients annually through the use of self-care. This number would increase if people engaged with self-care more. It would also free up GP appointments for those who really need them. Currently, self-care saves 7.68 million hours per year for GPs, but by engaging in more self-care, 11.4% of GPs could potentially be freed to treat patients with more serious conditions.
At Haleon, we fully support the policy recommendations set out by the IPHA to encourage more self-care. This includes integrating self-care into Irish national health strategies, expanding access to self-care products, and strengthening pharmacist-led self-care services. This would help to further unlock the potential of the consumer health sector in Ireland.
EF: Is there any initiative you are most excited about when it comes to education and Haleon in Ireland, something in particular that you are really pushing?
MB: I am extremely proud of the investment we are now making in training healthcare professionals and retail partners. We have a dedicated team that is engineering training materials to raise awareness on self-care and ensure alignment with HPRA recommendations, which is extremely important.
Second, in terms of education and talent recruitment, we work really closely with Universities, both in Dublin and the South East. For example, in Dungarvan, there is a local research collaboration with the Southeast Technological University (SETU), where collaboration takes place from a research point of view, as well as recruiting talent amongst the graduates. We have recently moved our Dublin office closer to the center of the city to build closer relationships with Universities there.
Third, as a female health supporter, I also champion the voice of women with endometriosis – a condition which affects 1 in 10 females in Ireland. I spoke on an internal panel to our business earlier this year to mark International Women’s Day to share my personal experience of living with endometriosis and educate colleagues on the condition.
The initiative I’m most proud of from the last year, however, when it comes to education, is an oral care campaign we launched, which we will replicate this year, called These Packs Give Back. For this campaign, we partnered with Tesco to combine promotional activity with consumer education. Our teams were present at Tesco points of sale to help consumers choose the best oral care product based on their individual needs.
What makes this initiative especially meaningful is that it also supports a charity. Together with Tesco, we provided a joint donation of €40,000 to the Children’s Health Foundation to support the amazing work they are doing to improve children’s health in Ireland.
These initiatives show that it is about building the future of health in a way that benefits everyone. It is also very meaningful for us as a team, because we are all living our purpose here in Dublin, here in Dungarvan, and across the organization. When we join forces and build these campaigns, the impact resonates throughout Haleon.
EF: Do you have a final message?
MB: This is a really exciting time for the consumer healthcare sector, including in Ireland. There is so much happening in terms of consumer insights, retail landscape, and the pace of technology. At Haleon, we will be using this to help bring new innovations and offers to Irish consumers.
For example, Centrum multivitamin + D: in Ireland, 40.1% of adults have year-round concentrations below the recommended level, and this figure rises significantly to 55.0% during the winter months. Bringing this product to market will really help meet this consumer need. Likewise, our new Sensodyne Clinical White range was based on insights that showed 86% of people with sensitive teeth wanted whiter teeth, yet 50% experienced sensitive teeth when using whitening products. This consumer-first insight enabled us to create a range that targeted both patient needs, meeting the demand for a whitening product, backed by experts, that enabled people to also manage their sensitivity.
Having been in the role for a year now, my final message would be to say that it has been fantastic getting to know and build my team, moving offices, and getting to work with our trusted brands and fantastic retail partners. I’m excited about helping to realize our Win as One strategy here in Ireland.
