UCB External Sustainability Advisory Board

“Trust and equity are related to diversity and inclusion, and that diversity and inclusion should be translated into people of different backgrounds that are participating in clinical trials, that are accessing healthcare products. That will not happen if the people with whom we are working do not reflect the same diversity. Diversity within UCB, within its staff, diversity with partners, clinicians and other health care workers – all of that will help in overcoming the barriers of inclusion and therefore contribute to greater equity.”

Biography

Elhadj As Sy is the Chancellor of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation Board, and former Co-chair of the WHO/World Bank Global Pandemic Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB). In addition to these functions, Mr. Sy is also Chair of the Africa Child Policy Forum, Governor at the Wellcome Trust, and a member of the Governing Board of Interpeace as well as numerous other boards and organizations.

Mr. Sy has extensive experience in leadership roles in the humanitarian, health, environment, development sectors, and has previously served as the Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) IFRC ‐ the world’s largest humanitarian network.

Prior to this appointment, he served at a senior level with UNICEF, UNAIDS, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and other agencies for more than 30 years. He was UNICEF’s Director of Partnerships and Resource Development in New York, Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa and Global Emergency Coordinator for the Horn of Africa.

From 2005 to 2008, Mr. Sy was Director, HIV/AIDS Practice with the United Nations Development Programme in New York. Before that, he worked with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria as its Africa Regional Director and later as Director of Operational Partnerships and Country Support in Geneva.

Mr. Sy has also held the positions of UNAIDS Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa and Representative in New York.

Before, he served he served for 8 years as Director of Health and Development Programmes with Environment and Development Action in the Third World in Dakar, Senegal.

A national of Senegal and a graduate from the Vienna Diplomatic Academy, Mr Sy speaks English, French and German.

“Sustainability is no longer a nice to have but an economic, societal, and environmental imperative. UCB has shown its commitment to sustainability by adopting a holistic approach that addresses the full gamut of sustainability concerns from social equity to climate impact, not only across the company but increasingly across the value chain from production to use. The biggest challenge for a company like UCB is staying the course, and reminding itself as well as its competitors, customers and peers, that the cost of inaction is much greater than the cost of action.”
 

Biography

Sandrine Dixson-Declève led The Club of Rome as co-President for 6 years until 2024 and is the Executive Chair of Earth4All.

She also sits on several non-executive and advisory boards including the Climate Governance Commission, EDP, BMW, UCB, Climate KIC, Leonardo Centre, Imperial College London and is a Senior Associate and faculty member of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), an Ambassador for the Energy Transition Commission (ETC) and the Wellbeing Alliance (WeAll) and a Fellow of the World Academy of Science & Art. Until recently, Ms. Dixson-Declève was Chair for the European Commission Expert Group on Economic and Societal Impact of Research & Innovation (ESIR). She has also sat on the European Commission’s Mission on Climate Change & Adaptation.

Ms. Dixson-Declève is a TED global speaker and recently published “Quel Monde Pour Demain” lucpire editions and Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity.  She was recognized by Reuters as one of 25 global female trailblazers in 2023 and by GreenBiz as one of the 30 most influential women across the globe driving change in the low carbon economy and promoting green business.

“UCB is finding itself in an interesting dilemma: on the one hand, we are increasing our capabilities to generate radical and breakthrough innovation that can solve prior-to unmet medical needs; on the other hand, UCB is operating in an environment where inequalities are growing and communities are facing multiple interconnected crises, from health outbreaks, climate change, geopolitical tensions and conflicts. It’s in this very complex nexus of big challenges that we're seeking to create value and drive health equity within the disease areas where UCB has potential solutions.”

Biography

Charlotte Ersbøll works with global leaders from business, academia and civil society in how to lead purpose-led transformation towards solving some of world’s greatest challenges. She is an expert and frequent speaker in how to mobilize internal and external stakeholders behind a shared purpose, how to form multi-stakeholder partnerships that can deliver systemic change, and how to set meaningful social impact metrics that can drive real progress.

Ms. Ersbøll is a Trustee with Forum for the Future, a leading international sustainability non-profit that works with business, governments and civil society to accelerate the shift toward a sustainable future; a Deputy Board Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Alliance for Women’s Health; and a Private Sector Constituency Chair of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health (PMNCH) hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Ms. Ersbøll was a Senior Advisor to the CEO of UN Global Compact, the world’s largest sustainable business initiative, where she led the initiative’s strategic mobilization and rollout of the Sustainable Development Goals to companies worldwide. Ms. Ersbøll developed and led UNGC's multi-year stakeholder engagement platform ‘Health is Everyone’s Business’ that focused on the role for business in the nexus between climate, nature and health.

For more than a decade, Ms. Ersbøll was the Corporate Vice President of Corporate Stakeholder Engagement with Novo Nordisk A/S, where she was globally responsibility for the company’s reputation, external relations, sustainability and access to health strategies. She built Novo Nordisk’s global Public Affairs capability and global PA organization of +150 professionals. She spearheaded Novo Nordisk’s prize winning global Changing Diabetes® leadership platform and signature programmes, including the Cities Changing Diabetes initiative in collaboration with University College London.

Charlotte Ersbøll was on the faculty of Cambridge University’s Sustainability Leadership Programme, was member of the Trust, Reputation and Compliance Policy Committee of the European Federation of the Pharmaceutical Industry (EFPIA), a council member of the Novo Nordisk Haemophilia Foundation and a member of the World Economic Forum Humanitarian System Global Future Council.

“There is a strong link between sustainability and patient engagement and access. Sustainability, after all, is about people living a good life, a healthy life, for themselves, but also for the future generations. And through patient engagement, we understand and know and can deliver on their needs, their desires and their dreams about how they can lead their life in a healthy way.”
 

Biography

Teresa Christina Fogelberg brings more than three decades of global experience in the field of sustainability and international relations. Her experience ranges from executive roles at the Netherlands Government, the OECD, the UN, the Global Reporting Initiative, as well as roles in the private sector and on the boards of international institutions, NGOs and public policy bodies.

As Co-founder and Executive of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the global standard for corporate sustainability reporting, Ms Fogelberg has been part of the movement to shape the responsible business conduct and sustainability since its inception. She masterminded the European Non-Financial Reporting Directive, the first principle-based EU non-financial reporting directive, which later evolved into the CSRD.

Today Ms. Fogelberg holds numerous international positions. She chairs the global Mercedes-Benz Sustainability and Integrity Board and serves on the board of the Impact Economy Foundation. She is the Independent Chair of the Board of ICIMOD, the Intergovernmental International Center of Integrated Mountain Development, headquartered in Kathmandu, Nepal. Ms. Fogelberg also functions as moderator of the Comenius Executive European Leadership Program, leading a group of executives in search for knowledge and wisdom during 18 months, at seven world-famous European universities (Bologna, Cambridge, Granada, Groningen, Heidelberg, Leuven and Prague).

Previously Ms. Fogelberg served at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs as director of the Department of Women and Social Development, and director of the Department of Research, Education and International Cultural Cooperation, as well as director of Climate Change and Private Sector Development at the Ministry of Environment, and as special advisor of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Partnerships with the private sector. She led delegations to international UN conferences and conventions on topics such as research for development, air pollution and human rights, and served as head of delegation and Presidency at several Climate COPs.

Ms. Fogelberg has a deep expertise in sustainability.  She worked for ten years in Africa on numerous boards. She served on the board of UN Women; as Chair of the OECD Expert Group on Women and as member of the OECD Impact Evaluation Board. She also served on the boards of World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the International Institute of Environment and Development (IIED), Cordaid – the largest charity of the Netherland, and on several boards of institutions of the CGIAR (the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (ICARDA, based in Syria) - CIAT and WARDA), as well as on the general CGIAR System-Wide Oversight Board.

In 2018 Fogelberg received a Royal Decoration in the Netherlands for her international contribution to sustainability and the empowerment of women.

“Where UCB can make the most difference, in my view, is how it takes all that accumulation of insight and knowledge, understanding of patients, understanding of the science, of disease, understanding of the interactions between society and treatment, and then constitute a major category of interventions that goes below medicine. This is where I think UCB can have the most transformative impact in the world.”

Biography

Bright Simons is the Founder and President of mPedigree, a social enterprise working on three continents with governments, Fortune 500 companies and activists to safeguard human health and food security using technology.

A career inventor and innovator, his current projects include vaccine quality detection using novel organo-sensors.

As a Harvard SICI Cheng Fellow, Mr. Simons led the Koldchain team on the thermocypher and related innovations, exploring the use of novel organo-sensors in the vaccine supply chain as well as the enabling digital health networks required to support biomedical security and intelligence. He led pioneering work at the Harvard Innovation Labs to invent and patent organo-sensors for biomedicals.

Bright Simons is a Skoll Awardee, World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, TED Fellow, Aspen Braddock Fellow, 2017 class of Tällberg Global Leaders, winner of the Eliasson Global Leadership Prize of the Tällberg Foundation, and the 2016 CNBC African Innovative Business Leader of the Year. He is also a Board-level Advisor, with recent appointments to the Microsoft Africa Advisory Council, the Lancet Commission on the Future of Health in Africa, the Center for Global Development’s Study Group on Technology, the World Economic Forum’s Africa Strategy Group, Care International, the inaugural Ashoka Globalizer initiative, the Africa Population Health Research Center, and IC Publications, owner of the New African magazine. He is also a member of the Africa Reference Group advising Cambridge University on climate, sustainability, innovation and entrepreneurship. In 2016, Fortune magazine named him on their 50 World Greatest Leaders list.