Elizabeth Bakewell: Steering a Career From Chemistry to Leadership

Almost seven years and seven roles since Sanofi's Graduate Programme, and still charting a new course.

Elizabeth Bakewell is a sailing enthusiast who, in 2019, set sail on a career at Sanofi that has since taken her through seven roles in almost as many years.

At the University of St Andrews, chemistry and dinghy racing occupied her in roughly equal measure. She won a Dean's List academic prize, spent a year on an honours dissertation into ternary hydride solid solutions, and still found time to compete for the university's first team at the national BUCS dinghy racing finals, serving three years on the sailing club committee along the way, first as treasurer, then as development officer. Lizzie, as she's known to colleagues and friends, was, by any measure, one to watch. Sanofi thought so too, and made her one of the first intakes into its UK Graduate Programme.

That combination, serious science and serious leadership, is precisely what the Graduate Programme looks for. Lizzie had not considered pharma before a family friend, 20 years into her own career in the industry, suggested she look at what Sanofi was building. "I wanted to be more in touch with the real world," she says of her thinking at the time, having been advised to continue in academia. Once she looked into it, the fit was obvious. "The intersection between business and science spoke to me. It had a connection to my degree, but a real commercial grounding too."

There was a personal thread as well. Her father has worked as an NHS paramedic for more than 20 years, and her mother works in business. Pharma looked like where the two worlds she had grown up around actually met.

Taking ownership immediately

Lizzie's first role was in the field, not at Sanofi's UK headquarters in Reading, where she is now based. She spent 18 months as an account executive in Dorset, her first taste of the commercial side. "Going into sales as your first role is a bit of a baptism of fire," she grins, "but it was the best thing that happened to me." The accountability was immediate. "You take ownership of that business, for that area, for that product."

She had previously worked part-time as an NHS administrator in Norfolk, handling patient correspondence, an experience she would draw on for years. "Having customer-facing experience is really grounding. You know who you're working for, ultimately."

From Dorset, she moved into a pricing and trade analyst role spanning two departments, much of it focused on managing stock and supply issues. "Therapies were at risk of not reaching patients, so you knew exactly what you were doing and why." The role forced her to learn prioritisation and stakeholder management under real pressure, skills she would rely on repeatedly over the following six years.

Seven roles – one thread

Lizzie describes the Graduate Programme as flexible rather than scripted. "It was never the assumption that you'd be spoon-fed. I wanted to be in the driving seat for what my career looked like." That meant seeking out managers and putting herself forward for roles. She went on to work in associate brand management, commercial customer liaison and patient experience, each adding to her commercial range.

The role that stretched her most was leading the pre-launch for a therapy she describes as a genuine shift in treatment. "There was a lot of groundwork over two years," Lizzie says. "Leading that pre-launch was one of the biggest challenges of my career, and the most satisfying, seeing it reach patients." Around the same time, she helped move Sanofi's relationship with the Department of Health's supply team from transactional to what she calls a "strategic partnership".

Lizzie is now based in Sanofi's Programme Management Office, or PMO, for the specialty care business, with country lead support for the UK, a role she took on in March 2026. It has pulled her into new territory: working alongside corporate affairs and engaging directly with government. "I discussed with my manager that I wanted to learn more about how we work with government," she says. "I've had the freedom to do that here, and in a lot of my other roles, depending on where my curiosity is."

Away from the day job, Lizzie has participated in Sanofi's fundraising cycle from London to Paris in support of Myeloma UK, a four-day, 450-kilometre bike ride alongside patients, their families and colleagues from across the business. Fittingly, Paris is also home to Sanofi's global headquarters.

A culture built on curiosity

That trip is one small window into what Lizzie says has kept her at Sanofi. The other is the sheer range of people she works alongside. "I'm surrounded by incredibly talented, intelligent people every day," she says, "and the cultural diversity is huge. You're learning from completely different perspectives on the world, which is a real plus for a business like this." It's part of why she's now looking outward herself: working in another affiliate, in a different market and a different culture, sits on her development plan, and she's open to wherever that might lead.

The instinct behind it all, she says, is curiosity, and the willingness to put your hand up rather than wait to be asked. Partway through her time at Sanofi, and encouraged by her manager, Lizzie completed a Henley MSc in Management for Future Leaders. She studied one day a week for two years, funded through Sanofi's apprenticeship levy scheme, then completed the conversion year in her own time.

What she'd tell the next cohort

Her advice to a graduate weighing up the relaunched programme is that "Sanofi is a fantastic place to work. You'll be fully supported through your development." The attributes she rates most: curiosity, a genuine appetite for solving problems, and staying open-minded about what a role might become. "You can't tell what a job is like until you do it," she says. "Don't let the job description fool you."

If she could tell her 2019 self one thing, it would not be about qualifications. "Never close a door on an opportunity that's someone else's job to do," she says. "If you see one and think you're halfway good enough, go for it."

Lizzie's hand isn't on a tiller anymore, but the instinct that once steered a dinghy at St Andrews is the same one that has carried her through seven roles at Sanofi: choose a direction, commit to it, and stay curious about where it leads next. The Graduate Programme is where that instinct first found a use. It's taken her a long way since.