Embrace Equity #1

Empowering Women Leaders at Sanofi: The Stories of Lakiea and Elizabeth

Published on: March 8, 2023

Lakiea and Elizabeth are two amazing women at Sanofi who are chasing the miracles of science to improve people’s lives. They’re helping to change the way we treat diseases such as asthma and childhood atopic dermatitis, and the way society sees women in leadership roles in science and industry.

Lakiea’s story

Growing up with poorly controlled asthma, Lakiea was a regular visitor to the Emergency Room. The care she received there inspired her to help others: she decided to become a doctor.

"Although I didn’t see any doctors who looked like me, I didn’t let that hold me back from achieving my dream.”

Now she proudly balances her job as a medical director supporting asthma care with being a parent. An important aspect of equity in the workplace is the flexibility she gets to balance work and family, so she doesn’t miss important moments in her daughter’s life. “I love serving as a role model for my daughter, who is showing early interest in science.” Lakiea has some advice for young women: “Dream big and work hard. The world will put limitations on you, but you don’t have to limit yourself.”

Taking steps to secure balanced leadership

Sanofi is the #1 healthcare company for gender equality, but our ambitions go further: we won’t stop until we achieve truly balanced leadership and build a vibrantly diverse, inclusive workplace.

That’s why we’re:

Mandating gender balance among candidates in the final round of interviews for senior leader roles
creating career development pathways to support women to progress towards executive roles
reaffirming our commitment to having 50% women in senior leader positions and 40% women in executive positions by 2025

Elizabeth’s story

Elizabeth didn’t always know she would work in healthcare. At school she naturally gravitated towards math, science, and computer science, but she discovered that she liked the patient-centric aspects that came with working for a company like Sanofi, and she never looked back.

“Life is too short to spend a lot of it doing a job that you don’t enjoy.”

We have the power to make positive change

At Sanofi, we know we have the power to make a positive change by discovering the extraordinary in medicine. And we can do it by discovering the extraordinary within each other. We proudly #EmbraceEquity so that each of us can release our potential. That’s how we’ll make the miracles people are waiting for.