Meet the Team: Interview with Brandon Pence – President and Chief Operating Officer

To ensure we’re prepared to emerge from these turbulent times and into a more typical market dynamic, I find myself always on the move – working with Operations and Supply Chain, Quality, Sales and Marketing, R&D, and of course our Finance and HR teams to ensure we are investing quickly enough to satisfy the demand for our products and services. For me, the best moments each day come from working directly with such a diverse mix of FUJIFILM Biosciences colleagues across our global sites, to solve problems and drive the Company forward. The icing on the cake for me is when that work intersects with direct engagement with our customers. I love understanding what they’re working on, the patients they’ll impact, and how we play a role in that.

Tell us more about your professional and academic career, and how that led you to where you are now?

I grew up with animals; my first "nanny" was an old American Quarter Horse that I’d ride around as a toddler while my parents were building our home in Idaho. Animals were a constant part of my life and for as long as I can remember I wanted to be a veterinarian. That was until I was a few years into my Pre-Veterinarian curriculum at Utah State University and realized I did NOT want to live the veterinarian lifestyle. Despite this, my passion for science never waivered, and I found myself drawn to cell biology and how cells could be used to advance our understanding of animals and humans in ways that could have major and meaningful impact on their lives.

After completing my undergraduate degree I began work at HyClone Laboratories, developing cell culture media that would be used by scientists to develop novel biotherapeutics and vaccines. I loved my time in the lab, but after 4 or 5 years in R&D I was hungry for a new challenge. Coincidentally, at that time the business was looking for a new product manager to oversee a small, but high growth product line – it was my first taste of the intersection between business and biology, and the direct and frequent exposure to customers around the world resonated with me. For the last 20+ years, and prior to joining FUJIFILM, I’ve held a variety of business roles, including with Thermo Fisher Scientific (the acquirer of HyClone Laboratories), GE Healthcare (the division now known at Danaher as Cytiva) and Avantor Sciences. These roles spanned leading marketing and product management; business development; strategy and market development; as well as business general management. When I look back on my experiences at these various companies, each has had an important role in shaping who I am and preparing me to take on my newest challenge, as the President and COO at FUJIFILM Biosciences.

Tell us more about the significance of the new FUJIFILM Biosciences brand – what does this mean for the Company and its direction?

I think the move to the new FUJIFILM Biosciences brand comes from more than just the expansion of our portfolio—it shows the future aspirations that FUJIFILM has for us, and the continued belief and support in our long-term success. Our legacy as Irvine Scientific is strong and impactful, and I’m thankful to join a business with the reputation and track record that it does. This business has certainly expanded its portfolio through acquisitions and collaboration across the FUJIFILM network and beyond, and the Biosciences brand reflects just that.

We connect with customers doing drug discovery, process development and commercial manufacturing spanning a diverse range of therapeutic modalities. Our reach today, from media and supplements, to cells, growth factors, specialty chemicals and reagents, and critical bioassays, underscores the important ways we impact crucial steps in our customers’ work. In addition to this, FUJIFILM sees the opportunity to build on our high-quality reputation by adding new pieces to our portfolio, thus enabling us to expand our capabilities and enable our customers to accelerate the work they do. I’m excited to see how the Company continues to evolve as FUJIFILM Biosciences, and I believe over the coming years you’ll see us expand both in terms of geographic reach and product capabilities.

How will customers be able to benefit from FUJIFILM Biosciences?

Innovation, quality and a drive to serve our customers is at the core of FUJIFILM Biosciences. We thrive in areas where our customers are looking to solve complex challenges, and our commitment to quality compels us to understand how those solutions impact what our customers do. It’s sometimes easy to make decisions in an isolated environment without this consideration, but that complacency doesn’t exist at FUJIFILM. This gives our customers confidence in knowing that what we provide them will not only meet their needs, but be delivered in a sustainable way, and backed by the many amazing minds at FUJIFILM Biosciences. As our portfolio expands, and our reach and ability to support our customers grows, the same oversight and commitment to our core values will always apply. I’m excited by the interest and investment that FUJIFILM has shown in life sciences, and believe that as we work with our colleagues in other parts of the company, we will unlock future opportunities and solutions that will advance the development and delivery of new, life-changing therapeutics around the world.

Describe your leadership style and explain what "people first" means to you and your team?

I’m very hands-on in my leadership style. I have a desire to know what each colleague is working on, and more importantly, what challenges they are dealing with. Nothing gives me more satisfaction as a leader than when I can help a colleague find their success. I’m a big believer that if the team is happy, if each employee is engaged in meaningful work, then the outcomes will be positive. I’ve always felt that people genuinely want to do a good job, they sometimes just need some help or direction to achieve this, which is where a good leader comes in.

I’ve worked in this industry for many years now, and I frequently tap into my deep understanding of the markets we operate in, the customer needs we are facing and crafting strategies for success. I love the challenge of figuring out how to win in a highly competitive landscape, and being able to simply and succinctly identify what our core priorities and values are. When the entire team understands how we define success and knows the roadmap to achieve it, great things can happen.

The flip side to this is the more analytical, process-oriented style to my leadership. Once the path has been charted and success defined, I work with my leaders to ensure we have the right milestones and metrics in place so that at the end of any period of time—the fiscal year, the project timeline, whatever—there are no surprises where we finish. As a leader, I dive into what’s not working or is off-track, and work with the team to remedy the problems and get things moving in the right direction again.

FUJIFILM Biosciences offers solutions for a broad range of life science application areas. Which ones excite you most, and why?

This is an almost impossible question. Every day I’m amazed by the innovation coming out of both our customers’ labs and the FUJIFILM R&D centers. I’ve been connected to the biologics market from the very beginning of my career, and it’s awe-inspiring to look back on the early days of monoclonal antibody development, the ups and downs of gene therapies, the promise of new technologies combining with established approaches, and the way the industry can rally together to address unprecedented events like the COVID-19 pandemic. I guess what excites me most is the unknown. Twenty-five years ago, it would have been hard to predict all that’s been accomplished, and what energizes me each day is helping in some small way to shape the next twenty-five years.

Since joining the Company, what has been your proudest achievement?

It’s still early days for my role with FUJIFILM Biosciences, but I’m pleased to have thrown myself straight in to the Company, and having the chance to visit and familiarize myself with our production sites in Japan (Toda), the Netherlands (Tilburg) and the U.S. (Irvine, CA; Warminster, PA); as well as at the FUJIFILM Biosciences and Engineering Laboratory (BSEL) in Kaisei, Japan. In addition to this, I’ve been able to work with the team to successfully close 2024 and launch 2025. If anything, I’m appreciative of the leaders across FUJIFILM Biosciences accepting a new style of leadership and operating rhythm. I’m a strong believer in empowering our colleagues for success, decentralizing decision-making and simplifying our priorities and business focus, and the team has embraced the cultural and operating changes I’m seeking to implement as we look to the future.

 

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