Diversity, Equality, and Female Leadership: A Conversation with Tanya Zharov

Þorsteinn Friðrik Halldórsson. “Tanya Zharov er aðstoðarforstjóri Íslenskrar erfðagreiningar.” Frettabladid.

BIO: With over 20 years of international experience as an executive and a corporate lawyer in biotechnology, healthcare and financial services, Tanya Zharov brings with her a strong track record in business and innovation-driven, global life science to Alvotech. She guides Icelandic operations and global administration, with her responsibility extending across HR, business operations, services and facilities. She also works in partnership with the CEO, Mark Levick, and members of the corporate leadership team to instill a strong sense of culture across all global locations.

Prior to joining Alvotech, she was the deputy CEO and Compliance Officer at deCODE genetics, a renowned Icelandic world leader in human genetics that was acquired by Amgen in 2012. A lawyer by training, she also acted as Corporate Counsel, leading the securities regulation and compliance team behind deCODE’s US IPO, the first of its kind for an Icelandic company.

In-between her stints at deCODE, Tanya was a Founding Partner and Deputy CEO of Audur Capital, an Icelandic securities firm, where her responsibilities spanned legal affairs, wealth management, corporate finance, private equity and capital markets. She is a specialist in US and global public markets law, regulation and best practices. Early in her career, Tanya served as a Tax Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers and she holds a Cand. Juris law degree from the University of Iceland. Tanya is a European Patent Attorney.

BT (Lina Singh): To begin, it’d be great to hear about your career path and current work. Could you tell us a little bit about your work with Alvotech?

TZ (Tanya Zharov): I joined 2 years ago in 2020. At that time we were almost 450 and now we have 800. So that's how fast we're growing. I was hired as the Deputy CEO of the company, during this really interesting time when the company's kind of doing everything at the same time —we were building, recruiting, and financing the company, so it was this transformational type of phase that I was hired into — to create processes and make it much more global. Initially, it was an Icelandic company, and it still is an Icelandic company with the main operations in Iceland. But larger parts of our team are across the globe, mostly in Europe, with  some relatively small groups in the U.S —around 25 people. I'm a lawyer by training, so I tend to always end up doing a lot of policy work and at the same time I’m responsible for the global culture, HR, and transformation making — creating a company that can expand its shareholder base. 

BT (Lina Singh): What were some of your original career goals either as a child or out of college? How did you move from working in finance, with tax and securities markets, to working with biological and pharma companies? What motivated this pivot? 

TZ (Tanya Zharov): When I was a child, I had these wild dreams to become a famous musician, or an ice skater. But then when I went to high school and junior college, I did a lot of math and chemistry. My major was physics. I had this vision of myself being like a construction engineer for some reason. And when I graduated, I then completely by accident entered law school because I kind of lost my math love. So, I graduated from junior college and went to law school. During my studies, I also spoke a lot of Russian because my parents are Russian. So I did a lot of consultancy work and translational work during my college years. I was engaged to go on a trip to Russia with two auditors from Iceland — they were doing DD (Due Diligence) so I went with them. And after that trip, they offered me a job as a recent graduate. So that's how I went into work for what’s now PriceWaterhouseCoopers and that's how I actually discovered my first love of legal studies. It wasn't really my interest back then, but when I graduated and got this job, I really fell in love with tax law, which everyone finds really funny. Then my expertise became almost like corporate law and international tax law which then later gravitated into securities law. I thought I was going to spend the rest of my career at PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Why I went into biotech was again, a bit of a coincidence. In 1998, there was this crazy Icelandic scientist founder who had been a professor in the US at Harvard. He wanted to move back to Iceland and set up a company called deCODE genetics. I'd met him a couple of times. I was the tax consultant for the company, and he called me up and said, “Hey, Tanya, we're doing an IPO in the US and there's a lot of paperwork, you look like somebody who can do paperwork, do you want to join us?” So that's what I did. I joined decode in 99 and then we took the company public in the US markets. I spent eight or nine years with the company and then I went into the financial services business with a company I founded with my girlfriends in 2007 just before the Icelandic banking crisis. Then, I went back to deCODE, which by that time had been acquired by Amgen. And, finally, two years ago, I came to Alvotech. That's kind of the short version of how my career path has not been straight. I've been kind of jumping between businesses. 

BT (Lina Singh): One thing that stood out to me was your work with global markets. What are your thoughts on Alvotech and Iceland’s general position within the pharmaceutical industry and on the future of globalization in your line of work?

TZ (Tanya Zharov): I think that the world is just so intertwined, and COVID certainly told us that. When our founders founded Alvotech in Iceland in 2013, people were like, why? I mean, but at the end of the day, right now, people are kind of buying into the vision that Iceland is in the middle of Europe and the U.S. between really large markets and on many levels, it's not a bad place to have a biosimilars company. At the same time, when COVID hit here, I actually switched. I came to Alvotech in May 2020. When I came to the office, nobody was there. Everyone was working from home, including home being in another country. I think we’ve learned during this failure phase to be agile, or adaptable. In a way, I think COVID was pushing a lot of things faster than we thought. Of course, we had Zoom before, but just kind of learning to use it every single day and learning to work with people without ever seeing them. I tend to try to be positive about things so now that, knock on wood, it's over, I think we’re all going to look back and say, okay, maybe this was a good exercise for all of us. 

BT (Lina Singh): I couldn’t agree more. I’m also interested to hear about your work with HR and corporate culture, as those are becoming increasingly important company aspects in the current labor market. What are some examples of company policies and goals that you prioritize under your leadership? 

TZ (Tanya Zharov): Equal pay is one example. A few years back, Iceland implemented legislation making it the law that all Icelandic companies have to have an equal pay certificate.We implemented this, and since we're global, we have decided not only to do it as a checkbox — because it's the law in Iceland— but we have decided to use it across the globe. We think of it as something we’re really proud of. It’s something special about Iceland, and we've actually felt that it helps us retain talent, especially for young women. The whole management team has embraced it not as a checkbox exercise, but something that we are making our own and want to move forward both internally and externally. Another example is that when you grow this fast, one of the challenges is, how do you make sure that this team of 800 people is working properly across the globe?  Last September, we rolled out what we call, “Better access, better lives” and it's a cultural project internally. We have been training every single employee and groups of about 20 people,  purposely mixing them from different functions and different lengths of experience. These are sessions where you get to get on the same page and talk about how you can influence the company yourself. We try to sell the fact that we're all equally important. You know, you can be the CEO, you can be the head scientist, you can be the person who sits in the reception. We are building bridges across the different groups, teams, ages, sexes, and people from different cultures. We have 53 nationalities only in Iceland and globally we have 60 nationalities. So everyone who joins here is very international, agile, integrated, and helpful. 

BT (Lina Singh): I think that’s super important in corporate culture nowadays, and it's very admirable to hear these missions and goals for your company. To close out the interview, I’d love to hear your thoughts and advice on a few life and leadership questions that many of our student and professional readers may have. The first one is, what are some of the important characteristics to have in your line of work and how do you think you develop these characteristics?

TZ (Tanya Zharov): I love my job, and I like to work. I’ve always been hardworking, so that’s kind of a given. I think also, pick something that you like to do — in my case, it was the weirdness of liking tax law. Find what triggers your own personal interest and don't listen to anyone else. It just has to be whatever it is that works for you. And what I personally find that works for me is electrical, it's like a mix of focus. I can be really, really focused. And at the end of the day, you also have to be able to let it go — done is better than perfect. In life or in business, do things as well as you can but at the same time, get them done. I think it's especially important for women who have this perfectionist streak. Another piece of life advice is this: try to work with a colleague who's the opposite of you. So a perfectionist should work with a non perfectionist. I'm a lawyer, and I’ve worked a lot with economists or business people. Then, it's almost like two plus two becomes five, right? Teaming up with your opposite is, in many ways, how great ideas are born. If you only work with lawyers, as a lawyer, you only work with finance people as a finance person, you just stay in the same track. This is almost like my life hack. Because that person will challenge you and give different thoughts to what you had thought of. But also personally, I think that's a great thing. 

BT (Lina Singh): Those are all great pieces of advice, so thank you for that. Could you speak to the role of mentoring both in terms of mentoring others and also finding a great mentor for yourself?

TZ (Tanya Zharov): Well, I think that mentoring is very important, and I think I only started thinking about it in the last 10 years. I think that I was lucky that I had a really great mentor when I started up my career as a tax lawyer. There was a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers who trained me, he was the best mentor. I don't think anyone really mentored me that much except for this guy, but then later I have mentored myself. I have participated in formal programs as a mentor. And I've found it to be a wonderful experience for me. If I learned anything the hard way, why shouldn't I share it so that the next person can learn it the easy way? 

BT (Lina Singh): As an active thinker and critical consumer of the world, what do you read? What do you watch? Whom do you follow and where do you get your inspiration from nowadays?

TZ (Tanya Zharov): I read a lot, but I actually don’t like reading leadership or business books. I’ve gravitated towards biographies and novels. To name a few, my favorite that I’ve read was the biography of Marie Curie, the French scientist who won the Nobel Prize twice. That book blew me away, her life is just so interesting. Another book I really liked was “Madam Secretary” about Madeleine Albright who recently passed away. The third book is Katharine Graham’s autobiography, “Personal History”. All three of these men have done amazing things against all odds. Whom do I follow? My most popular social media platform is LinkedIn. I follow Melissa Gates. On Instagram, I follow Billie Eilish because I recently took my daughter to New York for her concert. I read the New York Times and Washington Post — As they say, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Well, there is no such thing as free media. So I pay for subscriptions because I want to be able to read something that I know people actually get a good salary for and that they’re written by professional people. 

BT (Lina Singh): I think there’s a lot to learn from the female leaders you mentioned, especially for young aspiring women who want to go into business, policy, or really any field. To wrap up, what final advice do you have for any leaders who are trying to help a company navigate current times?

TZ (Tanya Zharov): I think agility is my favorite word these days. In many ways, we're very fortunate to be living these days because, despite what everybody's saying about how terrible the world is, it is so much better than it used to be. I’d also say, keep your ear to the ground. In a company, I think it’s really important to listen to the people. To hear, to listen, and to act. To allow for the best idea to win, no matter where it comes from. For people in school, remember it’s not necessarily your degree, or the school — find something you love, do it as best as you can, and try to meet as many interesting people as you can. And, move around. The world has never been as open as it is now for that. And I think these days, so many young people have almost an Excel sheet of goals set out. That’s excellent, but when you walk in with an Excel sheet in your mind, you might miss an opportunity on your left or on your right. Don’t miss them because you rely on the sheet too much. Another thing is that if you don’t ask for things, people won’t necessarily offer you things. Sometimes they will, sometimes they won’t. So whatever you’re thinking, just ask for that. The worst case is that you will get a no. Maybe next year or six months later, you’ll get a yes. Try to change it, or ask in a different way.