Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | October 17, 2022 | Worcester Business Journal 25 Odile Smith Vice president, campus lead, Devens Bristol Myers Squibb, in Devens Residence: Bolton Education: Bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Ecole Europeenne des Hautes Etudes des Industries Chimiques de Strasbourg, France, and a PhD in medicinal chemistry from the University Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, France What are the keys to success for women in the workplace? In our field, it is important to recognize women still represent the majority of the caregivers and decisionmakers for health choices for families. Their input is essential in our field! What is the biggest obstacle you had to overcome? I don't consider anything an obstacle. I love to learn, and one learns more from solving complex problems rather than easy ones. My biggest challenge remains making time to relieve pressure and recharge. Who inspires you? My mother. From growing up during World War II to raising five children to being the breadwinner after my father's illness. She always gave me the sense I could achieve anything I wanted. O U T S T A N D I N G W O M E N F O C U S I N B U S I N E S S Smith is leading a major biopharma expansion BY KEVIN KOCZWARA WBJ Staff Writer T he hardest part for Odile Smith when she joined as vice president and Devens campus lead for Bristol Myers Squibb, a biopharma firm with $50 billion in annual revenue, wasn't the work. "What was extremely difficult was the insertion on the private level," she said. It's life that's difficult, which is even harder when there's a COVID pandemic, housing prices are skyrocketing and, like Smith, you don't know much about Mas- sachusetts outside of Boston. It's packing up a life and trying to find a new one. It's the small stuff that takes time. Smith is responsible for not only the research at the 89-acre Bristol Myers Squibb campus, but also the safety of the more than 1,100 employees who work on the various research and manufac- turing projects, as well as its connection to Devens. is includes at its new 244,000-square-foot building set to open next year, which is a major step in the company's efforts to develop personal- ized cell therapy for cancer patients. Smith joined Bristol Myers Squibb a year and a half ago from French pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur, where she'd worked for more than 16 years, starting as an operations manager and working her way up to the head of biologics manufacturing. Smith was born in the Champagne re- gion of France. Her mother was a nurse and dad an engineer. e fourth of five kids, she devoured books and looked forward to the ones her mother would bring home when she got sick. "When we were sick, I remember I loved it because my mom would always buy a new book because you're stuck in bed or something, so we had something to do," Smith said. In high school, her aptitude put her on the path to become an engineer. "At my time in France, being an en- gineer was a very much promoted path for kids that are good in school, so I was kind of suggested to do that," Smith said. She saw the work her dad did building an oil platform and became interested in how this one natural resource from un- derground in the form of a dark sludge impacted so much of our everyday life. She decided to study chemical engi- neering. But, again, her career trajectory took a turn when she visited a pharma- ceutical company as a student. Smith graduated from Ecole Europ- eenne des Hautes Etudes des Industries Chimiques de Strasbourg, France and promptly went to graduate school at the Universite Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, getting her PhD in medical chemistry in 1992. But her first job out of college didn't have anything to do with the chemistry she studied. Instead, she was hired to join a team as a project engineer and was responsible for implementing a management system of enterprises. Smith started to learn not from books but from people. She studied people, systems, and the inner-workings of cor- porate structures. Quickly, she rose up the ranks of various companies across five countries. She's absorbed the infor- mation around her and now is in charge of leading Bristol Myers Squibb's expan- sion in Devens and its push forward in the future of medical research. While Smith has all the academic and professional tools on her resume, it's her people skills that most impressed Carolyn Kelley, human resources senior director for cell therapy operations at Bristol Myers Squibb, when the compa- ny brought Smith in for interviews about the site head position at Devens. "[She] is strong technically, zooming in and helping people solve problems" Kelley said. "She's also personable and can zoom out, and she demonstrates that she cares about her employees." She has to juggle multiple jobs and personalities, and that doesn't leave a lot of time to read books anymore. ere's no more setting and relaxing. Instead, she gets to absorb the stories of the people around her. "I have life books around me," Smith said. "I am surrounded by people. I never have one minute when I am alone during my day at work, and so, for me I think I have evolved a little bit of the learning through experiences. I've had so many jobs and worked in so many sites, so many countries, places, that au- tomatically I have been exposed to a lot of cases … ey are real life cases, and that's how I continue to learn." PHOTO | COURTESY OF BRISTOL MYERS SQUIBB W

• Cover