Hi, my name is Edward Liu. I was born and raised in Shanghai, China. I started my career as a consultant and worked at Deloitte for four years. In 2017, I moved to the US to pursue my MBA degree at Duke University. After graduation, I joined Roche on the Finance Perspectives programme—with the first three months onboarding at Roche Diagnostics headquarters in Rotkreuz followed by an 8-month rotation as a Business Controller at the Roche Finland pharma affiliate. I am now on my second rotation working for Roche Pharma Research & Early Development (pRED) Finance in Basel. I have a one-year old boy, Kyle, who was born 10 days before I received the offer from Roche. It is a bit challenging to take my family with me during the rotations, but I also see it as an exciting journey we will never forget.
In general, I try to do two things every day: learn from my talented colleagues and make as much impact as possible. During my current rotation I work closely with early development project teams on their clinical studies as a Finance Business Partner. I help the team make budget requests to our governance committee, track project spending and support decision-making from a finance perspective. I enjoy talking with scientists and researchers in the team and try to learn everything about the molecule, disease, mechanism of action, etc. I am also proud that what I am working on now might make a difference to someone else’s life at some point in the future.
The location I'm working at is Basel. My family and I love this beautiful city. We love walking alongside the river Rhine, or taking the kid to the Zoo Basel at the weekend. As a city of art and culture, Basel has many world-class museums and exhibitions which are great places for families and kids.
My work helps Roche to allocate resources in R&D investment to target unmet medical needs for patients. R&D is the core of our business and as a priority of our 2030 ambitions, Roche will continue to invest heavily in R&D. As a Finance Business Partner, I provide transparency, enable right investment decisions, and support molecules to go through different milestones on their long journey to market approval.
Roche as an employer is supportive and caring. Roche cares about its people. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic I appreciate the company’s always putting the health of its employees in the first place. During my previous rotation in Finland, when the virus started to spread in Europe back in March 2020, Roche Finland immediately built a task force and made rules and arrangements to make sure all employees were safe and healthy. It was also among the first companies in Finland to recommend people to work from home. In the Finance Perspectives programme I also felt the strong support and care from Roche. The company provided us with support for immigration, tax filing, relocation, housing, language courses, etc. to ensure smooth transition between rotations.
For the Finance Perspectives programme we’re looking for people who have great passion for healthcare and finance. Roche always puts patients at the centre and we are looking for people who are passionate to leverage their finance skill sets to make an impact for our patients. In addition, curiosity and humility are also key qualities that we value at Roche and in the Finance Perspectives programme.
