Meet Joyce Jiang | Roche

Tell us a little about yourself and your journey before joining the RFDP.

My name is Joyce Jiang. After I got my master’s degree from Drexel University, I worked as a tax consultant for Big 4 in Philadelphia and Shanghai, within the domain of US Tax and China Tax. Prior to that, the enriching experience of working as a purchaser and developer for Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH) was the reason that I decided to switch from my undergraduate major French Literature to the fascinating business world. While the principle of communicating the nature of the topic to the respective audience remained the same, it was definitely a huge change. Finding the appropriate career path for me and the value I could add to this world has always been a priority in my life.

What are the things you like the most about working with the RFDP?

The extraordinary journey of the Regional Finance Development Program (RFDP) transformed me from all angles and placed me in a bigger picture, as I coped with challenges on a daily basis and refreshed myself as I had never experienced before. I had gained a full understanding of my future possibilities through rotations to different APAC commercial sites of Diagnostics and Pharma, and I could still delve deep into the finance foundation through Roche Services & Solutions.

The beauty of RFDP lies in its rationale – learning, defining and fine-tuning. At that time, I was at the beginning of my second term as a Finance Enterprise Partner (FEP) in Pharma China, and I was in the same city but in different parts of Shanghai from Dia China, which had been my first step. Regarding my first rotation, the exciting term covered diverse forms of projects such as year-end budget planning with Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), business-model advisory with Tax, commercial knowledge checkpoint with Project Management Office (PMO), country-wise future construction strategy with Facility, and more. It laid out the complete finance layer as a roadmap to the dynamic healthcare industry. From my standpoint, RFDP had indeed been a missing piece to my puzzle.

Through all those hands-on tasks and communication with hundreds of Roche people, I found the greatest fulfilment in Roche’s culture. Deep within, I discovered the secrets of how Roche had become such a coherent problem-solver, which sparked many thoughts on how to further facilitate the finance process. As a whole, the spirit of self-motivation, openness to learning and willingness to connect, with all colleagues and leaders, had inherently kept pushing Roche’s talents to evolve under the principles of consistency, sustainability and efficiency, cultivating a virtuous cycle.

Why is your job important to you? What is the value you generate for Roche’s patients?
The major difference that was important to me was that at Roche, we have the ultimate mission of changing the patients’ journey, which drove us to think long-term, cultivate the self-learning habit, and adopt the End-2-End (E2E) mindset no matter which division we were in. The mindset change was phenomenal, as I was always motivated to explore what the real goal was that I was heading for, instead of just doing the tasks I was assigned.

Sticking to the digital transformation of Roche’s strategic priorities, the biggest contribution I made to our local team was establishing the Roche Diagnostics (Shanghai) Limited (RDSL) Finance gSite from scratch and launching it across the entire entity. With the agile E2E mindset internalized, I served as a so-called entrepreneur, connecting the dots across 20 functions (including all Business Advisories, Compliance, Communications, International Training, People & Culture, etc.), leveraging resource allocation, assisting BAs in solving their day-to-day operational problems, enhancing the finance impact, and delivering the utmost value in a nutshell, while acting as OneRoche.

After being exposed to different divisions of Finance within Roche, I became confident in generating broader and globalized insights to drive smart business decisions, not only from a finance perspective but also from a general business outlook.

What would you say to someone who is considering joining the programme?
Here are two key points I’d like to share with anyone who is interested in joining the programme:

Be bold and be prepared: It isn’t easy to join such a challenging programme because there is a ton of knowledge to absorb at an accelerated pace. Once you make the commitment, you are on the track of a triathlon. You have to be prepared at a physical and mental level to fully explore your potential along the journey.

Be positive and be assured: Don’t be scared away by my prior advice. The leaders and your colleagues are all here to support your progress, and you are provided with a broad platform and abundant resources to navigate. You are even assigned a Finance Manage-level mentor to shape your thoughts and structure your future planning. Therefore, all you need is to advance towards your ambition firmly.

Is there anything you would like to share in addition to the previous questions?
All the valuable learning opportunities, such as virtual coffee talks with APAC leaders, participation in the Future of Finance playground, engagement with global finance communities, and direct check-ins with our outstanding leaders, allowed me to connect with upper-level leaders within and outside of the region. These experiences enabled me to work consistently towards an enhanced circle of leadership.

I instilled a big-picture perspective that we had to be more adaptive to the complex external environment, pick up challenges, take smart risks, and work step by step towards the final goal of reshaping the patient’s journey, becoming the guardian of our financial performance and profitability.