Meet Wladimir | Roche

Tell us a bit about yourself

I was born in Ukraine and moved to Germany at the age of 16, where I finished school and received a Masters degree in business administration with majors in business informatics, marketing and human resources. After I graduated, I worked for Ernst & Young in Germany and Singapore for a few years. I then began a start-up company to foster a healthy wine consumption and worked for Novartis as Risk and Compliance project manager before joining Roche in 2016.

Why did you decide to join Roche?

Having seen a great number of companies in various industries during my consulting career, I decided to join a company that truly makes a difference to continue my professional journey. With Roche being amongst world leaders in R&D spend and being a company that takes sustainability of its business very seriously, my choice was quite easy. After I made that decision, I started to look for a suitable opportunity to join Roche.

What is your current role in Group Audit & Risk Advisory?

Currently, I am Senior Risk Manager within the Risk Advisory department. In this role my major tasks include the facilitation of the Group Risk Management process and improvement of the maturity of Risk & Opportunity management culture at Roche through training, assessments and consulting services. What I truly value in this position is the exposure to various parts of the Roche organisation from stakeholder and content perspectives. Running various projects simultaneously, I have a great degree of freedom in establishing new projects and initiatives that support objectives of our diverse function.

How would you describe Roche as an employer?

Roche is very supportive of its employees. The biggest plus is probably the numerous developmental opportunities within the company in various departments and countries. These help employees to gain experience in areas outside of their current scope and potentially prepare themselves for the next step in their professional journey.

How would you describe the people working in your team?
We are a very diverse team in terms of our background, experience and personalities. What unites us the most is the joy in experimenting and trying new approaches out as well as the willingness to help each other to reach common goals, while setting aside our personal agendas. When we receive any request from the business, our first thought is “how can we make this work”. Therefore, I would say people in my team are very helpful, always juggling several projects at the same time and looking for new opportunities to add value to our organisation.

How is your job connected to the Roche purpose of “Doing now what patients need next”?
Our function helps the entire Roche organisation to determine potential stumbling stones in the future that might hinder us to reach our strategic objectives and to establish agile processes to address these. With this purpose, Group Risk Advisory supports Roche to remain one of the most sustainable companies in the world and helps our patients with anything they might need in the future.

What can you tell about openings in your department? What would you advise job seekers who want to join us?
Being a very small team of 4 people (incl. our director) and having a low turnover, I would say that openings in our department are quite rare. Nevertheless, if anyone would like to seek a career in Group Risk Advisory, candidates with risk management-related experience in operational or strategic risk management would fit. Also, someone with great networks of risk management professionals either within or outside Roche, and who lives up to their entrepreneurial spirit would have better chances of getting an open position.