S2E02 – ‘Striving for better’
with Sarena Lin, Former Chief Transformation and Talent Officer, Bayer
S2E02: Sarena Lin, Former Chief Transformation and Talent Officer at Bayer and Board Member at Siemens Healthineers is our guest‼️🥳
Sarena’s journey is a testament to her resilience. She moved to the US at 13, from Taiwan. She didn’t speak a word of English, yet she blossomed in her new environment with support from amazing teachers. Her storied career weaves through –
✅ 2 Ivy League institutions ‼️
✅ 5 Renowned Companies ‼️
✅ 5 Industries ‼️
✅ 7 Cities ‼️
✅ 3 Continents ‼️
✅ Multiple functions – consulting, transformation, P&L leadership…and HR‼️
Phew‼️😰
This is an episode you don’t want to miss.
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About Sarena Lin:
Sarena Lin is a global C-level executive with strong track record in driving transformational growth across global markets, leading successful global commercial, organizational, and people transformation programs in the life sciences and industrial sectors.
Sarena served as one of the six-member Board of Management of Bayer AG in Germany from 2021 to 2023 as the Chief Transformation and Talent Officer, where she led the development of a large-scale, people-centric global transformation program. She also restructured and redesigned the HR organization to be talent and leadership centric, technology enabled, and future ready.
Prior to Bayer, Sarena was with Elanco Animal Health (NYSE: ELAN) as President of Elanco’s $1.5B US business, as well as overseeing Corporate Strategy and Global Marketing. Sarena also led the strategy development as well as the subsequent transformation and integration with Bayer Animal Health, a $7.6B acquisition.
Prior to Elanco, Sarena was Corporate Vice President of Strategy and Business Development with Cargill. She then became President of Cargill’s $6B global compound animal feed and nutrition (Cargill Feed & Nutrition) business, where she led more than 11,000 employees, 250 manufacturing plants, across nearly 30 countries.
Prior to Cargill, Sarena was a partner with McKinsey & Company in New York and Taipei, leading strategy and operations projects with global companies in industrial, technology, consumer, and retail sectors. She served as the Managing Partner of McKinsey’s Taipei office, leading a group of 90+ consulting and support staff. She was also the co-leader of McKinsey’s China Sourcing Center.
Earlier in her career, she worked in sales and shelf technology management at Procter & Gamble in San Francisco. She is a non-executive director on the Supervisory Board of Siemens Healthineers (DAX: SHL) and serves on the compensation and third-party transaction committees. Previously Sarena served on the Board of Patterson Companies, Inc., (NASDAQ: PDCO) and was a member of the audit and compensation committees. At Patterson, she oversaw a CEO transition, the $1.1B acquisition of Animal Health International, and the $750m divestiture of Patterson Medical. Externally, she is recognized as a critical thought leader on topics of leadership, transformation, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, and future of talent.
Sarena holds an M.B.A. in Strategy from the Yale School of Management, an M.A. in International Relations from Yale University, and a B.A. in Computer Science from Harvard University. Sarena grew up in Taiwan and the US, is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and English, and has basic knowledge of German. She and her husband have one teenage daughter and they currently reside in Germany.
About Just Human:
Just Human (a boutique people consulting firm) is a growth accelerator for our clients. With over 5 decades of global HR experience, we partner with clients to maximize business results through human centered, ecosystem based people solutions. Visit us at https://justhuman.io/
OR Schedule a 30 minute FREE call at https://justhuman.io/about/contact/