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The challenge, the Chief People and Sustainability Officer shares, goes beyond hiring the right talent – instead focusing on reskilling teams to keep pace with digital transformation while maintaining operational excellence.
As Asia’s healthcare landscape becomes more complex and data-driven, the workforce challenge is no longer just about finding enough talent.
For Victoria Herrero (pictured above), Chief People and Sustainability Officer, Zuellig Pharma, the bigger priority lies in helping people keep pace with the speed of transformation — from advanced analytics and cold-chain biologics to cell and gene therapies, decentralised clinical trials, and increasingly strategic healthcare supply chains.
“The challenge here is not just about hiring people – it’s about reskilling teams and giving them the resources and opportunities to become adept at managing digital transformation and increasingly complex systems, while still maintaining day-to-day operational excellence,” she shares.
Leading both people and sustainability at Zuellig Pharma, Herrero brings an integrated lens to long-term business strategy. To her, the two priorities are deeply interconnected to ensure people strategies and sustainability ambitions move forward together, whilst remaining responsible and resilient.
This perspective is shaped by Herrero’s extensive international experience across the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, China, and Singapore. A seasoned HR leader and internationally certified Executive Coach, she previously held senior roles across industries, building her portfolio in managing complex organisations and large-scale restructuring projects.
In this edition of Industry Insider, Herrero shares with Sarah Gideon why healthcare’s workforce challenge has moved beyond talent shortages, why leadership starts with understanding human nature, and how purpose-driven environments can empower people to deliver meaningful impact.
Q You currently lead both people and sustainability initiatives at Zuellig Pharma — how do these two priorities intersect in shaping long-term business strategy?
I see people and sustainability as deeply interconnected, as both are critical to building a resilient, future-ready business. I lead efforts to align people strategies with sustainability goals, ensuring that sustainability is not just part of our strategy, but embedded in how our teams operate day to day.
On one hand, this means positioning sustainability as a core business priority to manage risk and ensure operational continuity in Asia’s complex healthcare landscape. On the other hand, it involves building an inclusive, high-performing culture where employees feel empowered to thrive and contribute meaningfully.
Q As an advisor to the Board, what are the most pressing workforce challenges you’re seeing across the industry today?
Zuellig Pharma is uniquely positioned as Asia’s leading healthcare solutions company. Our strengths cut across distribution, commercialisation, clinical trial services and the entire healthcare supply chain, and workforce challenges in these areas go beyond the traditional talent shortages.
"The healthcare industry is evolving rapidly, and hurdles we face now concern capability transformation at speed, especially in a complex and fragmented ecosystem in Asia."
One critical challenge that has emerged is the growing mismatch between skills and system complexity. Healthcare supply chains have evolved to become highly strategic, data-driven networks. We are now dealing with advanced analytics, cold-chain biologics, cell and gene therapies, and decentralised clinical trials managed remotely across Asia. However, the workforce, especially in emerging markets, hasn’t quite scaled at the same pace.
So the challenge here is not just about hiring people – it’s about reskilling teams and giving them the resources and opportunities to become adept at managing digital transformation and increasingly complex systems, while still maintaining day-to-day operational excellence.
The healthcare industry is one that is extremely regulated – which means there is intense competition for specialised talent in areas such as clinical operations, pharmacovigilance, and more. This forces us to rethink not just compensation, but purpose, career pathways and mobility across markets as key talent attractors. In the end, we strive to create an environment where every employee feels that they have a clear pathway for career growth, upskilling and personal development.
From a sustainability lens, there is a growing expectation that organisations contribute to health system strengthening and equitable access, particularly in Asia Pacific and emerging markets. That means building local capabilities and developing talent pipelines in underserved markets, ensuring ethical labor practices across the value chain, and embedding sustainability into how people are trained, deployed, and rewarded.
Q You come with experience working across markets such as Europe and Asia. How have these cultural differences shape your approach to leadership and workforce transformation?
Working across different markets has reinforced that while cultures, expectations, and workforce dynamics may vary, the core principles of leadership remain consistent.
Early in my career as a young consultant in London, I received a piece of advice that I did not fully appreciate until years later: achieving results is only half the battle. To create lasting impact, you must also win the hearts and minds of the people you are leading. Without their buy-in, even the most successful project is ultimately hollow.
It took time to integrate this into my leadership style, but it remains a core pillar of how I work today. In the high-pressure pursuit of process and results, it is easy to forget how our behaviour ripples through a team. I have learned that treating everyone with fundamental respect is not just a moral choice, it's a strategic one. If you do not take people with you on the journey, the destination does not matter.
Q Having worked in companies such as Coty, McKesson, Chery Automobile, and more, what common leadership principles have proven effective regardless of industry?
If there is one thing my career has taught me, it’s that leadership is less about industry-specific tactics and more about understanding human nature. I have found that three principles — respect, transparency and purpose, are universally effective because they address what people crave most.
Respect is the foundation of any healthy relationship. Transparency is the clarity people need to feel secure in how changes impact them. Lastly, purpose is the spark that gives work meaning beyond a pay check. When we manage all three, we don't just get "employees" — we get a motivated and happy workforce.
These pillars have been my constant guide in every role I have held, serving as the framework for how I lead people and build organisations. I did not develop these values in a vacuum. Throughout my journey, I have had the privilege of observing successful leaders in the field and I noticed a consistent pattern in how they operate. They were not just great strategists they showed me that when you lead with respect and clarity, you do not have to choose between a high-performing team and a happy one.
Q You’ve led large-scale restructuring and transformation projects — what separates organisations that successfully navigate change from those that may be struggling?
Beyond poor communication and rushed timelines, there is a more fundamental barrier to change – leaders who fail to walk the talk. Transformation is not something a leader can simply "delegate" or "mandate." It must be modelled from the top. When leadership demands transparency, agility or respect, but fails to demonstrate those qualities in their own daily behaviour, it creates a credibility gap that is immediately reflected throughout the organisation.
This inconsistency breeds cynicism and becomes a massive barrier to progress. Authenticity must start at the top. If leaders are not living the new values, the rest of the organisation will see the transformation as just another performative exercise, lacking the substance required for a meaningful evolution which derails any transformation.
Q What challenges have you faced leading such projects, and what worked in solving them?
In large-scale restructuring, we often talk about "headcount" and "synergies," but my decade leading in China taught me a much more grounded lesson that transformation impacts lives. In that environment, restructuring wasn't just a change in a reporting line for many of the foreign employees, it meant the urgent pressure of finding a new role within a few months or being forced to leave the country. These shifts have a massive ripple effect on families and personal stability. When you realise that your strategic decisions are impacting someone’s ability to remain in their home, the "process" takes a backseat to human responsibility.
The first challenge is managing the exit or transition period. Many organisations want a move on quickly approach, but I have always insisted on giving people the time they needed. We ensured that employees had the space and time to manage their next steps with dignity. Respect isn't just about how you treat those who stay; it’s about how you support those who are leaving. They will become your biggest advocates if treated well.
The second challenge is the question: "Why me?" Often, restructuring has little to do with an individual's capability and everything to do with a shift in organisational direction. This creates a crisis of confidence for the employee. Many leaders hide behind HR or formal letters during a restructure.
"I made it a point to sit down with each impacted employee face-to-face. My goal was to show them that while their role would not exist, their value as a professional remained intact."
As an organisation, we focus on active support — demonstrating exactly how the company would assist them in moving forward.
Q Reflecting on your career journey so far, what experiences have most shaped your leadership philosophy?
If you look at my career, the most impactful experience has not been a single project, but the experience of being an expatriate for nearly my entire professional life. Working globally and living and working in Germany, the Netherlands, China and now Singapore has taught me that great leadership is universal – it can hold across cultures and industries, but its application is nuanced.
When you are a foreigner in a new market, you quickly learn that the most important information is often left unsaid. This has made me a deep listener. I have learned to listen for the omissions and to look for the human drivers beneath the professional facade. To build a high-performing team, a leader must understand the person, not just the role. That human connection is the 'secret sauce' of successful leadership.
Q What’s next for the future of work in your industry — and what can HR leaders do to step into more strategic, board-level roles?
As the healthcare landscape continues to evolve, the future of work will be shaped by growing system complexity, workforce shortages, rapid scientific and digital advancement and more data-driven decision-making. Therefore, it is equally important that we adapt the way we support our workforce by creating environments where people feel empowered and connected to a clear purpose to deliver meaningful impact.
I am seeing a shift from supporting to shaping organisational performance through people. When HR leaders can link talent, culture, capability and risk to business results, the more strategic and board ready they will become. When we talk to the Board, we are not just discussing employee engagement scores; we are discussing how culture mitigates operational risk, how building specific and sustainable capabilities today secures our market share tomorrow and how our talent pipeline is the primary engine for our financial performance.
The better we can draw these direct lines, the more we move HR to very centre of corporate strategy.
Lead image / Provided
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