Saskia Fontein

Prior to consulting, Saskia worked at Pfizer, ViiV Healthcare and GSK. At GSK, she was most recently VP & General Manager for Denmark, where she launched two new medicines, managed a generic competitor entry and executed an organisational restructure. Prior to this, she was Vaccines Commercialisation Lead for Pneumococcal Vaccines, based in Belgium. In this role, she drove 20% growth for a mature vaccine and improved profitability through changes to the supply chain processes to reduce product write-offs. She also conducted successful negotiations with supranational organisations, such as the Global Vaccines Alliance (Gavi) and tech transfers with local manufacturers to unlock new markets.

At ViiV Healthcare, Saskia was a member of the founding Executive Team as VP, Head of Commercial Strategy. In this role she led the turnaround of declining mature brands, developed the portfolio strategy and led innovative launch strategies for flagship products, working with key partners to achieve first year sales 200% ahead of plan in all key markets. She also led a patient centred approach resulting in ViiV Healthcare being voted #1 five years running on “Corporate reputation from a patient perspective” by Patient View, and initiated a culture change across the organisation to a “challenger” culture resulting in faster decision making and higher employee engagement.

At Pfizer headquarters in New York, Saskia worked in various positions of increasing responsibility in New Product Development, Worldwide Commercial development and US Marketing, across multiple disease areas.

Saskia holds a BSc (Hons) in Human Sciences from Loughborough University.