EY CFO Outlook: Navigating Pharma Finance with Rob Morrissey, CFO, AstraZeneca Ireland Commercial

In this episode of the EY CFO Outlook podcast, Rob Morrissey, CFO of AstraZeneca Ireland Commercial operations joins host Dearbhail McDonald to talk about his unconventional career journey, AstraZeneca’s growth plans, the role of AI in finance, and why empathy and compassion matter so much to him as a leader. 

Rob Morrissey’s path into finance was something of an accident. Having spent childhood summers helping on a farm in Wexford, and not being a natural ‘numbers person’, Rob was initially attracted to studying agricultural science at third level. However, without a farm to go to, he chose business studies. When the college Registrar accidentally placed Rob into the accounting module, he reluctantly decided to stick with it, and the rest is history. 

After qualifying as a chartered accountant, Rob entered the jobs market during the economic recession of the late 2000s and was unable to find work for a significant period of time, an experience that he found both humbling and made him more resilient. However, when he successfully applied for a maternity cover contract in AstraZeneca, Rob’s search was over and his journey to CFO began. 

Today, Rob leads financial strategy, governance, and long-term planning for the AstraZeneca Ireland Commercial operations which is a subsidiary of one of the world’s top science-led biopharma companies, with over 95,000 employees across 80 countries, selling products into 125 markets. 

They also discuss:

• How the CFO role has evolved into more of a strategic business partner. He talks about safeguarding the company’s assets but also driving the company’s performance and innovation.
• AI and Digital Transformation - embracing AI tools while upskilling to stay ahead in a changing finance landscape.
• Sustainability and Community Impact - AstraZeneca’s switch to electric vehicles and community initiatives including clean coasts, tree planting, and community gardens.
• Work-Life Balance and Leadership Philosophy - how becoming a parent helped Rob find better balance and explains why empathy and compassion matter in leadership.

Transcript

EY CFO Outlook: Navigating Pharma Finance with Rob Morrissey, CFO, AstraZeneca Ireland Commercial 

George Deegan, Partner, Assurance and CFO Agenda Programme Sponsor, EY

Welcome to the EY CFO Outlook Podcast. In this series, we feature some of Ireland's leading CFOs, sharing interesting perspectives on a range of topics, from driving growth in their business to leading major finance transformation. I'm George Deegan, a partner and sponsor of EY’s CFO Agenda Programme. In this episode, we welcome Rob Morrissey of AstraZeneca, a global, science-led, patient-focused pharmaceutical company. Rob talks about his unconventional career journey, AstraZeneca's growth plans, the role of AI in finance, and why empathy and compassion matter so much to him as a leader. Dearbhail, over to you.

Dearbhail McDonald
 Thank you George and I am delighted for my first inaugural guest for the CFO podcast to be joined by Rob Morrissey, CFO of AstraZeneca. Rob, you're very very welcome.

Rob Morrissey
 Thank you Dearbhail and thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Dearbhail McDonald
 It's a Rob, not a Robbie.

Rob Morrissey
 It's a Rob. My mother calls me Robert, but I don't really like Robbie so yeah Rob.

Dearbhail McDonald
 Okay well listen before we get to a little bit about you, first of all I just want to talk a little bit about AstraZeneca. Last year it announced plans to double revenue to 80 billion dollars and obviously we know AstraZeneca as a major player in the pharma sector here. Can you give us maybe just a sense of the scale of AstraZeneca both here in Ireland and further afield?

Rob Morrissey
 Sure of course. Well for those who wouldn't be aware of AstraZeneca, we are a global science-led biopharmaceutical company, and we're headquartered in Cambridge in the UK, and we focus on the discovery development and commercialization of prescription medicines and with over 94,000 employees worldwide. We have an active presence in more than 80 countries, and we sell our products to more than 125 countries. In Ireland,

Rob Morrissey
 AstraZeneca along with Alexion which is our rare disease unit and we employ over 1,400 people across two sites, one in Dublin and one in Athlone and we provide medicines to Irish patients across rare diseases, oncology, cardiovascular, renal and metabolism, vaccines and immunotherapies and respiratory and immunology.

Rob Morrissey
 Currently there's around 100 people who are employed by the AstraZeneca commercial entity of which I am part of.

Dearbhail McDonald
 Of course you are part of.

Rob Morrissey
 I'm a part of yes and we provide a wide range of expertise across sales, marketing, medical, regulatory affairs, market access, corporate and of course finance.

Rob Morrissey
 And then just finally on one point to make is it's particularly exciting in Ireland at a moment for AstraZeneca as we have our next generation API or active pharmaceutical ingredient commercialization plant at College Park and that construction started in July 23.

Dearbhail McDonald
 We're hoping to

Rob Morrissey
 employ around again probably a hundred people for that when it's operational.

Dearbhail McDonald
 Okay we're here to talk about finance and I want to talk about your own journey into it because you are something of an accidental accountant and one more than that who which maybe isn't the greatest admission, but you weren't always very good with numbers.

Rob Morrissey
 No, no it's probably you're correct there. Growing up I wasn't naturally a numbers person with mathematics and again it's probably not something I should admit but I actually spent all my summers down in Wexford with my gran up until I was 18 and I worked on my farm there in our neighbor's farm and so I absolutely loved it down there. So, I was a Dublin farmer for many years.

Dearbhail McDonald
 That's not a contradiction in terms.

Rob Morrissey
 Yeah exactly so I ended up I did Ag Science I went to a Cesser and I did Ag Science and Business Studies so I was in between doing Ag Science and UCD or a Business Studies degree and I didn't have a farm to go to so I ended up deciding to do Business Studies a four-year degree in Tallah.

Dearbhail McDonald
 What made you pivot or who or what made you pivot because you know Ag Science is it's really hard to get into for a start but is it or isn't it quite a pivot to go from one to the other?

Rob Morrissey
 It is and again I remember at the time as a 18 year old I don't mind admitting I didn't really know what I wanted to do and or what interest as I said I did I did Business Studies for my Leaving Cert and I did I really enjoyed it and so I did it was a general business degree in Tallah and after the first two years were general and then after the third year I was put in I had the degree was marketing and after the third year the registrar put me into the accountancy stream by mistake and I always remember having a conversation with my parents saying I'm going to change that they were like why I was like I don't know and so I couple two of my uncles are successful accountants as well so they said why don't you just give it a go you know so I did and I completed the four-year degree and I really enjoyed it you know and I enjoyed all the aspects of the accountancy degree I then just naturally did the three and a half years training and contract with Chartered Accountants Ireland and I think looking back on it and it was a great experience for me because I ended up in a very small practice in Donnybrook it was a two-partner practice and not having done accountancy let's say for the Leaving Cert I you know I was given boxes of receipts and I almost had to learn accountancy from the bottom up and the basics and I think it really stood to me then in my later career on the fundamentals of accountancy and yeah I just kept going with it.

Dearbhail McDonald
 It's really interesting when I think of accountancy I kind of think it's you know death and taxes it's one of those things that you know you'll never be out of a job and especially you know if you've got the degree or you've got you know your professional qualification but despite all of the huge transformation in our society and the economy you did actually find yourself at one period in the early part of your career out of work.

Rob Morrissey
 Yes exactly yeah so, I when I did the three and a half years training contract I worked in a company for a few months and then I'd always wanted to travel, and my mother was cabin crew for Aer Lingus.

Dearbhail McDonald
 Did you get lots of the jump seats?

Rob Morrissey
 I did I did many a time in the cockpit in the jump seats back when that was allowed and I used to go with her when I was a teenager transatlantic flights over to Boston New York and LA so I was very fortunate and that definitely gave me a travel bug so I said you know what when I had the opportunity I took a year off after I qualified in 2008 and I traveled around the world for a year incredible experience and but my timing wasn't the greatest in terms of the economic environment I came back in the middle of 2009 right in the start of the recession here in Ireland and I'll never forget in Heathrow Airport I had my backpack on me with all the badges of the countries I visited and this gentleman said to me God you're not going back to Ireland are you? I said yeah he said it's crazy it there's no jobs it's unemployed it's really depressing so it's amazing the things that stick out in your mind and so and he was right I came back I was a qualified chartered accountant I taught and naively I just walked straight into a job and so there was seven or eight months where I was unemployed taking the doll and I did around 15 to 20 interviews you know and it was very humbling it was a very humbling experience for me and you know I think off the back of that working you know I really value work now and I don't take it for granted and I know because I've had that experience and I think it stood to me it's made me a bit more resilient and I now really appreciate you know having a job.

Dearbhail McDonald
 your career in AstraZeneca you know out of that very difficult period began with a period of maternity cover did you just get did you just not let go once you get in?

Rob Morrissey
 Yeah yeah exactly so I eventually thankfully I got the opportunity to interview for a maternity cover as you say in AstraZeneca and we were based in Nassau Street at the time and yeah to me it was like a pharma company and I think naively I probably didn't know much I didn't know anything about pharma at the time.

Dearbhail McDonald
 Farming rather than pharma?

Rob Morrissey
 Yeah exactly I knew I definitely knew more my way around the sheep and cattle than pharma so I'd never heard of AstraZeneca I'd only heard of the you know the bigger maybe the OTC companies but so I took the opportunity and did the maternity cover and then I actually left and when the lady came back from maternity leave and I went and worked in Google here down in Barrow Street for a six-month contract which was again a great experience and exposure there working in the EMEA audit team and then during that six-month period AstraZeneca were going through some restructuring and my boss at the time invited me back to be a finance business partner so again I knew the Google contract was just six months and so I jumped at it and again arriving back into AstraZeneca and during 2012 and again I was quite naive but

Dearbhail McDonald
 one recession but two were a lot of companies in that sector at the time not facing huge patent cliffs you know what kind of a company or sector were you going back into?

Rob Morrissey
 Yeah exactly so again a bit naively I went back in not really knowing the extent of that time in AstraZeneca with the patent expiry as I said of household names like Crestor, Nexium and Seroquel all around that time and we were in a sharp decline in terms of top-line revenue globally and so it was a big transition time for the company and we had a big restructuring in Ireland as I said as many markets did so yeah it was it was it was tough it was a tough time and but I think you know with my work ethic and my attitude towards the company I just I worked really hard and I just kept the head down and very committed and I just wanted to learn about the industry and I was the finance business partner for the whole company whole portfolio and you know back then our portfolio was a lot smaller as it is today as compared to today and so it was a simpler business back then you know back in 2014-2015.

Dearbhail McDonald
 But you obviously didn't keep the head down for too long because now your head is very firmly above the parapet as CFO and you know when you think about the role of CFO I think traditionally I think of it as you know control and governance you know and maybe the person who occasionally is saying no but it seems especially in what must be quite it's a highly regulated sector so that probably adds an extra facet to the role of CFO but when you look back on that time to where you are now what has been the biggest sort of change in the role?

Rob Morrissey
 Exactly and as you said it is you know the expectation of a CFO is around the traditional governance controls and compliance and that is still foundational that is you know that is still critical in the industry but I think the CFO role has evolved to more of a strategic business partner and so it really is about safeguarding the company's assets and including like robust controls but also driving the company's performance and innovation and enabling innovation so I would work very closely with the internal stakeholders in the company and the external stakeholders as well to look at like items like portfolio prioritization and resource allocation obviously is key and then the long-term value creation of the company and at the moment right now in the summer period we're working on the long-term plan for resourcing and full profit and loss account out to 2028 so we're looking into the future and with the pipeline and as you said the ambition that AstraZeneca has out to 2030.

Dearbhail McDonald
 Which is huge in terms of that looking for that to double the revenue up to 80 billion you have recently been on an upskilling blitz yourself particularly in terms of AI what courses have you been doing and how important has that been? I mean is AI playing a big part in your role.

Rob Morrissey
 Yes exactly yes so, I'm right in the middle of a chartered accountants diploma so it's in data analytics and AI.

Rob Morrissey
 I saw it being advertised earlier in the year and I said that'd be a great opportunity so it's been really beneficial and because part of the course is the assignments are based on real-life challenges or opportunities scenarios in your role so I'm utilizing that to enable the challenges that we have in certain areas of the organization to look at how we can use data analytics and AI.

Rob Morrissey
 AstraZeneca I think has been at the forefront of digital innovation in the last number of years as well and last year they rolled out a thriving in the age of AI course globally for the company so you could you could do bronze silver and gold accreditation and I did the silver one last year and really good foundational knowledge around AI and they've rolled out an updated one for this year as well so again I'll do the silver or gold maybe aim for the gold this year but even in the last you know I think we all know AI and the speed of AI is just phenomenal so with our organization we've leveraged AI tools in the last year or two and so we use tools in our marketing department and finance around things like Jasper, Co-pilot, Microsoft, Co-pilot and Synthesia for video editing and we also have our own version of chat GPT so even in the last you know six or seven months I'm finding myself using chat GPT if not a daily but

Dearbhail McDonald
 in a big regulated sector like pharma when you're seeing new innovations like AI are you also thinking the opportunities but are you also worried about the potential risks like is it a constant

Rob Morrissey
 yeah like so there's very and that's why the both the Chartered Accountants course and the AstraZeneca course have been very helpful because there's a lot of risks and around ethics and ethical use of AI and the data so yes you do we have strict guardrails on our internal systems in terms of the data we use and making sure it's compliant and also I guess the outputs that chat GPT would give you and you have to you're responsible for the accuracy of it at the end of the day you at the end of the day you are responsible for whatever you put out so it I use it exactly I use it as a kind of a starting point so for example if I wanted to compose an email I would I would draft it using chat GPT but then I would go back and check go back through it all and tweak it and change it and I suppose in finance and I hasn't got to the point where it's more you know technical or research that or medical data that I'm using so I'm fortunate I suppose in that way that you

Dearbhail McDonald
 find increasingly is coming to your door obviously CEO and CFO are dealing with all of you know the issues but you know like I mean there are finance aspects to you DI you know which is there's been a huge pushback against that in some quarters but you know everything is coming to you because could presumably that involve supply chains and it also involves sustainability and this year you actually had I think at a fairly good milestone because your fleet went in Ireland went fully electric

Rob Morrissey
 yeah exactly so and I'm very proud to say that well sustainability for me is really important both personally and in my role CFO and I think as business leaders it's a big responsibility not only to drive the finance performance but also to make a positive impact on the environment and the communities in which we operate and yes I'm really proud of the major milestone that we achieved last just last December and where we transitioned our entire fleet of over 50 vehicles to fully electric and so it was a big investment in in in our fleet drivers as well and what it also demonstrates our commitment to reducing the emissions and aligning also with our global sustainability goals beyond the electrification of our fleet I'm also the SLT senior leadership team co-sponsor for our sustainability group in the commercial organization does

Dearbhail McDonald
 that have lots of different definitions

Rob Morrissey
 yeah so well it's this yeah so it's sustained it's a sustainability group and we work in areas and initiatives throughout the year so a couple of the initiatives that I'm involved in would be the clean coasts so cleaning the last year we did the cleaning on the beaches and the rivers and tree planting as well so we do an annual tree planting initiative with the employees and I think it's a great initiative and I think the employees really value that as well and this year as well we're also proudly partnering with a global action plan and they're an organization known for their impactful community gardens in Ballymun and another one and which is exactly across the road

Dearbhail McDonald
 is that to you individually as opposed to just someone you know within a very big global company

Rob Morrissey
 yeah so with all the initiatives and the volunteering initiatives I've participated in them all and I really I really valued them and really enjoyed them and as I said there we have a you know volunteering in the garden and initiative going on during the summer I'm actually doing it in a couple of weeks and so yeah it's really really important to me personally

Dearbhail McDonald
 well hold that thought because I'm looking forward to hearing more about that in just a moment but for now we're going to take a very quick break.

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Dearbhail McDonald
 the world we live in now is quite uncertain do tariffs trade wars yeah and obviously huge levels of conflict all across the world and that obviously has implications for businesses big and small whether it's supply chains whether it's stability in general and I'm just wondering you know and how are you navigating that at the minute

Rob Morrissey
 yeah exactly as you said it's quite a uncertain macroeconomic environment that we're in at the moment but for me personally and in my role the CFO I look at my role in terms of what I can control and so I you know I we have tough you know I have tough decisions or decisions to make whether they're unclear and I can only go by the information I have at the time and best information yeah exactly and there's a lot of you know with any role especially future looking in terms of forecasting and budgeting you know you have to make certain assumptions and as you said with the changing environment you know this time next year and you know who knows what the situation is but yeah I think in my role as well there's I think there's a perception that a CFO note has all the answers and that's not the case and you know I'm quite good at if a decision has to be made I'll make the decision based on my best ability and my best knowledge and my experience I've garnered I think that's all I can do I'm lucky to have a great help

Dearbhail McDonald
 If you need help are you afraid to ask for it?

Rob Morrissey
 no and that's the thing I almost you know obviously not everything but I actively seek you know support and guidance from my own team my direct reports and the senior leadership team and also I'm very lucky within AstraZeneca there's a lot of regional global teams you know experts in the field and so

Dearbhail McDonald
 have you had mentors I know you were sort of brought back in you mentioned earlier you brought back in to AstraZeneca so how important or who was your are you happy to say who your mentor was or how important that was

Rob Morrissey
 yeah yeah so within AstraZeneca my old boss the CFO P Connelly he was my mentor for he was in AstraZeneca for many years a CFO and yeah like that was one of the reasons like that was the main reason I came back to AstraZeneca after the maternity leave cover was because I'd be working for him and with him and he was a great leader and you know I try to emulate that as well is that I would go to him for advice and as a sounding board when I was a finance business partner and even after and even when he left AstraZeneca I still continued to seek his guidance so yeah definitely I think it's really important to have mentors in in your working life and outside your life outside you know my friend I'm very lucky to have a very close niche group of a few friends and I rely on them a lot as well for their guidance and support as well which I think I'm lucky I'm very lucky to have

Dearbhail McDonald
 when you look when you scan the horizon in terms of your professional role as CFO look what is it the stuff that keeps you awake at night like what are the big ticket issues

Rob Morrissey
 reaching target

Rob Morrissey
 hitting the budget and but yeah like I said before I think you can become like there are many nights where I wake up and I go oh no I forgot to do that or we have this coming up but I think as the years have gone on you know I'm quite good at saying listen you know as I said earlier I can only control what I can control and I'm quite good at you know as I said doing my best in anything I do and I think that's all you can do your best up skill I think it's very important as I said to continually up skill know what's going on in the industry and yeah you know nothing's going to be ever perfect and I think if you do your best and yeah that's all you can kind of ask for

Dearbhail McDonald
 you are and married now with a very young family and I'm just wondering to what extent has becoming a dad and being in that very busy stage of doing a child crowd control most weekends probably with their activities but how has that changed your life

Rob Morrissey
 yeah so I have I have a covid of a covid baby of a four and a half year old Luke who was born in 2020 and so right around the time actually I became CFO and I have Sophie who's two and it definitely has changed my let's change my outlook on life it's changed it's probably bringing more to the forefront the importance of a work-life balance pre prior to kids and I think I would have maybe to be honest probably worked too long you know and to the detriment of my role like working too long and not being as productive as I could have been whereas

Dearbhail McDonald
 it’s that paradox of putting too much time and you're actually you're not as productive as you could or should

Rob Morrissey
 yeah exactly like there was times where I was close to like burnout back in the years because that was my sole focus and I just worked I worked and worked and worked and whereas now I think I have a quite a good balance and I think that's really important and to be honest for everybody and like I get up early I prefer work I prefer starting early so I probably start around seven half seven in the morning and I try to finish at a reasonable time then so I can especially during the summer months to spend time go home and spend time with the kids and go to the playground and just decompress a bit from today as well and so that has that has definitely helped and also I guess having kids as well has made me look a bit at my you know your own health and looking after yourself as well and having that balance is really important your

Dearbhail McDonald
 popularity we're probably through the reef when I bring this up I did not know until I started looking into that you were for many years a volunteer with the DS PCA you are a dog lover

Rob Morrissey
 I am I am yes so I would love to have many dogs but and again with work commitments and at the moment and maybe in the future but yeah and it was around 2016 I decide and I live in them I lived not too far from the DSPCA headquarters there and just at the foothills of the Dublin mountains so I'm very lucky so yeah I worked for many years in the dog rehabilitation center up there every Saturday morning yeah it is it is and I actually specifically chose that to the over the maybe the dog rehoming part because to be honest the dog rehoming part deals with the public and after a long week of work I kind of just wanted to be away from people if I'm being honest and just have a few hours with the dogs but yeah it was it was tough because they were the animals who came in after being maybe badly treated or being surrendered so it was it was tough and it took me a while to kind of to adjust to it and but I spent the mornings cleaning out and walking maybe 10-15 dogs and but seeing the dogs then you know moving over to rehoming and then on social media eventually getting rehomed and

Dearbhail McDonald
 you had played a little part and getting them

Rob Morrissey
 yeah to see them getting to see them you know recover and as I said to be rehomed is very rewarding and it's the same with any sort of volunteering when you tell people you volunteered they're like oh you're so good to do that but you as a person I'm sure anybody who's listening who's volunteered will be testament to it is you actually get more out of it yourself and so yeah so since the kids came along I haven't been up there in a few years but it is definitely somewhere where I'll come back to and in years to come and so yeah as you alluded to there my weekends now where and my son has started in a little Rookers rugby last year so I coached I coach well coaches strong words we're doing it very common here but coaching it was more crowd control for 20 or 30 three to five year olds and next month I'll be doing the head coach for the under sixes rugby as well and my son will start and he's starting school in September so he will start in the soccer team and I'll coach that as well and my wife is going to do coaching as well and so yeah I think living where we live to me that's a huge part of the community

Dearbhail McDonald
 the things that enrich life's tapestry and you are my inaugural podcast guest so I have got to ask you are you a podcast listener what do you listen to you when you're when you're on your outer work and not some sad pharma podcast you listen to anything

Rob Morrissey
 I was going to say yeah I listened to the Financial Times no well I'll be honest I've actually started listening to Louis Theroux and so I've listened to a few of his recently but what I actually do in the car on the way as I said earlier with my friends I actually I send and receive a lot of voice notes so I actually are probably a bit unique there but I actually love sending voice notes to my friends and getting them back so it's kind of like our own little podcast as a group of friends and you know joking aside it actually it genuinely helps me you know process things and just you know having that support network

Dearbhail McDonald
 it's a brilliant way to connect and if you were looking back at your younger self now and you know people coming into the profession like I mean a lot of you know kids have been told there's going to be no jobs in law there's going to be no jobs in the county because AI is going to take it all away but what would you say to younger people you know entering the profession now and the opportunities that it has because you're at the heart of business decision-making for a major global PLC yeah

Rob Morrissey
 yeah I think it's an incredibly it's an incredibly great time to join the profession and I think looking back on it what I would say is the qualification is so it gives you so many opportunities I think when I look back I was like I don't really want to be an accountant because I'll just be looking at a spreadsheet all day but the qualification is so well recognized around the world and you can pivot into any different industry or role by having it and so yeah I think it's a great opportunity and great time to join the profession one bit of advice I would I would say is you know being coming into account technical expertise is really important but also I think be kind and be empathetic focus on your EQ or emotional intelligence I think for me has been a big reason of where I've got today is that is that is that connection with people and you know 

Dearbhail McDonald
 because in a way what we're seeing you know in the business world and the political world is a sort of return kind of almost of a you know the brash or the bold or they you know kind of so-called strong leader but actually it's really interesting for you to hear that actually compassion and empathy are really important skills for a life in business

Rob Morrissey
 yeah that's how I that's how I would advise and it's worked for me so far and you know I think people see that and being authentic and being compassionate I think especially in you know in the current climate I think it's really important and you know being supportive to your team and your colleagues and is really important

Dearbhail McDonald
 that could be your superpower tell me one final thing and Rob Morrissey tell me something that people might not know about you

Rob Morrissey
 so when I took a year off yeah so when I took a year off traveling I did two skydives and a bungee jump

Dearbhail McDonald
 excellent did it terrify you

Rob Morrissey
 yes yeah push like this you have to put yourself out of your comfort zone

Dearbhail McDonald
 you certainly do and I'm absolutely thrilled that you joined us today Rob Morrissey CFO of AstraZeneca and that is it for another episode of the EY CFO Outlook podcast thank you so much for listening and we'll catch you on the next one, Rob thank you.