Leading across borders: Global Career and Leadership

In this week's episode of the Career Transitions Podcast, Vanessa I. and Vanessa T. speak with James Feliciano, a seasoned senior executive, about his thriving career in Japan's pharmaceutical industry. James shares his unique insights on leadership, cultural navigation, and career evolution, drawing from his experiences as president and general manager of AbbVie Japan and his transition into a senior advisory role.

Discover James's advice on embracing international opportunities, balancing work and life, and the importance of trusting your intuition. He also discusses his passion for coaching and how it has shaped his leadership style, emphasizing the power of engagement, self-awareness, and continuous growth.

Whether you're considering an international move, navigating a career change, or seeking to enhance your leadership skills, this episode offers invaluable lessons and inspiration for your own journey

Connect with us on LinkedIn:

· Vanessa Iloste (Host)

· Vanessa Teo (Host)

· Aaron Wu (Producer)

Transcript

Vanessa I: [00:00:00] On this week's episode of the Career Transition Podcast, we speak with James Feliciano, a senior executive in the pharmaceutical industry in Japan. 

Vanessa T: I've had the privilege of working with James for over five years when we were both working at AbbVie. I have a huge respect for James as a leader. His leadership of the Japan business and the impact that he made on so many colleagues' careers.

Vanessa I: On my side. I only met James for the first time when we started preparing the show, but I can only support everything Vanessa just said. I was also very much inspired by him. I strongly encourage you to listen to his thoughts on leadership, his own career transition and life balance.

Vanessa T: Welcome to another episode of the Career Transitions Podcast. This is the podcast where we dive deep into the real stories behind career evolution, leadership, and the future of work. 

Vanessa I: Today [00:01:00] we have an incredibly exciting guest, James Feliciano, a dynamic leader in the pharmaceutical industry who has built a thriving career while embracing the complexities of living and working in Japan as an American.

Vanessa T: James has had a long and successful career in the pharmaceutical industry. And for the past 10 years, he was the president and general manager of AbbVie Japan. He has now transitioned into a senior advisor role and will be embarking into the next chapter of his career later this year. James, your journey is truly fascinating, having navigated cultural differences and leading at the highest level.

Welcome to the show, James. 

James F: What a pleasure. Thank you so much Vanessa and Vanessa. It's really a pleasure to be here. I have a bit of imposter syndrome to be honest. You've had some amazing people on this podcast and I am just humbled to be able to share this chair. 

Vanessa I: Well, we are very honored to have you on the show, James.

It's something that I shared with you a couple of minutes ago, but we have a big thing in common [00:02:00] is our love of the culture and the country. The two of us. We have lived and worked in Japan and we wanted to ask you a question about Japan. So moving to and working in Japan has been a dream for many, but it comes with unique challenges.

Can you take us back to those early days? What was it like stepping into such a different business culture? 

James F: So like you, Vanessa, I was here as a student and I spent a lot of my twenties here. So. I understand the culture and speak the language, but coming in as a general manager or or coming in as an expat from headquarters to Japan in a business environment, I think it was very unique because in my case, I really was serving as a bridge between cultures. 

As you know, Japan is really a key market for any big company, but it's very different in terms of understanding from a European mindset, and there's a lot of gaps and there's a lot of questions. And in my role as an expat, being sent dispatched from headquarters to Japan. [00:03:00] I really worked on how to be that bridge, how to build understanding and how to improve collaboration between Japan and headquarters.

I felt like it's been my mission. You have to wear two hats, but in reflecting on this, one of the keys is you have to remember that you are being sent from headquarters, so you can't go native, but you have to remember who, you work for. Which is headquarters. So it's a very unique situation. 

Vanessa I: That's very powerful what you're saying and reminding yourself that you are the representative of the headquarters is very key to your success.

When you look back and you remember these years that you spent as a students, in which way. Did you have some maybe transferable skills from these years as a young gentleman exploring the culture that were very useful to you when you were sent back as a general manager to represent the company from the headquarters? 

James F: The biggest advantage that I had was being able to speak the language, and I think a lot of people when they come to Japan, they don't speak [00:04:00] the language. So that's the big gap. And when you can speak the language, speak Japanese, you're really invited into the culture in a different way. So that was the biggest advantage that I had.

But that being said, I think whenever anyone comes from headquarters and is working, you have to understand the business culture of the company there. And you have to try to weave in the elements from headquarters within an existing business culture and business environment of the company in Japan, which is its own entity.

So it's a living and breathing thing. The Japan business, the Japan culture, the way the teams work there. So getting them to weave in, in a efficient way with headquarters. That's very unique and it's a bit of an orchestration and it's gonna be different every time depending on the company. 

Vanessa I: It's true.

There were many times where I actually felt like I was doing a form of dance. You know, I was doing the dance in my case on the European side, and also the dance representing the opinion or representing the [00:05:00] perspective from the Japanese colleagues or the Japanese management sometimes. So this dance is particularly interesting and you reminded me around this idea of representation of the headquarters.

I think this is powerful as well. There is a moment where you can lose your own sense of balance. So it's good to have this compass. It's good to have this north star and to be honoring also the loyalty you must have to your employer. In which way do you think that this global experience shape you? And what would you say to people who are considering international moves but are not sure what it would mean for their careers or their personal lives?

James F: Yes, it's a great question. What I've seen in my experience, when you leave headquarters and you go abroad, it's always a challenge to get back to headquarters. Happens a lot. You have to expect that you're going on a one way ticket to a certain degree, unless you really have strong advocates at home, at headquarters who will bring you back and find you that role because the people who come to [00:06:00] Japan are sent abroad. They're highly skilled, talented individuals that are leaving very good roles that another highly skilled, talented person is gonna take immediately. 

And you know, talent rotation is always a big challenge in any organization. When you go, you really have to go with your head down like, I'm going. And what happens, happens. I'm gonna figure this out. Who knows? Wherever I end up, it might not be the company that's sending me over right now. I'm gonna have to figure this out, but I'm gonna go and take the opportunity that I have right in front of me because that transition from going there to back to headquarters or whatever, it's always challenging.

I've seen it many, many times. I'm sure you as HR business partners have seen it as well. 

Vanessa I: It's very true. It's one of the concerns that some of my colleagues have. It's happening very often. And the sponsorship is very key, as you said, and it happens very often that the sponsors that you had when you left are not left anymore when you want to come back.

This is just life, right? People are changing and the person who was supposed to bring you back is actually [00:07:00] moved on to something else. 

James F: My advice there is if you're gonna go abroad as an expat, you have to take it as a leap of faith moment and really just trust in it. Believe what we know what's gonna happen is gonna happen, but I'm gonna take this next step and do it.

And I don't try to think two or three moves ahead because expat assignments just don't work like that. 

Vanessa T: I think the one thing James, obviously, through your career have also experienced is the fact that when you do take these bold moves. You're gaining so much more than you otherwise would've gained if you stayed in the same position in your home country.

I mean, and that's the skill that no one will ever take away from you. And whether it's with the same organization or a different organization, you're gonna be that much better because you took that bold assignment.

James F: Indeed a hundred percent. When you take a leap of faith moment like that, you're putting a kind of accountability on yourself to really deliver that, and it puts you in that accountability mindset.

You dig deep, you find out, and you really learn more about yourself and what you're capable of. 

Vanessa T: Yeah. James, [00:08:00] it's always been a pleasure working with you in the years that I worked for AbbVie, and you've helped some really demanding leadership roles throughout your time at AbbVie and even before then.

Were there any defining moments in your career, perhaps a breakthrough moment or a challenge, or perhaps even a failure that changed the way that you led? 

James F: It might not be exactly the answer you're expecting, but the first time I became a business unit manager. And I had sales and marketing reporting into me, and I had a Salesforce and I had P & L responsibility.

At that time, I had a Salesforce of 80 sales reps, and I was leading a marketing team of about eight people. KOL management. That is the defining moment. For the first time, you are in charge of leading engagement of an organization, motivating an organization, delegating and entrusting. You are in charge of that nucleus, that ecosystem is yours as a leader, that's where you cut your teeth on leadership.

And I learned a lot in those two years [00:09:00] as a business unit manager. And I definitely made mistakes in terms of maybe not listening to people or having too much of my own vision about how things should be done and not empowering some more senior leaders. 'Cause when you're a business unit manager, you're also relatively young.

Maybe it was in my early forties. There were a lot of people, much older than me, a lot more experience that I could have maybe listened to more and been more engaging in getting their involvement. So being a business unit manager is such an important moment for any leader, I think. 

Vanessa T: So if you could turn back time, James, what would you say to your younger self?

James F: One of the key points when you're at that business unit manager role is you don't have a lot of self-awareness about your style or about your blind spots in leadership. 'Cause you're still creating them. You need to build that self-awareness and I really believe like having a coach or a mentor. Or someone that you can bounce ideas off of and get feedback.

I think that's such a critical pivot moment in leadership for someone on a commercial path. Having a coach [00:10:00] spending time and having a safe space to reflect is invaluable. 

Vanessa T: And I'm just wondering, after spending so many years at the top. How did you handle those moments and were there ever moments of doubt or when you first started this show, you said imposter syndrome.

It's really hard when I sit on my side looking at you as a senior leader. It was hard to imagine that, but tell us were there those moments. 

James F: So I got some really great advice from the CEO of a company I worked for. Years ago and I was just a product manager in the United States, and I invited him for coffee and he accepted my invitation and I got 30 minutes of coffee with the CEO that I paid for, and I asked him, how do you juggle all of these things?

I mean, you've got so much going on that you're having to think about. And the advice or the feedback that he gave, you have to keep everything above your neck, that leadership and running a business, it's a cerebral thing. You can't let it sink into your heart. All of the challenges and all of the stress of it.

What is the [00:11:00] information that we have? What is the information that we don't have? What's the next best step? And just always kind of repeating that process, but in a very logical, and a very calm and a very rational way because leadership is really defined mostly when there's crisis. And you know, there are times when, and I've had some really crazy crisis moments.

I was in Japan when the earthquake and running a vaccine business where there were gonna be power outages across Tokyo, and this is a refrigerated product and we had $40 million worth of inventory in the field. That's a big question. How do we handle this? How do we do this? In those moments, you can get emotional about it.

I'm a very kind of emotional guy in the first place. I very much wear my heart on my sleeve, but from a leadership perspective, you just have to take it as a very rational and very calm and very logical approach. So that was one huge learning for me. My leadership is very logical, very rational, very calm.

My engagement is from my [00:12:00] heart when I engage like with my teams, but my leadership is very calculated. Does that make sense? 

Vanessa T: Absolutely. And what really resonates with me is what you talked about, leadership is rational is calm, but your engagement is emotional. Yes. I love that. I've also seen how you've been as a leader.

James F: Well, you know, I'm huge about engagement. It's really my passion and it's how I lead. Having an organization where everyone is engaged and accountable and excited to be there and feeling involved, that's where the magic happens. But business is rational, business is logical. Business is calculated. 

Vanessa I: Very interesting allegory actually that you're making because you know, it's very often that people bring the two or the three together, the mind, the heart, the soul together, and your way of practicing it to remind yourself about the difference, which I think can be also very useful.

I'm also like you. You know, I can be very emotional and it's good sometimes to take perspective on things. It's good sometimes to reflect and to take a little bit of [00:13:00] time to think about your next step or your next decision. Now I would like to talk to you about your career transition because you have built this extraordinary career in the pharmaceutical company, in the pharmaceutical industry through different companies, and we are interested, as you know, James, about the career transition.

And we always say with Vanessa T that career transition is about making the right choice. We know it's not easy. We wanted to know if there was any time during this great career of yours where you had to make a truly difficult decision and how you managed it. 

James F: Yes, I was reflecting on this on my journey, and for me, I always wanted to be a country manager.

It was just always the job that looked so attractive to me. A former senior executive at AbbVie that I respect very much. He would always say, being country managers the best job in the world. To be that country manager and, and to have that experience. So I always wanted to be, and I had been sent to Japan.

I'd been there for a couple of years. [00:14:00] Then the company I was working for at the time invited me to come back to America for a very, very juicy, very exciting role of being the US Marketing Director for a launch product. But I wanted to be a country manager, and so I said no to that and that was my leap of faith moment where I kind of cut ties with the mothership and I found a job in Japan that was not tied to a a headquarter job.

In fact, I still had a storage unit in America that I was paying. And I think, you know, we ended up.... this little aside, we stopped the contract, so I think it ended up on one of those like storage unit shows or something because we just surrendered it. But I said no, I said no to the role and I took a leap of faith and I stayed in Japan and within two positions I was a country manager in Japan.

Vanessa I: Can you share with us about the process that it took for you to actually make that decision? I know it's a couple of years ago, but do you [00:15:00] remember how you looked at the pros, the cons if you asked for advice? 

James F: I did that, of course, I did talk to a few people about it, but when I was going through my calculation for the career journey that I had envisioned for myself.

I just didn't see how being a US marketing lead was going to get me to country manager at some point. It was hard for me to connect those dots. I didn't have a strong network of advocates in headquarters at the time, either because my previous company had been bought out by the company. I felt that there was some risk to the role.

I also felt that I wasn't sure where I would go next after that. I felt that I'm here, I'm abroad. I'm closer to where I want to be a country manager here than if I go there. So I had to take a leap of faith and it was a big rolling of the dice. I mean, I didn't know if it was gonna work out, but I just felt like I gave myself a better chance, better opportunity to become a country manager if I stayed in Japan.

Vanessa I: How would you describe these moments of clarity? [00:16:00] Because I think this is one of the questions we receive on the show. You know, people tell us when is it going to happen to me that I'm going to get this clarity? I've been doing all the journaling you asked me, I've been doing all the things you asked me, but I'm still waiting for the moment of clarity.

So can you tell us, I mean, is it natural? Is it organic? 

James F: I've said it a couple of times tonight already. There's a leap of faith moment. Where there's never gonna be bright lights and a sign saying this is it. You know, at some point you just have to trust it and just jump. One of the things as you go through your career, and also as a general manager, you have to listen to your gut, that little voice inside of you and trust it.

Vanessa T: James, I was listening to what you're saying about some of these key decisions that you've made, and I'm just wondering, was there ever a decision that you hesitated on that you wish you had made earlier in your career? 

James F: Honestly, once I went to graduate school and got an MBA, so before that I was in Japan doing various jobs.

I got my MBA and I entered the [00:17:00] pharmaceutical industry. I was always, from that moment on, I was very aggressive about moving up and trying to really manage my career. One of the reasons is I graduated with my MBA when I was 32, so I was a little bit older. I was about five years older than most of my peers in the MBA program, so I knew I needed to kind of accelerate and just be very driven in the roles I was gonna have.

Vanessa T: Mm-hmm. 

James F: In headquarters, I pushed very strongly to get sent abroad, for example, and I was able to get sent abroad within five years. Which is pretty good, but I mean, I was repeating, repeating, repeating that to everybody that I wanna get sent abroad, I wanna get sent abroad. I had a lot of discipline in not staying in a role too long, and most of my roles, I would stay in for about two years and I made sure that I had the right opportunity to show that I had done something.

There was a marquee moment in that role. But once I had that marquee moment, I tried to get outta that and go move to the next thing. And I would always kind of negotiate that if I do this, what's next for me? Like, give me the hardest thing you've [00:18:00] got. So let me show you because I'm, I know I have to prove it.

If I fail, we'll both know. Give me the hardest thing you've got, I'll do it for you, but then set me free and move me up. 

Vanessa T: James, what has always impressed on me hearing your journey and the way that you think about your career like you do business, is that you're calculated, you're logical, you're rational, just like how you approach business.

And I think that that's a really good point to have a well-defined career path by first knowing where you wanna be so that you know all the experiences that you need to collect along the way. So that you do, in fact have the tools in your toolkit to eventually get to where you wanna be. Really excellent.

James, I wanted to pivot to a topic that I know you're hugely interested in, and that's the piece about coaching. You've always been very passionate about coaching, in fact, gone on to do several certifications in coaching in various ways. Tell us how coaching has changed the way that you lead. 

James F: Definitely coaching, I think, is something that every senior leader should spend some time getting some training in, doing a certification in.

[00:19:00] I think that being a strong, engaging leader really requires you to coach your team and to coach your direct reports so that they can grow and they can thrive. Coaching is around asking good questions. Coaching is around challenging people to think further about themselves and how they're running their team.

I think in the past that leadership was much more directive of giving direction. Do this, do this. To really have an engaging organization, which is where the magic happens when you have a strong, engaged company where people are collaborating and communicating and working towards a common goal, and feel empowered and feel accountable.

It's having that coaching mindset of working with them to identify their weaknesses, identify their blind spots, and to think through and to stretch them. So what I've learned in all of my coaching classes is that element of asking good questions and listening. That's probably the hardest thing about coaching, is you're so eager to wanna give the answer.

You don't hold the answer in coaching. [00:20:00] They hold the answer, and it's your job to listen, to ask questions for that self-awareness moment. 

Have you ever had that powerful coaching moment where you felt that you've really learned throughout your journey, your career? 

Personally, definitely. I worked with a coach, amazing coach, Philippe Grail, here in Japan for three years.

My first three years at AbbVie. And we're still great friends and in many ways he's still my coach, but he really helped me to think about what he calls, what's your diamond versus what's your shadow diamond? And to understand what are the things that make you shine and what is it about you as a leader that you can amplify?

Having that kind of self-awareness about yourself as a leader, it takes work. You have to really think about yourself and spend time in reflection. Then also your shadow diamond where areas that are not quite your strengths that you need to work on and need to improve and be aware of. So when I first joined AbbVie, running a 800 person [00:21:00] organization... that's kind of scale of a business ever.

I. Have that place to spend time thinking about myself and thinking about how I wanna lead, how do I lead this? How do I role play different conversations with people? How do I manage various personalities? These are very challenging chess piece moves for a country manager. It's not easy and you need someone to bounce off ideas and to think about the broad landscape of your organization and how they interconnect as well as what's the kind of culture you're gonna try and grow in your company and how are you gonna communicate that In addition to just running the business and like the day to day of all of the KPIs and all of the market share numbers and all.

So there's so many moving parts. Having a coach and thinking that through is very valuable. 

Vanessa I: Very good, very inspiring. You are giving us so many nuggets tonight that we have a lot of things to think about and to reflect on with Vanessa. So we have a little tradition in this show when we ask our guests to give us some pieces of advice [00:22:00] for our listeners.

I think you have given already a couple of those. I took one, the leap of faith and also these diamonds and the shadow diamond. Are there some other pieces of advice you would like to give to our listeners? 

James F: So this is a very difficult question because there's a bit of imposter syndrome that I can actually give advice to senior leaders.

But in terms of what I've learned personally through my leadership journey, and I think the first is it's really important to keep balance in your life and between work and personal. I hate talking about work life balance. I think it's life balance. Because a huge part of my identity for the last 25 years has been as a leader, the last 10 years has been as the AbbVie president.

That's not just work. That is me. That's part of who I am. So having balance in your life I think is really, really, really important because it affects, it impacts your leadership and the energy you bring to your job every day. The second piece of advice is to, with your teams, to always look to connect and to [00:23:00] engage and to listen and to learn.

And I think it's very important to be a role model for how you want your team members to behave. You have to be the role model of the culture you're trying to create. Because if you're saying one thing about an engaging culture or a culture of collaboration or whatever it may be, if they don't see that in you, your organization is not gonna follow you.

So you have to live it and breathe it in a very active way and be very out there. So as for the last 10 years, I've been a very active, very involved general manager, spending a lot of time in the field, a lot of time communicating with the organization, a lot of time really talking to people. So I think that's super important.

And then the last piece, this is not by chance, but it's a nice little way to tie it up, is trust. I think we have to really trust yourself and trust your gut, which is kind of ties to that leap of faith kind of thing. There are moments in leadership where you just really have to trust. Over the last 10 years as a general manager and [00:24:00] speaking to the future, general managers of the world, you do develop a kind of a radar of things and you have to really listen to that.

Because your job is almost like a parent in many ways. You're like the parent of that company and you can sense when something is not working right and just trust your gut. 

Vanessa I: This is great that tonight we have talked a lot about trusting your intuition because I believe in that and I think it's a very powerful piece of advice.

It has been such an insightful conversation. I've learned so much from you, and it was such a pleasure. I wanted to say a big thank you for joining us tonight, and I let Vanessa give the closing thoughts for this episode. 

Vanessa T: James, it has been such a pleasure having you on our show. It's been a pleasure in the past working with you and also on your next phase of your journey.

We certainly wish you all the very, very best. You have made such an impact to so many people's lives, and I'm sure that the next phase of your journey, you'll continue to do the same. So James, thank you so much for joining us today. 

James F: Thank you, Vanessa, and thank you, Vanessa. This has been a really, really enjoyable conversation [00:25:00] and your podcast is great.

Thank you so much for letting me be a part of it. 

Vanessa T: Great. Well thank you very much. And to all of our listeners, thank you for tuning in to the Career Transitions podcast. If this podcast and this episode has inspired you. Do share it with someone who might need it. Thank you so much everyone.