Her Magazine is New Zealand’s only women’s business lifestyle magazine! Her Magazine highlights the achievements of successful and rising New Zealand businesswomen. Her Magazine encourages a healthy work/life balance.
Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/121360
:more than just a pretty face More than just a Pretty face In a Her Magazine exclusive GSK New Zealand General Manager, Anna Stove explains how swapping her nurse's hat for a place in the boardroom has allowed her to provide the best possible healthcare to a nation-wide patient base Anna is currently General Manager of GlaxoSmithKline (a position she has held for the past 12mths) and is a commercially astute and inspirational leader. Anna joined GSK in 1990 and has progressed through a variety of local, regional and global roles within New Zealand, Japan and the UK. She has a robust medical/marketing background and has held commercial, sales, research and development roles and has a successful track record in leading and managing business within the pharmaceutical sector. She also has a seven year history as a Trustee (Vice Chairman) for a children's hospice in London. Born and bred in South Auckland Anna lived what she describes as an 'idyllic childhood' on a horse stud with her brother and sister. She went to boarding school at Waikato Diocesan and spent her last year in Japan as an AFS student. After completing a Nursing Diploma she journeyed the path of many young adults venturing overseas on a working OE in her early twenties. "In a previous life I was a registered nurse," Anna tells. "I was working in London and returned to New Zealand in 1990 to work for Glaxo (as it was called at the time) as a medical sales representative because I wanted to stay in healthcare, but had had enough of the shift work. I worked through the ranks in sales and product management and then in 1999 was sent on a two year secondment to London to Glaxo's global division. Over the next six years I worked in a variety of roles and then left GSK for a Global biotec company as the European Commercial lead for HIV. My ten years in London were fantastic from a career & personal point of view. Every week I was on a plane travelling the world aligning countries with healthcare strategies. In 2009 my mother fell ill and my husband, Kerry and I made the decision to return to New Zealand. In preparation for the move I threw my CV out to a companies and GSK took me back on. 30 | www.h e rmagaz i n e . c o. n z Comparing New Zealand to Europe... Community: I think of New Zealand as a village. We live in a much more casual, informal society. It doesn't matter where you go, you'll bump into someone you know. I feel that within our office especially… you know everyone's partners and their children… it's a wonderfully inclusive environment. Business: New Zealand is also much tighter in our spending and we're a lot more innovative in how we can get things done. Because we don't have the budgets, we do things differently, making us influential to global eyes. Lifestyle: We live on a lifestyle block in South Auckland which is very different to the Edwardian Terrace house we had in London! As Kerry spends a lot of his time in Australia, my mornings can start with feeding out hay to cattle, lambing ewes, fixing troughs before