{"id":3134,"date":"2026-08-14T10:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T08:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frauleadership.com\/?p=3134"},"modified":"2026-08-14T11:02:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T09:02:19","slug":"start-ups-vs-big-pharma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frauleadership.com\/en\/start-ups-vs-big-pharma\/","title":{"rendered":"start-ups vs. big pharma"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u200b<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hello Reader,<\/p>\n

I have worked both in a start-up and in big pharma. The route to promotion in each is almost nothing like the other, and almost nobody tells you that before you pick.<\/p>\n

In a start-up, title comes up more easily but teams don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

1) People assume a small company is the fast lane into leadership, and in one sense it is. A start-up can hand you a better title and a higher salary if it decides to do so, because often the HR processes are less well established. Negotiate well when you join, and the numbers can move a long way.<\/p>\n

2) What is genuinely scarce there is people to lead though. Picture 50 employees spread across 5 or 6 departments. Your department might hold three of them. There is simply no team for you to run, so becoming a people manager is far less likely than your job title suggests.<\/p>\n

3) What a start-up gives you instead is scope. You might coordinate a CRO, or work with a group of scientists in a lab on the other side of the world. You may not directly manage these people, but you can own the strategy, and that is where the growth opportunity actually sits.<\/p>\n

If what you are after is strategy, development and speed, a start-up can be an excellent place to build it.<\/p>\n

1) In big pharma, the teams exist. The seat is often already spoken for though. In a large company, fewer managers oversee many people, so more senior positions are scarcer. And many of them are quietly assigned years before they are ever announced, with certain people groomed for them long before anyone else knows the conversation is happening.<\/p>\n

2) Simply doing excellent work alone will not carry you there. You need to know who genuinely makes these decisions. Or is there is a leadership assessment centre you are expected to pass through first?<\/p>\n

And you need to study the people already holding the roles you want, because their paths tend to rhyme. A year abroad. A stint supporting the executive team. A chief of staff role that put them in the room where results get noticed.<\/p>\n

3) Then there is a word of caution I would give every woman in a large organisation. Do not rely on being told the seat is yours. I have watched women trust that promise for years, only to see the role handed to someone who arrived by a different route. Keep building a network inside your company and far beyond it, so that whatever happens, you still hold options.<\/p>\n

You can do it! \ud83d\ude4b\u200d\u2640\ufe0f\ud83d\udcaa<\/p>\n

Mareike<\/p>\n

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\"linkedin\"\u200b<\/a>\"instagram\"\u200b<\/a>\"facebook\"\u200b<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello Reader, I have worked both in a start-up and in big pharma. The route to promotion in each is almost nothing like the other, and almost nobody tells you that before you pick. In a start-up, title comes up more easily but teams don\u2019t. 1) People assume a small company is the fast lane into leadership, and in one sense it is. A start-up can hand you a better title and a higher salary if it decides to do so, because often the HR processes are less well established. Negotiate well when you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":208956653,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1397],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t