Biotech CEO Sisterhood Fills ‘Unmet Need’ for Fellowship Among Women Leaders

Women and allies dressed in pink gathered in Union Square at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in January as a show of support for greater leadership representation in biopharma.

Women and allies dressed in pink gathered in Union Square at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in January as a show of support for greater leadership representation in biopharma. The meetup was organized by the Biotech CEO Sisterhood and Breaking 7%.

@JessFoto

At the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, the Biotech CEO Sisterhood assembled in Union Square to showcase the large group of women and allies in biopharma as their authentic selves.

Word spread across the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference: On Tuesday, we wear pink. Women set out their blazers and pantsuits for the day in shades of magenta and fuchsia. Men rushed to the nearby Macy’s to pick up scarves or undershirts to match the trend.

On the day, hundreds of women biotech executives and their allies gathered in Union Square for a photo in the sunshine to declare what the Biotech CEO Sisterhood has long been saying: Women belong in biopharma. The informal event, planned as executives hustled between meetings in San Francisco, was an effort to show the power of community, highlight the need for continued leadership representation and promote access to opportunities for women.

When Biotech CEO Sisterhood co-founder Julia Owens entered the industry, she remembers having to downplay her true self. She didn’t wear pink; she tried to blend into the blue-gray suits of her male peers, especially to an event like J.P. Morgan.

“We were all square pegs trying to be forced into a circle,” Owens said in an interview on the sidelines of the conference’s 2025 edition. “We had to wear black pantsuits the first time we came to J.P. Morgan, and God forbid you talk about your kids.”

Thanks to women like Owens and her fellow Sister and biotech executive Sheila Gujrathi, women now face an easier path and are being encouraged to “be their authentic self,” according to Owens.

“Women can have highly fulfilling careers and have highly fulfilling lives, and those can intersect,” Owens said.

The Biotech CEO Sisterhood has been around since 2022, when a group of women began getting together to talk about ways to advance their leadership in biopharma. Towards the end of 2024, the group took a giant leap toward formalizing, launching a brand, an official LinkedIn presence and series of interviews with BiotechTV.

“The whole Sisterhood kind of evolved organically” Owens explains. “It was never with this vision to start a movement or start a large organization. It was three of us saying, hey, we want a little more of a community and a little more support in what’s a really, really hard job.

“But after that,” she continued, “really the momentum started building. The snowball started growing.”

Just like in biopharma, Gujrathi said, “we really tapped upon the unmet need in our industry”—in this case, a need for support for women leaders in biotech.

While the Biotech CEO Sisterhood is tailored mostly to high-level executive positions like CEOs or board members, Gujrathi said other leaders in the industry are organizing too, from CFOs to investors to bankers and more.

“We want to create more unity in our industry and show that this is a place where any innovator, regardless of their background, can thrive and be successful,” Gujrathi said.

This time around, even the J.P. Morgan organization took notice, Owens said, with the conference organizer sending out a reminder for the Tuesday photo op. There was also a series of panels at the conference on women’s leadership and women’s health. To be clear, there still aren’t enough women in leadership roles in the industry, Owens said, but this time around “feels different.”

Besides making themselves known at events like JPM, the Sisterhood has a list of potential leaders that they share with colleagues who ask for it. They also have a lively chat group where they discuss the news of the day, including celebrating the achievements of women in the industry.

On the opening day of JPM, Owens said a big topic was Johnson & Johnson’s acquisition of Intra-Cellular, a woman-front biotech, for $14.6 billion. Owens said CEO Sharon Mates is a “rock star,” yet the acquisition was largely covered in the media with pictures of J&J’s CEO Joaquin Duato. This is common, according to Gujrathi. “We’re not asking for any favors here,” she said. “We’re asking for people’s hard work and their brilliance to be recognized, acknowledged and celebrated.”

Unfortunately, the number of women in CEO roles appears to be declining, according to a study from Bedford Research released in November 2024. The firm found that just 18.3% of named executive officers identified as female in 2023 compared to 20.1% in 2022.

Owens and Gujrathi both hold multiple board seats and encourage other women to apply for similar roles even if they feel like they don’t check every box on the list of requirements. “Our community is helping provide the confidence and the encouragement for a lot of women to step up,” Owens said.

“They do that also because of the Sisterhood, because they know we have their back, and that’s transformative,” Gujrathi said. “We’re just one part of this whole puzzle, but I do think this has been a big step forward, because people now know that they can ask for help.”

The Sisterhood also provides guidance to CEOs at any stage, with a focus on sponsorship over mentorship—the latter being something that can happen every day. Sponsorship takes it a step further, by proactively taking a person you know who is ready for the next level and putting them up for opportunities.

At the same time, leaders like Owens and Gujrathi are using the same network to thrive in their own careers to ensure more and more opportunities for diverse leadership are created.

“This is true for the CEO, but we want to get that to be true for the CXO, whatever role that is, and then for the next generation,” Gujrathi said.

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