Elena Alikhachkina, global head digital customer engagement and insights, Hoffman La Roche, Switzerland

At university I was introduced to modern marketing ideas. I became fascinated with how much technology and data could contribute to business outcomes, consumer and customer journeys and new market opportunities. Bringing together people, technology, data and my passion for insights defined my future as a digital transformation leader. 

I joined the publishing and media industry to lead the digital and data transformation in the early 2000s. We were pioneers in shaping new technology, new customer journeys and data sources. In fact, we created some new technology for behaviour / programmatic targeting, which many companies are now using. 

When smartphones, social networks and search engines started developing at full scale, many other industries started transforming. This opened up fantastic opportunities to join the healthcare and consumer goods transformations. 

The pandemic has caused such disruption to how we live, how we engage and how we communicate. It’s also brought a new focus on population health which is why I am delighted to have recently joined Roche as a global leader for digital customer experience transformation.