Making a dent in medical, corporate worlds

Dr. Beaver Tamesis

He admits he was scared when, more than four years ago, he was propelled to the top post at the Philippine unit of one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies, Merck Sharpe and Dohme or MSD.

Dr. Beaver Tamesis, an internist and cardiologist who was then the medical director at the company, recalls that, at that time, he even wondered if he was really up to the job that entailed running the business of this global pharmaceutical giant in the Philippines and leading its about 300-man workforce.

But those doubts were just momentary.

It took Tamesis—the first Filipino managing director of MSD Philippines since it opened shop in the country in the 1960s—no time to figure out how to go about those corporate tasks without giving up his medical practice, which was and still is very important to him.

The company’s performance in the past few years and its strong organization are proof that he has been faring well in the corporate world.

“To tackle the big problem, I had to break it into chunks, into bite sizes that I could chew,” he says.

He also makes sure he has a solid leadership team composed of competent people who are aligned to the company’s targets and purpose.

Trusting the competence of these people and recognizing his own limitations, accepting that there are things that can be better done by others, are Tamesis’ formulae for ensuring an effective leadership and management of the company.

Leadership team

The 10-member MSD leadership team is composed of people from different fields, many from outside the pharmaceutical arena, with diverse skills and are veterans in their respective fields, he says.

“What’s good is that I have a mix of people with different expertise. I have to trust their competence. What I do is further harness their skills for the good of the entire organization and make sure we are all in this together,” Tamesis says.

Simply put, his strategy is to bring together these people’s diverse skills, harness them, make sure there is synergy and celebrate their respective successes, as they celebrate the success of the company.

“There should be no professional jealousy. Because they are all seasoned in their respective fields, they all have their own successes that we all celebrate.”

Although it is nearly impossible for members of the team to be physically together every day as their jobs take most of them to the fields, they keep in touch most of the time through messaging apps, thanks to social media and the advancements in communication technology.

“We talk to each other all the time about the goings on in the company and the industry, about issues and concerns, about day-to-day successes wherever we all are,” Tamesis says.

Once a month, the 10-member leadership team holds breakfast sessions for regular updates, which are informal, and two big serious meetings a year to talk about the company’s performance, directions and programs.

Homegrown talents

Tamesis’ appointment as managing director of MSD Philippines and his performance proved that Filipinos can lead a multinational company as big as MSD, and opens the opportunity for other homegrown talents to lead the company.

Thus, Tamesis’ team is relentless in developing the people. “Once they join the company, they are fully supported. We help them develop critical thinking, out-of-the-box decision making and keep them aligned to the mission, vision and targets of the company.”

“We continuously challenge each other while being supportive. Members of the leadership team are role models in the company. We behave the way we want our people to behave,” he adds.

The team is constantly on the look out for talents within the organization. Most people are moved to different roles to identify and enhance their potentials.

Tamesis served as the company’s medical director for 19 years, before he was named managing director of the company, a position occupied by expatriates until his appointment.

“My successor will also likely come from the team. She has been with the company since 1995 and I am putting her now in different roles to help her develop a particular skill set and let her experience those that she has not experienced before,” he says.

Members of the leadership team are also recruited from within. Two of the existing members rose from the ranks, one is a former medical sales rep.

Even with a very tight schedule (on top of his day job at MSD, Tamesis keeps his medical practice and holds private clinic at the Medical City three times a week), he squeezes in a monthly kapihan time with the guys in the field, the sales reps, not only to get feedback from the ground and clarify some things with them but also to scout for talents to nurture and enhance.

Brief pause

From time to time, members of the leadership team step back and pause to reflect on things, he says.

“We are so busy all the time so we have to step back at least once a year. We need that time and space to really see what have been done and determine what to do next together as a group,” he says.

For this, Tamesis got himself and the team an executive coach. “He helps me hone my skills especially in dealing with people and in how I communicate. We tap him to build the team, to ensure openness among our members.”

Such a pause becomes crucial, especially at this time when the business environment has become more complex, he says. “Today, it is not only about sales and marketing. Now we have to deal with a lot of things, a number of agencies, issues affecting the industry and others. Aside from the DOH (Department of Health) and the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), there’s also the PCC (The Philippine Competition Commission). The industry and the environment have become so dynamic and complex.”

What further compounded the complex situation is the issue of Dengvaxia which he says, without discussing the specific issue, eroded the confidence of the public in vaccination which took concerned parties a very long time to build.

Pet projects

Tamesis and the entire organization are passionate about vaccination, the company’s top priority in the Philippines.

“There are two things in the world that matter most in ensuring the health of the people— clean water, for without it there will be outbreaks of water-borne diseases, and vaccines,” he says.

“Vaccines save lives. That’s why we are so concerned why people refuse and are so afraid of vaccines. Some diseases causing deaths of children or permanent disabilities such as measles are preventable through vaccines.”

Others on the priority list are cancer, diabetes and hypertension treatments. Unique to the Philippines is MSD’s pet project, contraception.

All these are also his personal priorities even prior to joining MSD making the company and the doctor a perfect fit.

Tamesis says there is resistance to vaccination because of lack of knowledge or miseducation about vaccines. But the hands of pharmaceutical companies are tied as they cannot advertise an all-out campaign to push their products for they are deemed “ethical products,” meaning they can be bought and sold only with doctor’s prescription. The same is true with its contraceptive product, which is implanted in women’s arms, its drugs for cancer, hypertension and diabetes.

MSD undertakes its own educational campaigns with the help of other stakeholders—particularly local health officials and local government units, parent-teacher associations, the medical community and other community-based organizations. With 45 percent of live births in the Philippines attended by properly trained midwives, the company taps them to ensure that the babies they deliver are given vaccines by referring the mothers to pediatricians and, with proper training, to do the implanting of MSD’s contraceptive.

The team’s efforts have been paying off. The rate of acceptance for vaccines has been increasing.

Separate roles

For many years now, Tamesis has been wearing two hats—that of a corporate executive and a medical practitioner. But he never mixes the two. He doesn’t discuss patients’ case or talk to patients when in the office and never talks about company affairs in his clinic. “My patients don’t even know I am working in the company,” he says.

Now on his fourth year as managing director of MSD and at the age of 59, talk about retirement can’t be avoided. When that time comes, he says, he will focus more on his private practice, continue his advocacy and have more “me time.”