Harnessing the Power of Generative AI for Innovation and Agility

Nick Eshkenazi, Chief Digital & Transformation Officer at Astellas Pharma

Nick Eshkenazi, Chief Digital & Transformation Officer at Astellas Pharma

Nick Eshkenazi is an award-winning, globally recognized leader in digital technology and business transformation, with a remarkable 30-year career at the forefront of innovation. Over the past two decades, he has held top executive roles—CDTO, CDO, CIO and CTO—partnering with multinational organizations to design and execute transformational strategies that deliver tangible results. Nick’s ability to lead global teams and navigate complex, high-stakes initiatives has cemented his reputation as one of the most sought-after minds in the industry.

As a natural innovator and exponential thinker, he bridges the gap between business and technology, translating bold ideas into pragmatic, actionable strategies. What sets Nick apart is his rare blend of technical expertise, strategic vision and human-centered leadership. His common-sense approach to transformation and his commitment to lifelong learning inspire confidence among stakeholders at every level, fostering collaboration and driving success.

Recognizing Nick Eshkenazi’s visionary leadership and transformative contributions to digital technology and business transformation, this exclusive interview explores his invaluable insights into leveraging technology and data as strategic enablers.

At a Glance:

● Spearheading the adoption of Copilot for Bing and in-house large language models (LLMs) to enhance productivity, streamline processes and empower R&D initiatives.

● Transitioning to an agile operating model with rapid iteration, continuous feedback and cross-functional collaboration to enable faster decision-making and market responsiveness.

● Launching technology bootcamps to equip employees with AI-driven tools and foster a culture of continuous learning and innovation.

Catalyst for Change: Generative AI

Creating whitespace for our employees is crucial to fostering a healthy work environment and enabling innovation. To support this, we have adopted Copilot for Bing for all employees globally. Copilot for Bing is a generative AI-powered assistant accessible within an internet browser, designed to enhance productivity and unlock creativity by helping us seamlessly work with information on the web.

Staying competitive and ahead of the curve in adopting new technologies is essential for our productivity and transformation efforts. In recent years, productivity and efficiency have been significant challenges for our organization. By equipping our team with tools like Copilot for Bing, we empower them to focus on what truly matters. This enhancement not only helps us meet our objectives but also delivers more value to our patients.

In this role as Chief Digital & Transformation Officer, I have spearheaded the integration of generative AI technologies like Copilot for Bing at Astellas. By leveraging these advancements, we are revolutionizing our digital transformation efforts, enabling our teams to work better and faster and ultimately driving innovation within our organization.

In addition, we have adopted a myriad of in-house created large language models (LLM) across our R&D initiatives.

Agility Over Perfection

One of the most significant challenges we have encountered in our digital transformation journey is achieving organizational agility. In a rapidly evolving technological landscape, maintaining flexibility and adaptability is crucial. This agility involves adopting new technologies and ensuring our teams can quickly adjust to changes, integrate new systems and continuously improve processes.

Generative AI is empowering Astellas to enhance productivity, foster innovation and drive agility across our global teams and operations.

To address this, we had to shift our organizational culture to embrace change and foster a mindset of continuous learning and innovation. Transitioning to an agile operating model requires us to fundamentally change how we manage projects and collaborate across the organization. Agile mindset demand flexibility, rapid iteration and continuous feedback. To achieve this, we must upskill our teams, foster a mindset of continuous learning and innovation and break down silos to promote cross-functional collaboration and end-to-end ownership. Adopting agile practices will enable us to make quicker decisions and bring new initiatives to market faster, helping us stay competitive in a rapidly changing industry.

Another challenge we face is the pursuit of excellence, which can hinder our ability to react quickly. Instead, as top management, we encourage our colleagues to provide good enough solutions and always strive for a ‘kaizen’ culture—a Japanese term meaning continuous improvement—that involves constantly seeking ways to improve processes, products and services incrementally. Personally, I believe that if we can improve by 1 percent each day, we can achieve significantly better results over the course of a year and the compounded growth of a daily 1 percent improvement delivers phenomenal results over time.

Building Bootcamps for Innovation

Generative AI is still relatively new to the industry, and we are all learning as we go. However, we have already seen significant benefits from utilizing AI in our work, such as freeing up our colleagues' time to focus on their priorities. Recognizing the importance of upskilling our employees, we have launched several bootcamps that focus on various technology topics.

By implementing these training programs, we are ensuring that our workforce is well-equipped to leverage AI tools and applications. This not only enhances productivity but also fosters a culture of continuous learning and innovation. Through these efforts, we are addressing the challenges of digital transformation and empowering our teams to drive the organization forward.

Future-Ready Workforce for Digital Evolution

We envision AI playing a transformative role within the pharmaceutical sector, revolutionizing various aspects of our operations and enhancing our ability to deliver innovative solutions. At Astellas, we are committed to preparing our workforce to embrace and leverage this digital evolution effectively. Our goal is to equip everyone with the necessary skills and mindset to embrace new technologies within their areas of expertise. Whether it is researching new molecules, engaging with healthcare professionals or handling administrative tasks, our employees will be empowered to leverage AI tools and applications to streamline processes, improve decision-making and drive innovation.

Adapting to Accelerated Computing

It is important to recognize the trends that are shaping the changes around us. In its current evolution, Generative AI is setting a new industry trend and, in many ways, forming a new industry – as we shift from personal computing to accelerated computing. To capitalize on this trend, we all need to experiment, explore and evolve continuously. We need to experiment with the new solutions and tools that are becoming available daily. We also need to evolve our ways of working, our operating models and our processes to continue to harness the new technology capabilities and the potential of the new solutions.

In addition, we need to uplift the internal human capabilities across our global organizations by fostering an environment of continuous learning. This prepares all of us to be more adaptive and responsive to change.