Helen Giza
| Helen Giza | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1968 Church Village, Wales |
| Nationality | British, American |
| Education | Chartered Accountant qualification (United Kingdom); Master of Business Administration, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University |
| Occupation | Business executive |
| Employer | Fresenius Medical Care AG |
| Title | Chief Executive Officer (Chairperson of the Management Board) |
| Known for | Leading the transformation of Fresenius Medical Care into a segment-based operating model |
Helen Giza (born 1968 in Church Village, Wales) is a British-American business executive. Since December 2022 she has served as chief executive officer, formally the chairperson of the management board, of Fresenius Medical Care AG, a German dialysis and healthcare company.
Giza built her career in corporate finance across the automotive, pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. She joined the management board of Fresenius Medical Care as chief financial officer in 2019 and was elected to the company's top role three years later.
Early life and education
Giza grew up in a small town in Wales. She trained and qualified as a chartered accountant in the United Kingdom, then earned a Master of Business Administration in the United States at the Kellogg School of Management, part of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
Giza is married and has one son.
Career
Early finance roles, 1991 to 1999
Giza began her career in 1991 as a cost accountant in the automotive division of the American conglomerate ITT Inc. In 1996 she moved to the automotive supplier Dana Incorporated, where she took charge of the finance department.
Abbott Laboratories and TAP Pharmaceutical Products, 1999 to 2008
In 1999 Giza moved into the pharmaceutical industry, joining Abbott Laboratories. She worked in her early years there as a finance manager in manufacturing, then held responsibility for controlling in the Asia-Pacific region from 2003 to 2004. In 2004 she moved into controlling at TAP Pharmaceutical Products, a joint venture between Abbott and the Japanese company Takeda. She served as Vice President and Division Controller there from 2005 to 2008.
Takeda, 2008 to 2019
When the TAP joint venture ended in 2008, Giza moved to Takeda, the venture's Japanese parent company, where she became chief financial officer for its United States business. From 2018 to 2019 she served as Chief Integration and Divestiture Management Officer, responsible for integrating Shire, the pharmaceutical company Takeda had acquired.
Chief Financial Officer at Fresenius Medical Care, 2019 to 2022
Giza joined the management board of Fresenius Medical Care in November 2019 as chief financial officer. In November 2021 she additionally took on the newly created role of Chief Transformation Officer, leading the company's transformation process.
Chief Executive Officer, since December 2022
In December 2022 the supervisory board unanimously elected Giza chairperson of the management board, the company's chief executive role. She continued to serve concurrently as chief financial officer until September 2023.
Following the transformation process she had prepared, Fresenius Medical Care introduced a new operating model on 1 January 2023 that replaced its regional structure with two global segments: a product business and a healthcare services business. At an extraordinary shareholder meeting in July 2023, shareholders approved changing the company's legal form from a partnership limited by shares to a German public limited company, a change completed on 30 November 2023.
In March 2023, Giza was inducted into the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council.
Her appointment to the management board runs until May 2027.
Assessment
Giza's path to the top of Fresenius Medical Care ran through finance rather than operations: two decades of controller and chief financial officer roles across four companies preceded her appointment as chief executive. Her elevation was not a sudden promotion but the execution of her own plan, since she had already designed the transformation programme, including the shift to a segment-based operating model and the change in corporate legal form, before the supervisory board asked her to implement it as chief executive. That the board's vote was unanimous suggests strong internal confidence in her. Available sourcing does not include external assessment of the operating and legal-form changes' results or any recorded criticism of her leadership, so this article cannot weigh her tenure's outcomes, only the mandate and record of decisions behind it. Her selection to the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council in March 2023 reflects some external recognition of her profile as a chief executive.