S2E9 | From Ethics and Compliance Warrior to Sustainability Evangelist: AstraZeneca’s Jim Massey Keeps the Focus on People

What You’ll Learn on This Episode

On this episode of the Principled podcast, host Ben DiPietro, editor of LRN’s E&C Pulse newsletter, interviews Jim Massey, vice president of sustainability at AstraZeneca. Massey is leading his compliance colleagues to expand their role to global sustainability, which has allowed them to get more time during meetings to address larger issues, such as access to healthcare.

Conversations that focus on the “why” behind company values and direction, as well as keeping communications simple and easily translatable across the multinational company have supported E&C buy-in at all levels. AstraZeneca is focusing on improving diversity and inclusion by encouraging employees to speak up, and by treating each person as an individual. 

[0:50] How did he come to oversee sustainability and compliance at AstraZeneca? 
[2:06] What are some of the challenges he’s faced in integrating ethics and compliance with sustainability and social issue awareness? How did he overcome these challenges? 
[4:02] Now that he’s gone through the process of melding together ethics and compliance and sustainability, what were the outcomes? 
[5:30] Are there still times when ethics and compliance must be separated from sustainability? 
[6:33] Does he get pushback from colleagues that are on a different adoption curve than he is? 
[7:28] How can E&C lay the groundwork for better relationships with other business units? Are other business units now more willing to embrace E&C than in the past? 
[8:40] How can training and messaging be more effective to get higher levels of support and buy-in from employees, business units, management, and the board? 
[11:39] How is AstraZeneca working toward diversity and inclusion, and what can other organizations do to improve in this area? 
[14:32] What are two issues Massey sees as being dominant for ethics and compliance departments in the next five to 10 years? The next 25 years? 

Find this episode of Principled on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Podyssey, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.