GSK Appoints New Chief People Officer

Roanne Parry has been appointed Chief People Officer of GSK, following the retirement of the company’s former Chief People Officer Diana Conrad. 

She joins the company from a role as Chief Human Resources Officer at CSL, which she held for more than two years. 

Commenting on the move on LinkedIn, Roanne says: “This is a very special company, driven by brilliant minds and a shared commitment to our patient-led purpose and culture.”

A GSK veteran 

This isn’t Roanne’s first time working at GSK. Before joining CSL, she spent more than 22 years with the company, joining as a Senior HR Manager for Research and Development in 2001 and holding a variety of HR leadership positions across Corporate Communications, Global Pharma and Emerging Markets. 

She left the company in 2024 as a Senior Vice President of HR to pursue a Chief People Officer role. 

On LinkedIn, she said her priority in this new role is to “connect, listen and collaborate with our incredible teams across the globe.”

“Together, we’ll build on GSK’s strong heritage, focusing on empowering our leaders and equipping people with the skills, capabilities and tools they need to deliver even better medicines and vaccines with greater outcomes for patients,” she continued. 

People leadership at GSK

Roanne replaces Diana as GSK’s people leader, following her retirement. Diana has spent a similar length of time at GSK – first joining the company in February 2000 – and has held the CHRO role since April 2019, marking seven years in the role. 

“GSK is a very special company, with its distinctive focus on people and patients, and a deep commitment to doing the right thing,” she said.

“I’m enormously proud to have been part of it. To see so much fantastic talent come in and grow at GSK. And to see the development and growth in our portfolio of medicines and vaccines, which are improving people’s and patients’ lives all around the world.”

Commenting on Roanne’s appointment, Diana said she was “delighted” to hand the role over to her, saying that GSK’s people function was “in the very best hands with Roanne.”

Product-centric operations

Roanne’s appointment comes at a time of change for GSK. In January, Luke Miels was appointed the company’s CEO following the departure of Emma Walmsley, who held the role for eight years. 

In his first few months of the CEO role, Luke has been implementing his core strategic vision for the company, sharing in an investor update that the company needs to “be more product-centric.”

This, he says, means all staff at GSK must be aligned with the company’s core goal of producing drugs that can improve patient clinical outcomes. 

He said: “When you look at the level of communication, discussions, focus time that a company spends, I want to really see that to be massively dominated by products.”

Through this approach, he hopes to reach the company’s target of generating more than US$55bn by 2030, which was a goal originally set when Luke held his former role of Chief Commercial Officer for GSK.