EXECUTIVE ADVISORY
Experience shaped through action.
An international career spanning business leadership, innovation and organizational transformation,
across global, regional and local roles.
SRATEGIC ALIGNMENT— SOLVAY
Clarifying a strategic ambition
Solvay wanted to turn a broad DE&I ambition into a clearer strategic direction that leaders could communicate and act on.
Marianne structured the narrative and roadmap, sharpened priorities and choices, and created a more coherent basis for leadership alignment and next-step decisions.
“Marianne helped us turn a broad and dispersed DE&I ambition into a clear strategic narrative and actionable roadmap. Her combination of strategic structure, constructive challenge and pragmatic prioritisation enabled leadership to align on the choices, messages and next steps needed to move forward.”
Laurence Cornet — Global Head of Talent and Culture, Solvay
ORGANISATIONAL COHERENCE — DSM FIRMENICH
Connecting global people priorities
Several connected global people priorities—including employee-resource-group strategy, hybrid ways of working and the social dimensions of sustainability and CSRD—needed greater coherence.
Marianne advised on direction, governance and connections across the initiatives, creating a clearer basis for prioritisation and decision-making.
“Marianne helped bring structure and coherence to several interconnected people priorities spanning employee resource groups, hybrid working and the social dimensions of sustainability. Her global perspective and pragmatic guidance clarified governance, decision points and the links between initiatives.”
Véronique Baulet — Global Head of Culture, Inclusion & Belonging and Leadership, dsm-firmenich
GLOBAL ORGANISATIONAL TRANSFORMATION — UCB
From global ambition to embedded change.
As Global Head of DE&I at UCB, I partnered with Executive Committee members and senior leaders to translate a global ambition into governance, shared priorities, indicators and global-to-local action. The multi-year journey engaged more than 30% of the workforce through networks, councils, champions and facilitators.
“I’ve been witnessing Marianne inspiring leadership style to mobilize the organization and empower multiple communities such as Employee Resources Groups (ERGs), local DE&I Councils and Business Champions."
Prof. Dr. Iris Loew-Friedrich, former Executive Vice President, Head of Development & Chief Medical Officer and Member of the Executive Committee, UCB
Read Iris’s full recommendation +
I have been working with Marianne Fraiture in her capacity as UCB’s Global Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I). She impressed me with her passion for the topic and the thoroughness of her approach to implementation. Her vision of DE&I has been reflective of the state-of-the-art knowledge and best practices. Her approach to DE&I has been very systematic: Marianne started with the development of a global DE&I Strategy, enhanced with strong input from diverse groups of outside leaders and internal colleagues. As DE&I touches so many aspects, she meticulously prepared bite-size modules of the strategy with detailed implementation plans, recognizing that the real quality of any strategy is proven by the solidity and success of its implementation plan. She worked closely with the Corporate Sustainability Team in UCB ensuring DE&I is an integral part of our sustainable business approach.
I’ve been witnessing her inspiring leadership style to mobilize the organization and empower multiple communities such as Employee Resources Groups (ERGs), local DE&I Councils and Business Champions. This led to the massive expansion of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), with 8 global ERGs representing more than 30% of UCB colleagues, 9 local DE&I Councils in key affiliates; where engaged colleagues tailor the implementation of the global strategy to local needs. She ensured that DE&I Business Champions are driving focused action plans in each business unit. All these communities are strongly engaged, have clear objectives, and managed through lively exchanges and highly visible annual summits.
Marianne has paid particular attention to the leaders in the company, acknowledging their important role in driving inclusiveness. Over two years, every leadership team in UCB has received a structured learning journey, fostering bias mitigation and the building of more inclusive habits. This has resulted in a level of consistency that is remarkable, building a common language within UCB, and has measurably impacted our culture.
Marianne initiated and operationalized most of the activities on her own, and later set-up a DE&I CoE, with a small team of DE&I experts. She has clearly evolved into a leader in the space of DE&I, well connected with her peers across different industries. Her passion and deep commitment have made all the difference and have illustrated how a dedicated individual can drive organization-wide movement, change and transform.
INNOVATION DELIVERY — UCB
From opportunity scouting to new ventures.
At UCB, I designed the scouting and triage system used to assess more than 150 opportunities and led Hack Epilepsy end to end. It generated 18 solutions, including three start-ups and one internal solution, and won the EyeForPharma Customer Innovator Award, Barcelona 2016.
“Throughout all of these initiatives, Marianne demonstrated a unique ability to connect strategy, people and execution, build alignment across stakeholders and turn ambitious ideas into tangible impact.”
Erik Janssen — VP and Head of Digital Care Transformation, UCB
Read Erik’s full recommendation +
Over the many years we worked together at UCB, Marianne consistently combined strategic thinking, entrepreneurial drive and exceptional execution. She played a pivotal role in shaping UCB’s early approach to innovation, always bringing an energetic, hands-on and purpose-driven mindset to the challenges we faced.
Among her most impactful contributions was leading the groundbreaking HOPE ethnographic research study, which helped us deeply understand what it truly means to live with epilepsy and brought the patient perspective to the center of our innovation efforts. Building on those insights, she helped pioneer Hack Epilepsy, the first dual-city hackathon between Brussels and Atlanta, successfully mobilizing patients, experts, partners and internal teams around new solutions for unmet needs in epilepsy care.
Marianne also established and scaled a digital opportunity scouting and triage engine that screened hundreds of companies and evolved into a valuable knowledge hub for the organization. In parallel, she led the development of an unprecedented strategy for Keppra after loss of exclusivity, balancing commercial performance with patient value creation in a way that set a new benchmark internally.
Throughout all of these initiatives, Marianne demonstrated a unique ability to connect strategy, people and execution, build alignment across stakeholders and turn ambitious ideas into tangible impact. Several of the foundations of how UCB innovates today can be traced back to her leadership and contributions during those formative years.
BUSINESS PERFORMANCE — PFIZER
From regional strategy to market performance.
As Senior Regional Marketing Director at Pfizer, I led Champix and Spiriva across 60 Emerging Markets. I unified cross-market approaches, aligned country teams around shared brand plans, established the Champix Area Commercial Team, and managed strategy, market access, P&L and resources to drive growth and performance.
“Marianne combined strategic clarity and commercial insight with disciplined, hands-on execution. She aligned diverse country teams around shared priorities, translated regional strategy into practical action, and managed P&L and resource allocation with a strong business focus. She also fostered a culture of trust, collaboration and accountability”
Ebru Dogruol, VP Transformation Lead, Pfizer.
BUSINESS PERFORMANCE — PFIZER
From regional strategy to market performance.
As Portfolio Manager, I led an established-products portfolio representing one-third of Belgium’s $90 million Open Care revenue. Through focused portfolio and brand strategies, the portfolio remained profitable despite reduced resources, with erosion limited to 2–5%.
“Facing continued portfolio erosion, team downsizing and limited resources, Marianne refocused Established Brands priorities and kept erosion below projected levels. She combined an innovative, growth-oriented mindset with self-discipline and a strong commitment to performance and measurable impact.”
Véronique Gobiet, former Customer Facing Lead & Hospital Business Manager