Marcia Philbin

I joined the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine (FPM) in June 2019 and with energy, enthusiasm and positivity steered FPM through the global COVID-19 pandemic to sustain and grow its turnover from £1.6M to £2M, grew staff from 11 to 16 and transformed FPM into a modern, goal-oriented and aspiring professional society for 1600 doctors which holds the values of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity at its core. I introduced a modern, management structure to FPM, levelling out traditional management hierarchies to transform FPM into an agile institution.

I led on income generation which was a first for FPM: £72,300 towards digital transformation, £10,000 for a workshop on addressing causes of COVID-19 and £145k for development of new eLearning programme on respiratory disease. In 2020, I introduced and developed a new training programme to support our Diploma in Pharmaceutical Medicine examinations; this generated £35k in 2020 which grew to £184k in 2023 and by May 2024, income was £186k. I introduced the Physician and Scientist Induction programme which has generated £150k since 2022. For a small charity, these are hugely significant sums.

I was awarded £10k grant funding from Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in 2021 to spearhead the Women in Pharmaceutical Medicine project to explore potential barriers which may hinder women in their careers and presented the findings to the RSC’s Inclusion and Diversity Forum in 2023.

For EDI, in 2024, 2/6 of our committees were chaired by Black and Minority Ethnic members, compared to 0/5 in 2019. For the first time, FPM has an ethnically diverse all-female Chief Executive, President and Vice-President. Crucially, membership retention rates remain stable at a fantastic 95% (1600 members).

Externally, I provide collaborative thought leadership, e.g. participated in podcasts such as Association Transformation, Behind the Curtain, the Belonging series for Imperial College London; undertaken round table discussion with Race in Stem to address diversity in science, written for the National Health Executive on equitable health outcomes , delivered the MacLaren Memorial Lecture 2023 and delivered guest lectures to Bayes Business School. In addition, I am the Chair of the Management Interest Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry .

A key achievement which is close to my heart is being a champion for young adults at risk of unemployment by bringing in two Kickstart employees in 2020 following the pandemic (one of whom is now permanently employed with FPM) and creating our internship scheme “FPM Develop”. Through this, FPM has a goal to support the professional development of young people embarking on their careers, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. As Chair of the RSC Management Group, I won funding to deliver a new programme which I devised called “Shifting your mindset” for early career chemists from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to build their confidence.

In 2022 I won the Highly Commended CEO Leadership Award by Memcom and in 2023 was recognised by Aston University in Birmingham with an honorary doctorate in science to accompany my degree and PhD in Chemistry.