Rie Nakajima

Rie Nakajima joined Santen in March 2023 as Corporate Officer, Chief Operating Officer. She is enhancing Santen’s corporate value by strengthening the company’s overall strategic planning and execution capabilities. Rie oversees corporate strategy, portfolio management, new business development, and executive functions such as commercial excellence. In addition, she is responsible for the company’s strategic global operations by overseeing each regional business.

Over the last 20 years, Rie has had a wide range of experience in the automotive industry, management consulting, and the pharmaceutical industry. Especially in the pharmaceutical industry, she has managed global organizations mainly in the areas of management strategy and commercial excellence in Japan, Asia and Europe.

Rie began her career in Japan gaining a wide range of experience in sales, overseas business and production control at Toyota Motor Corporation. After joining Boston Consulting Group, she led projects for companies in a variety of industries, including the pharmaceutical sector. In 2011, she joined MSD Japan and was in charge of long-term strategy development, new business development and multi-channel marketing strategy in the corporate strategy department. After accumulating experience in sales and marketing, she was appointed Corporate Officer in charge of corporate strategy in 2016. She concurrently served as Corporate Officer in charge of supply chain in 2018 and became president of MSD Taiwan in 2019. In 2021, in conjunction with MSD’s spin-off of Organon, which focuses on gynecology, she moved to Switzerland and served as global strategy and innovation lead and has contributed to its business.

Rie holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts degree in law from the University of Tokyo.