The 2020 Ellerin Award goes to....Stephane Bancel, CEO of Moderna

Each November it’s a thrill to present the Ellerin Alumni Achievement Award for the HBS Healthcare Alumni Association, an organization I founded in 2009. This year was particularly meaningful since it’s 2020, we’re in a pandemic, and our winner is one of the most important players in solving this crisis: Stephane Bancel, MBA ‘00, CEO of Moderna. We did it all via Zoom (of course) but it was still a great discussion. Here’s my introduction:

When I first entered the healthcare world, I learned the term Early Adopter. I think that represents this year’s honoree well.

We started this association in 1999, Stephane Bancel was still at HBS about to graduate in 2000. In fact he joined Eli Lilly and was sent to England and then Belgium as Managing Director. But he came back to HBS for our conference. I remember meeting him in 2002 – he was talking about biotech. I didn’t even know what biotech was, but Stephane stood out. And he kept coming back to our annual conference.

We spoke over the summer and I asked him why he was so interested in life sciences. He told me he loves genetics – he professed to be bad at biology but liked chemistry – he holds a Master of Science in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota. His passion for this space led to a pivotal decision upon graduation from HBS in 2000. He had to pick between the exploding tech sector and life sciences. In his words: “I’m a contrarian and don’t want to go where everyone else is going. There were not many HBS grads going into the space so decided to stay there. “

After Eli Lilly, he went on to serve for five years as CEO of the French diagnostics company bioMérieux. In 2011, he became an entrepreneur and co-founded Moderna where he has been since. Well no company has been more in the news this past year than Moderna. As Stephane said to me: “The more pressure you put on me, the more focused I am. Everything else is noise. Above all, impact motivates me.”

I want each of you to think about the day you found out you got into HBS. How proud you were – how excited that you’d be part of this esteemed group with the incredible alumni network – how impressive and important it was. Now think about today and that one of our own is at the forefront of history, leading a company that is addressing the deadliest pandemic of our time. C’est incroyable. Merci, Stephane

It is my privilege and honor to present you  with the 2020 HBS Healthcare Achievement Award.