ZSOLT LAVOTHA'S CAPSTONE: BACK AT THE HELM

THE COMPASSIONATE CAPITALISM CAPSTONE

We spoke with Zsolt Lavotha, the Hungarian-born pharmaceuticals executive best-known for running numerous multibillion-dollar companies across four decades in healthcare. Zsolt returned back to day-to-day management as acting-CEO of Swedish Biomimetics 3000 ApS (SB3000). Biomimetics literally means ‘imitation of the living’ and best described as taking solutions from nature and applying them to human engineering to solve real world problems. The most notable examples being the design of the front of a Japanese bullet train based on a kingfisher’s bill, armadillo-based backpacks, stiletto shoes based on bird bone structures and swimming suits inspired by sharks. SB3000 was founded by Lars Uno Larsson, Zsolt’s long term friend and pioneer in green, continuous manufacturing of pharmaceutical products.

SP: So Zsolt let’s start with your life in Monaco?

Zsolt: I’ve been living in Monaco for 17 years with my wife Celina. She and I met and lived in New York years ago, before settling in the Principality. This is a safe and very convenient place to live. Pre-pandemic I would fly most weeks and it’s easy to get direct flights to so many places. Monaco also has a great restaurant and wine scene- two of my biggest passions.

SP: Let’s go back to what we call the cornerstone phase of a career. Growing up and some of the defining moments in the getting you to where you are today… tell us more about your early years…

Zsolt: My family fled to freedom from a communist regime in the country of my birth when I was young. I saw first-hand the reality of a situation can be very different to how something is portrayed in mainstream media. I have always felt slightly like a ‘maverick’ since. What you see is what you get. We first moved to Finland and then I was educated in Sweden. I was studying biomedicine, mathematics, and chemistry for my degree. One day Pfizer came to our University on a recruitment drive. Despite not really knowing what it entailed, I liked the idea of working for a big pharma company and my degree naturally suited the industry. Shortly after starting at Pfizer my boss asked me what my ambition was. I was 23, young and cocky and so I said “your position”. A few years later it happened! I knew I didn’t want to be a pharma employee isolated in a research lab, I wanted to be interacting with people, so I pushed hard to climb the ranks quickly. By the time I was 31 years old I became General Manager of that pharmaceutical company in Sweden.

SP: Next we say is your keystone phase, we consider this the time you make your mark, the ‘middle age’ where you make a dent in the world, create and achieve success.

Zsolt: I was very lucky in that I had a run of successful business wins. At aged 34 I was invited by the company to the US to head up Pfizer’s Advanced Cardiovascular Management team as its Chairman, building the franchise to $8bn+ sales a year globally. In US, while hierarchy is the norm, they do accept a bold and a direct management style and my contrarian and not so diplomatic personality was allowed to thrive. Later, I became the President of a multi-billion-dollar pharma business aged 42 and was also given the responsibility to co-lead a $15B+ acquisition and consequent merger of the two companies. Usually there are doubling up of resources therefore layoffs however I was determined to not lose talent. I was intent on retaining the best from each camp, and stand up for what I believed in.

In 1998 aged 48 I wanted to try something more challenging in my career and became an entrepreneur building pharma startups. First in the US, and then back here in Europe. I built a company from a small academic team into a publicly listed company. We grew the market cap from €10mill in 2003 to reaching about €200m in 2007. These were hugely exciting times. The most rewarding thing was to build and lead a small loyal team and sharing in the success.

I would say that at this point I moved to a ‘portfolio career’, advising numerous companies, being part of Executive Boards etc. I was a founding member of the Monaco Private Equity Association (MVCA), run it as its Chairman and President 2011-2015 and also sat for 3 years on the the Monaco Government Strategic Advisory Board (CSA).

SP: So onto our focus, the Capstone phase. We like to look at what someone does after they’ve made their money and fulfilled many ambitions already in life. What did you do next?

Zsolt: I used to enjoy being a bit of an ‘intrapreneur’ within big corporations to drive change but once I moved to a more advisory role, I felt frustrated not being responsible for ‘doing the doing’. I realised my passion within a leadership role is the building and implementing. As an advisor I could create a propose and a strategy that someone else didn’t necessarily have to follow or accept whereas when you are CEO, you can get on with the implementation of your will and it is your responsibility. I realised I also wanted to make a larger contribution to societies, part of a business that would cause a ripple effect- from sharing success with employees to building meaningful products that could disrupt the status quo for positive change…sharing in the success, enriching employees both financially and in terms of their quality of life. I called it Compassionate Capitalism. I believe in the true meaning of sharing success, and not to fall into the trap of greediness, something too many are lured into in business. So, it was time to get back at the helm, so to speak, in order to do more good.

SP: What is driving your passion?

Zsolt: I had met the visionary founder of SB3000, Swedish entrepreneur and highly decorated pioneer of biomimetics Lars Uno Larsson thirty years ago. We talked then about how biomimetics could make an impact on every industrial sector and people’s daily lives… that conversation had always stuck in my mind. My Capstone has been to reconnect and support Lars Uno to turn his vision into reality, something that could also benefit millions of people around the world. With so many companies creating generic mission statements, talking about impact but really only paying lip service to ‘doing good’, others like Lars Uno really do want to action change. So I have been advising Lars Uno since 2015 and the moment came for me in 2020 to step in as acting CEO, back to an operational role, albeit probably just temporarily. My focus is on the SB300 ApS entity which is the manufacturing enabling technology. Lars Uno and I share the same vision. The potential of SB3000 to have an enormous ripple effect is hugely exciting.

SP: So you have come full circle back to running a company day-to-day but with the clear purpose of compassionate capitalism?

Zsolt: The global pandemic has taught all nations that they need more control and capabilities over their health solutions. Countries need to be able to manufacture medicines faster and independently. Pharma manufacturing has been the same for ages. There is no flexibility. It’s inefficient, expensive and can be very dirty, not to mention environmentally damaging. We want to move to a different technology and process, inspired by nature and that allows localised and green manufacturing. The vision is for the world to be able to respond to a future possible pandemic much more quickly and very differently. This will have a dramatic impact on the independence of countries to produce medicines locally for their people. In this role I get to potentially make a direct impact, which can in turn cause large ripple effects. Compassionate Capitalism is about making sure as a business you don’t just have stupid mission statements that mean nothing but empty words. As a business you want coherent actions that are making the world a better place to live for all, and sharing our success (both financial and beyond) with our own employees and the society we operate in.

SP: Why do people undertake Capstones?

Zsolt: Capstones are for those that “do the walk’’ not just ‘talk’. So now it’s a case of making it happen…Whilst I have come full circle back to enjoying my leadership role, I think the world has also come full circle in realising the power and importance of nature. We can find many more solutions from biomimetics that future generations will benefit from. I want to continue to work with friends that inspire me on projects that have real purpose...I like hands on building things but with the potential to create true lasting positive change.

More details about SB3000 can be found here: https://sb3000.tech/

FOR MORE ON LARS UNO LARSSON’S BIOMIMETIC CAPSTONE PLEASE CLICK HERE