Aradhana Sarin: The CFO as a Catalyst

While it’s definitely not considered a thankless role, chief financial officers (CFOs) aren’t often put in the spotlight. It’s one of the most important positions in any company, and everybody recognizes that. However, it’s also not often the first one singled out for praise from the industry.

That changed this year when the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) named its 2026 Woman of the Year and, for the first time ever, chose a CFO. The annual honor is presented to a member of the industry that the organization believes is a leader who has made a significant and positive impact on the industry. Clearly, it was time to recognize a key CFO for this honor.

Serving in that position at AstraZeneca, Dr. Aradhana Sarin plays a key role in one of the largest biopharma manufacturers in the world. The longtime industry leader, with experience spanning science, clinical practice and global finance, spoke with Pharmaceutical Executive about receiving this year’s HBA honor, as well as her career and leadership style.

“It feels great,” she says when asked about the honor. “I was quite surprised, but it is a great honor. It's the first CFO. It's a recognition of the business aspects that the CFO role brings and how that drives organizations as well as innovation forward.”

Sarin continues, “It's also a recognition of how far we have come as a society for women. I came from investment banking, where less than 1% of women were in senior leadership roles. Obviously, it’s much bigger in the pharma industry. We all benefit from — and future generations will benefit from — people who have done a lot of the hard work before us. I think that’s a great recognition, and it’s also a recognition that there are roles available for women outside traditional science. STEM includes math, which leads to finance. People can look at broader career paths and so forth. It's much appreciated.”

Being a Big Pharma CFO

According to Sarin, being CFO at any company has its own challenges, but things get much more complex at a company as big as AstraZeneca. She explains that, from her perspective, the biggest challenge is being at a public company with such high visibility. This requires her to consider both the long-term and short-term goals. As part of a public company, Sarin must always consider the investors, who are checking on the company daily and expecting quarterly updates. They want to make sure that the company is meeting or exceeding its quarterly guidance.

“There's a lot of pressure on achieving objectives in the short term,” she tells Pharm Exec. “At the same time, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, the cycle times are very long. The development takes about 8 to 10 years. You must also continue to invest in the longer term. In a CFO role, it’s really challenging to balance this short term and long term because you need to invest for the long term, but you also need to deliver profits and results in the shorter term. That’s the key thing.”

Being a large company also comes with its own responsibilities, Sarin points out, due to its responsibility to be a leader in the industry, not merely just a part of it.

“What I mean is that we lead from an innovation standpoint and from the tone we set,” she says. “We talked about the HBA’s award. At AstraZeneca, we have great senior representation for women, whether it's on the board or the senior executive team. So leading the industry in that respect and also leading the industry in sustainability and in transforming care. We lead in how we shape the ecosystem, whether it’s for payers, access, diagnostics and so forth.”

New stock options

In February this year, AstraZeneca began trading ordinary shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) for the first time. This move aligned the trading of AstraZeneca’s shares across the NYSE, the London Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stockholm markets. As CFO, Sarin played a key role in orchestrating this move.

“It was actually quite interesting,” she explains. “For us, it was very important for a few reasons. One is that it wasn’t just a switch from one exchange to another. That was not the objective. In the U.S., we traded on the Nasdaq, but it was actually an American depositary receipt [ADR]. Think of that as similar to an IOU against your main shares, as opposed to the share itself.

“By making this transaction, the listings on different exchanges are the same exact share. So it’s the same shares that trade in London,” she continues. “It reduces some of the friction that exists with ADRs and allows greater retail participation in the U.S. market, which is our largest market from a revenue and profitability standpoint. It’s been very well received by investors and capital markets.”

Steering M&A strategy

Prior to assuming her current role at AstraZeneca, Sarin was CFO at Alexion. In December 2020, AstraZeneca acquired Alexion, with the transaction closing in early 2021. A company focused on rare diseases, Alexion was bringing in about $6 billion in revenue at the time and had a presence in about 20 countries worldwide.

Since the acquisition, Alexion continued working in rare diseases as part of AstraZeneca. According to Sarin, the subsidiary brought in $58.7 billion in total revenue in 2025 and has grown its global presence to about 70 countries.

“The thing that the acquisition allowed us to do is use the AstraZeneca global presence to expand the access and bring those drugs that were only available in 20 countries to the rest of the world,” she says. “It allowed us to grow the revenue and profits and then invest more in research and development [R&D] overall as AstraZeneca.”

Sarin continues, “We also have about 120 different collaborations that are ongoing between AstraZeneca R&D and Alexion R&D. The acquisition brought the scientific expertise of those two companies together to further drive innovation. It’s been a great transaction not just for AstraZeneca and Alexion but for the rest of the ecosystem.”

From the clinic to business

When asked about her early life and the start of her career, Sarin explains, “I was born and brought up in Tanzania in East Africa, not long after its independence back in the 1970s. I felt like the opportunity to make an impact was substantial going into medicine, and I was always fascinated with science and so forth. I ended up in medicine, and obviously it was a long, long journey. Medical school is not short.

“I loved learning medicine, but when I started practicing, I felt that I could see only so many patients in a day, and you can impact only so many lives in a day,” she continues. “And this was the time when the HIV crisis was very extensive across East Africa. I was able to see how huge a difference medicines were making, and I thought that I could do more. That was when I decided to go to business school.”

According to Sarin, this is when the major shift in her career happened. She attended Stanford, where she earned her MBA. She says that she initially faced a steep learning curve here, since she had been so focused on medicine prior and that she hadn’t worked closely in math in about 8 years. However, Sarin discovered a love for finance, macroeconomics, microeconomics and how everything tied together.

When she went looking for her summer internship, she quickly decided that Wall Street was where she wanted to be. Here she faced a new challenge, since she was competing for jobs against people who had been entirely focused on finance, banking and consulting. This made it hard for her to compete with her medical background.

Fortunately, she found her way.

“I had come from practicing medicine, and I really loved it,” she tells Pharm Exec, “and I ended up in banking for the next 20 years. I got to see the financial services that basically underlie so much of business that happens, whether it’s raising capital to fund your business or strategic transactions that shape your business and the industry. I spent about 20 years doing health care, investment banking, a lot of M&A transactions and so forth. That’s how I moved from practicing into finance and business and then eventually left banking to join Alexion.”

Sarin, who has lived in several different countries in her lifetime, likes to refer to herself as “a global citizen.”

“I've experienced a lot of cultures. Even when I was in banking, I used to work with Japanese and European pharma companies. That experience impacts my decision-making today at AstraZeneca,” she notes. “AstraZeneca is probably one of the most global of all pharma companies. Just to give you a comparison, most of the pharma companies in the U.S. get somewhere between 65% and 75% of their revenues from one market, which is the U.S. Today, AstraZeneca has about 43% of our revenues from one market — the U.S., which will still remain and grow. It’s still very important for us. But at the same time, we also have a massive presence in China, in emerging markets, in Japan, Latin America and other regions.”

A direct form of leadership

When asked about her leadership style, Sarin thinks for a moment. Initially, she keeps the description simple and focuses on her straightforward approach to being a leader. However, as she continues to ponder, she begins to discuss her desire to allow the people reporting to her the freedom to debate ideas and be transparent about their feelings.

Sarin believes that a good leader not only allows but fosters healthy debate. People bring different ideas and points of view to the table, and the best options are usually found when everyone feels comfortable and empowered to voice their opinions.

“I encourage all my direct reports, and pretty much everyone, to challenge if they don’t agree and change people’s minds,” she tells Pharm Exec. “I'd say that’s probably one aspect of my leadership style. Also, while I do lead finance, I don’t believe or think of myself as only a finance leader. I spend probably half my time in areas other than finance, such as R&D or going to congresses. I meet with key opinion leaders. I believe one can only be really effective as a finance leader if one has a broader lens and does not look at finance as only one function. I encourage people to be broader in their perspective.”

When it comes to advising the next generation of pharma leaders, Sarin says she gives them the same advice she continues to give herself. It’s important to always continue to learn and to always have a mindset focused on growing.

“We’re seeing that happen today with all the [artificial intelligence], technology and other advancements,” she says. “Whether you are a CFO or CEO, or a first-year analyst or an entry-level associate, we all need to keep learning and enhancing our skills and toolboxes and learning about the industry and make connections. I think the real innovation and things where people like myself can be helpful is connecting the dots. I spend time with tech companies in Silicon Valley, and their business is very different from ours. But the discussions and the tools and technologies can create some interesting conversations. We’ll see something new and ask how we can apply this in areas of our business. Making those connections is what innovation is all about and what drives value forward.

“We are [a company driven] very much [by] science and innovation,” Sarin continues. “That is in the DNA of the company, and that’s where my background helps. I get very deep into all the science and so forth, and I love it.”