ByChristophe Poggioli
I didn’t begin my career in alliance management. I started in legal, where for 15 years I drafted, negotiated, and safeguarded agreements. But moving into alliance management taught me that leadership sometimes looks more like playing quarterback than being a lawyer: you absorb pressure so others can execute. You take the hits, keep the huddle calm, and make sure the ball reaches the right hands at the right time.
That shift, from contractual precision to collaborative performance, marked my own professional evolution, and also became the part of the story behind a co-commercialization I helped implement across several ex-U.S. markets.
Building a Bridge
When I joined Sanofi, I was a lawyer supporting alliances and renegotiating collaboration and licensing agreements. Later, I supported LATAM and Middle East operations, then moved to our Global Diabetes division, where the bridge between legal advice and alliance execution truly began to be built. When the alliance manager I had been supporting as a lawyer left Sanofi, I was given the opportunity to step into the role and manage the alliance myself.
A move to the U.S. followed to help manage a major co-commercialization partnership. The experience reframed my entire perspective: in an alliance context, success depends less on what’swritten and more on how people live the agreement, together, every week. On paper, co-commercialization sounds simple. In practice, it’s anything but.
Our task was to reset the partnership framework so it reflected how work actually happened: who does what, how budgets are set and tracked, and how decisions are taken. Then we had to translate that clarity into country-by-country co-promotion plans, indication mix, HCP segmentation, field force allocation, call frequency, and more.
Strength in Difference
From the outset, we honored a simple truth: different organizations bring different strengths. One partner’s scientific heritage, another’s commercialization footprint, medical excellence, or local market knowledge, all these differences can be turned into assets if you design the alliance for complementarity without implying superiority.
We mapped the commercial plan market by market: who covers which HCP segments, with what frequency, and how we would measure impact. The contract remained our compass, but we reframed debates around patient access, brand consistency, and operational feasibility. Where market reality had evolved, we documented thoughtful adjustments to keep execution aligned, protecting the guardrails while adapting the route.
To be effective in my alliance management “quarterback” role, I needed to learn a lot about marketing and sales. This helped with both internal and external collaboration.
Our Playbook and Governance
Together with our partner, we created a Co-Promotion Playbook that made expectations explicit, including:
· Joint segmentation and targeting principles
· Field force sizing and call planning
· Key message alignment and promotional review flows
· Budget governance and escalation paths
We also refocused the Joint Commercialization Committee (JCC) on global strategy and oversight and set up Country Commercialization Committees (CCCs) for local brand execution and operational excellence. Governance became leaner: fewer forums, clearer charters, defined decision rights.
The role of the CCCs was to:
· Localize the joint plan (segmentation, call models, access tactics) to fit country-specific realities.
· Keep medical, commercial, and market access aligned in real time.
· Provide feedback to the JCC and JSC, escalating issues when needed but usually solving disagreements locally whenever possible.
Achieving Alignment for Joint Value
We aligned on a compact set of joint KPIs (share of voice, adoption by specialty, access milestones, and field execution quality) and reviewed them periodically with both leadership teams. Keeping these KPIs front and center created a single language from headquarters to the field and turned governance meetings into decision forums, not reporting rituals.
At one point, we faced divergent views on commercial spend. Defending a number would have led to a deadlock. Instead, we asked: “What level of investment does this product deserve, given its clinical value and patient potential?”
Reframing the conversation around shared outcomes transformed a budget dispute into a joint decision about impact. Alignment followed, and no one lost. That moment changed the tone: we were no longer negotiating positions; we were co-designing value.
What Changed, and Why It Stuck
As we reframed issues in service of the product and creating joint value, the alliance continued to change and evolve in several ways:
· Speed: Clear decision rights and simple escalation reduced cycle time. JSC and JCC meetings became focused on strategic direction and decision making, not merely update sessions.
· Consistency: A shared playbook and unified metrics created a common language from headquarters to the field.
· Trust: Clear operating rules replaced interpretation with evidence, vital for maintaining relationship health in complex alliances.
Lessons for Alliance Leaders
What lessons have I learned in my journey from legal precision to alliance performance? Here are just a few:
· Contracts are maps; execution is the terrain.
· Co-commercialization is dynamic: use the agreement to define boundaries, then maintain agility with documented operating adjustments as markets evolve.
· Keep governance purposeful and light: fewer committees, sharper charters, and clear decision rights. Escalate by principle, not hierarchy.
· Lead with respect for different strengths: joint commercialization thrives when partners’ capabilities are complementary and seen as such.
Alliance managers shape decisions by shaping how decisions are made. Our role is to create the conditions for both companies to win, repeatedly.
My legal roots didn’t vanish when I moved into alliance management. They evolved. Fairness, clarity, and discipline still guide me, but these guiding principles are now applied to shared outcomes and execution at scale.
In co-commercialization, where two organizations share one brand voice, alliance leadership becomes the bridge between contract intent and market reality. Playing this game successfully sometimes means being the quarterback: absorbing pressure, keeping perspective, and ensuring that the team advances up the field, together.
Christophe Poggioli is Senior Director of alliance management at Sanofi.
About the alliance leadership spotlight series
The alliance leadership spotlight series is a joint initiative of The Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP) and allianceboard to share practical knowledge in the alliance management community. It showcases Alliance Management professionals taking the lead in addressing challenges and driving alliance success.
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