Emma Walmsley

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Emma Walmsley became the first woman to lead a major pharmaceutical company when she took over GSK in 2017.

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Emma Walmsley is a British business executive who was chief executive officer of GSK PLC (GSK) from 2017 to 2025. When she took over the British pharmaceutical company in 2017, she became the first woman to lead a major global drugmaker. During her tenure, Walmsley oversaw a major restructuring of GSK, including the separation of its consumer health business and a renewed focus on vaccines, infectious diseases, and cancer medicines.

Emma Walmsley was born in June 1969 in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England, and grew up in Kent. Her father, Vice Admiral Sir Robert Walmsley, served in the Royal Navy and later worked in British defense procurement.

Walmsley attended St Swithun’s School, a boarding school in Winchester, before enrolling at Christ Church at the University of Oxford. She studied classics and modern languages and later moved into business and marketing rather than government or academia.

Walmsley spent 17 years at French cosmetics company L’Oréal, working in marketing and management roles in Europe, the United States, and China. In one of her final positions there, she led the company’s consumer products business in China from Shanghai.

In 2010, Walmsley joined GlaxoSmithKline, later renamed GSK, to lead the company’s consumer health operations. She later helped oversee the creation of GSK’s consumer health joint venture with Novartis (NVS) in 2015 and became head of the expanded business.

In September 2016, GSK named Walmsley chief executive designate, and she officially became CEO on April 1, 2017, succeeding Sir Andrew Witty. At the time, she became one of only a small number of women leading companies in the FTSE 100 index and the first woman to head a major global pharmaceutical company. Some investors questioned her appointment because she lacked a scientific or pharmaceutical research background, having spent most of her career in consumer products and marketing.

GSK disclosed that Walmsley’s initial compensation package would be 25% lower than Witty’s because the role was her first chief executive position.

As CEO, Walmsley reorganized GSK to focus more heavily on pharmaceuticals and vaccines while reducing the company’s emphasis on consumer health products. In 2022, GSK separated its consumer health division into a standalone company named Haleon, in one of the company’s largest restructurings in decades.

Walmsley also increased investment in research and development and focused GSK more heavily on infectious diseases, immunology, respiratory medicine, oncology, and vaccines.

One of the company’s most important product launches during Walmsley’s tenure came in 2023 when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Arexvy, the first vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) for adults age 60 and older. Walmsley later said GSK used artificial intelligence and data analysis to help speed the vaccine’s clinical trials by identifying regions where RSV infections were spreading.

Walmsley also guided GSK through the COVID-19 pandemic, pressure from activist investors, and broader debates about pharmaceutical pricing and patent expirations.

In September 2025, GSK named company executive Luke Miels to succeed Walmsley as CEO at year’s end. Although Walmsley had overseen a major restructuring of GSK and expanded its vaccines and specialty medicines businesses, some investors remained dissatisfied with the company’s stock performance and drug pipeline. Walmsley left the board at the end of 2025, but remained with the company through September 2026 to assist with the leadership transition.

Walmsley has described herself as highly competitive and action oriented. She has also said that she dislikes overly formal corporate language and management styles that rely heavily on bureaucracy.

In interviews, Walmsley has emphasized the importance of technology and research while arguing that people remain central to advances in health care. She has argued that AI can help accelerate development of new medicines and improve clinical trial design, while also stressing that strong leadership depends on building capable and diverse teams.

Walmsley joined the board of directors of Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) in 2019. Its chair, John Thompson, said she was an “accomplished business leader” whose international experience and work in research and development would benefit the company.

In 2020, Walmsley was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her contributions to business and the pharmaceutical industry. She has regularly appeared on Fortune and Forbes lists of the world’s most powerful women in business.