Ingelise Saunders, chief executive, ACE BioSciences, Odense, Denmark

Postgraduate benchwork was “boring”, says Ingelise Saunders — so she made a change that set her on the path to success. Starting as a medical sales representative, she went on to work her way up the drug-company ranks to chief executive. “I didn't enjoy the lab work at all,” Saunders says. “It was quite clear to me that I needed to get out and work with people.” (see CV).

She found that one of the best ways to work with people — and learn the pharmaceuticals business — was as a product representative, first for Wyeth Ayerst, then Schering Plough and finally Glaxo. She found that experience invaluable. “What you learn from being a rep — even if you are only repping for one or two years — is how to work with customers and understand people's needs,” Saunders says.

Repping is a maligned and often-overlooked career path for scientists, she adds. But it can lead to other opportunities. She has seen colleagues who started as sales reps go on to management or marketing positions — or even back into academia (see Nature 430, 486–487; 2004 10.1038/nj6998-486a).

The sales background helped prepare her to make the switch into marketing management. She benefited from a combination of good mentoring and formal management training. “I was fortunate enough to have some very good managers who coached me and helped me,” Saunders says.

But after years of working her way to the upper ranks of the large drug companies, she decided in 2001 to downsize. “I got tired of the big organizations with all the politics and all the bureaucracy,” she says.

At Celltech, she “thoroughly enjoyed” being more involved with every aspect of a company. She left after the London-based biotech company was bought by UCB. Her newest job, transforming ACE BioSciences from a research-based organization focused on infectious diseases into a product-based company, will be a big challenge — especially as the company has only a couple of dozen employees. She is rolling up her sleeves and pitching in with the sort of admin tasks she used to delegate.

Saunders sees the move to ACE as a return to her roots in several ways. First, it has allowed her to move back to her native Denmark to head the Odense-based company. And second, she will once again be driving to make sales — but this time to investors. Just like a rep, but with higher stakes.