Thomas Kruijver is the Senior Director and Controller EU & Canada at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals in Amsterdam. He previously spent over ten years at Amgen Europe and seven years at Dell. Thomas earned his CMA qualification through the Institute of Management Accountants.   

What do you see as the biggest challenges for your business and your own role over the next 12 months?

Our ability to deliver much-needed new medicines to patients requires a highly motivated, diverse and inclusive workforce, and we are committed to building an environment where employees are encouraged to achieve their full potential. We want to hire the right people and we want those people to bring their unique differences to work, because our business will grow stronger with original thinking, enabling us to innovate in everything we do. Regardless of what team or function our employees work in, each individual is vital to our core mission to transform many more patients’ lives and to become a top-tier biotech company.

The challenges for my role itself revolve around building out my organisation in Amsterdam over the next 12 months. Last year, the team returned to the office post-COVID, and that has created a very positive momentum. As an organisation, we do an annual culture survey, and the most recent set of results have been very positive across the organisation, and particularly for the Finance team. My challenge is to keep this positive momentum over the next 12 months and beyond

What excites you about working for Alnylam Pharmaceuticals?

I started at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals five years ago as the first employee in the Netherlands. Now, we are nearly 60 employees, so this growth is motivational, not only for me, but for all the employees who have joined within the last five years.

Working for a small, rapidly-growing organisation, where you are able to contribute to building out a larger company, is so inspirational. I think that really makes it very easy every day to come to work at this company. One of our core values at Alnylam is commitment to people, and you feel that every day here.

This focus on our people has made us an employer of choice worldwide. For the last four years running, we have been recognized as one of the world’s leading biopharma employers by Science Magazine in the US, and have been named once again as a Great Place to Work in the Netherlands, along with several of our offices in other countries across Europe, the US and Japan.  

Also, because we are a fast-growing company, we can make career development a reality. We have some great examples of colleagues who joined us in junior roles and whose career development has grown in parallel with our company growth. We also have a number of movers between functions within the company. People often move from medical to commercial or vice versa, and it’s a very interesting place, so that’s something to consider if you work for a company that is in the growth phase.

Since COVID, we have seen an acceleration of some global roles – roles that might have traditionally been based in our US HQ – being located in Europe. This increased flexibility allows us to bring in the very best candidate for each role, regardless of where they are located.

What’s the best or worst interview experience you’ve ever had?

I have two examples. One of the examples is the best interview experience. Once, in my career, I was asked if I was interested in a particular position in a different company and I was initially hesitant, because, at that time in my career, I felt okay where I was. However, I was persuaded to do the interview, so I went along. But, because of certain things, I was late and not super prepared. Normally, if you’re fairly keen for a position, you are on time and you’re super prepared; I did everything that you shouldn’t do.

In the interview, I met my future manager, and he was so inspirational and positive about the company. In the end, my initial thoughts had turned 180 degrees and I joined that company.

As an interviewer, you shouldn’t only focus on the candidate and their strengths and weaknesses, but also consciously promote your own company. You are an ambassador for your company, because - for the candidates who you hire, and for those you don’t hire at this point - you want them to leave that interview with a positive feeling about the company. So, that is what I learned. Sometimes, you have an interview just to explore and better understand what the opportunity is, but this was nearly an hour. By the end, I was hoping that I would be the preferred candidate.

In my worst interview, I was very interested in the job, and I had three interviews. I had a very good connection with the first interviewer, who would be my future manager. After the conversation, I was very keen to get the job. The final stage was to speak with the Head of Finance, who was the manager of my future manager. It was very interesting, because you can imagine it being in a corporate setting, so I was in a meeting room waiting for him; he was based in the UK and only in the Netherlands for one day.  

The interview was scheduled for half-an-hour, but he was making phone calls outside the office for 26 of those minutes; once he called my name, the interview time was only four minutes! Having said that, I was called the following day and made an offer. I worked there for seven years, and it was a really great experience.

How do you see things going in the Dutch economy and how do you see that evolving in the next five years?

The risky thing about working in a particular sector is that you are always in a kind of bubble. I am in this bubble of the pharmaceutical sector, which may be less or more impacted by some economic factors than other sectors, e.g. we do not have a manufacturing site in the Netherlands, therefore, we do not have the enormous energy consumption and costs that some other companies or sectors do.

In general, I remain positive. We have an open economy in the Netherlands and there is still a lot of external interest in doing business here, especially in the Amsterdam area. This has a spin-off effect, because, if we have these companies, it creates jobs in the supporting industries, so I remain positive. Also, there are a lot of talented individuals who would like to work in the Netherlands, so we do still attract a lot of people.

What advice would you give to someone looking to move from a multi-national business to a start-up environment?

You really have to look in the mirror and consider whether you have an entrepreneurial mindset, which is of far greater importance in a start-up. I come from a family where my parents had a business and customers were always the most important priority.

When you go to a start-up company, where you have external clients and internal clients, it’s a different work environment compared to working in a very large company. You have to keep all the balls in the air and try to hold the staples together. And, because it’s a small, micro-environment, you have many more staples to deal with, but you also have more responsibility to manage the staples.

What risks have you taken throughout your career and how do you think they have helped get you to where you are now?

As a Finance person, we tend to think in terms of balanced risk! I have taken career risks when I feel I am at a certain plateau. What I have always done is make a thorough assessment and, only after that, would I then decide whether I should continue in a particular role. If I couldn’t identify the opportunities for growth I was looking for, I’d look for the next step. I did that a number of times in my career and, ultimately, I have found a company and position that I am comfortable with.

What I find interesting is the famous initial six-month probation period. My advice is to make the most of this period to determine whether the position and company is a good fit for you. Once, in the earlier part of my career, I moved to another company and I didn’t really like the culture. After these six months, I decided, okay, this is not working out, and I went back to my previous company. That didn’t work out very well, because after another three months back there, I was asking myself, why did I leave last time? I realised the reasons I left in the first place were still present, and so - after another six months - I left a second time for a place where I was more comfortable.

Another time, I joined a company where the culture was great and, in my first six months, I implemented a new software system. After this period, I realized there was not much room to develop myself, as the company was in a flat growth phase. I was concerned that I would end up in a role that would not give me an opportunity for continuous learning. This was another moment when I realized I needed to move on after only six months.  

How does a job seeker stand out in the current market?

My advice to anyone is to make the effort to develop a very good CV. It will help in your career if you have really got some very good company names on your CV. As a hiring manager, I consider each candidate as an individual, but because Alnylam is growing fast around the world, I am interested in those who have experience working in larger companies, because then I know that this candidate can excel in a multi-national environment. 

It’s also very important for a job seeker that you provide as much detail as you can within your LinkedIn profile, because hiring managers really do pay attention to the LinkedIn profile; where the candidate worked, what they did, and for how long. Add in all positions, what kind of education, any qualifications you have, and show when and why you took certain education or courses, making sure all details are up to date.

Thinking about the longer term, make sure you consider and ask any prospective employer about the development opportunities offered by any new role you apply for.

Finally, the obvious thing is to be prepared for any interview; as a hiring manager, it’s easy to tell the candidates who have invested ten minutes in preparation from those who have invested more than an hour to get ready for an interview, with challenging questions for me, too.

Thank you to Thomas for speaking to Hannah Mallia, Head of Executive Finance recruitment in our Finance & Accountancy team in the Netherlands.

Views and opinions contained within our Executive Interviews are those of the interviewee and not views shared by EMEA Recruitment.