As US Head of P&O and US Country Head for P&O at Novartis, Chanel Leitch partners with leaders across the US organization to enable growth, performance, and new ways of working. In this role, she leads the US people strategy to build future-ready capabilities, accelerate transformation, and strengthen leadership and culture in support of the company’s purpose to deliver innovative medicines for patients.
Sustainable business growth is enabled by how we lead, how we transform, and how we invest in our people. Together with our leaders and teams, we have the responsibility to build organizations that can adapt, perform, and scale, enabling our people to bring innovation to patients faster and with greater impact.
Chanel brings more than 22 years of global P&O leadership experience across highly matrixed commercial, operations, and corporate environments in the US, Europe and Asia. Most recently, she served as Head of P&O for Novartis Operations, leading the enterprise people strategy for more than 22,000 employees globally and supporting large-scale, technology-enabled transformation. Prior to that, she was Country and International Head for P&O for Novartis Japan.
Earlier in her career, Chanel spent 14 years at Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, where she held senior HR leadership roles.
Chanel holds a Master of Science in Human Resources from Villanova University and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Appalachian State University. She is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and has completed executive and enterprise leadership development programs including Harvard Executive Summit and Modern Exec CHRO Academy.
Chanel is passionate about music, art, culture and reading. She and her husband enjoy traveling, cooking for family and friends, road cycling, as well as football and F1 Racing.