People want to live longer, but they also want to live better, with improved health, well-being, and quality of life. And they understand that achieving this requires a multifaceted approach that includes diet, physical activity, sport, rest, sleep, body care, emotions, mind, and spirit.
This humanization and integration of many disciplines around well-being is undoubtedly the most significant challenge confronting the healthcare industry, in addition to other more operational aspects such as omnichannel, the growth of ecommerce, personalization, distribution, regulatory issues, sustainability, direct consumer relationships, and soon.
Oriol Segarra is a leadership and change management expert with over 20 years of business experience in multinational pharmaceutical firms. As Uriach’s Chief Executive Officer, he oversaw the pharmaceutical company’s development from a traditional pharmaceutical company to a successful transnational corporation focus on natural consumer healthcare.
Uriach is a corporation that thinks that harnessing the power of nature is the best (and most sustainable) approach to caring for human health and well-being. This is why Uriach is solely dedicated to natural consumer healthcare. Its purpose is to have a beneficial influence on people’s health and lives while also striving to improve the earth as a whole. It provides the greatest natural goods to consumers, based on sound research and creativity.
With a history of over 182 years, Uriach’s notable worldwide trademarks include Aquilea, Fisiocrem, Laborest, Aerored, Fave de Fuca, Utabon, Biodramina, and Halibut, with a presence in the major European markets. The company’s headquarters are presently located in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Romania.
Life Outside of the Workplace
Oriol was born in Barcelona in 1971 and is the father of two children. Oriol defines himself as an inquisitive, restless, and ambitious individual who is always looking for new reasons, challenges, and learning opportunities in order to improve professionally and personally. He attended ESADE, Harvard, Stanford, Singularity University, and IMD, among other business institutions. Throughout his career, he has held positions in finance, corporate services and general management, healthcare, and fast-moving consumer products. He prioritizes his family, leadership (which is also a love of mine), and his hobbies, which include traveling, music, reading, and another of his passions: wine.
Vision behind Joining Uriach
Oriol joined the firm at the end of 2012, with a clear goal that was a significant challenge: to transform Uriach into a leader in consumer healthcare, which at the time accounted for less than a third of total revenue and solely occurred in Spain. With the trust of the shareholders and the board of directors behind it, and after constructing a magnificent team, the team has successfully carried out this transformation, which is based on five cornerstones: professionalisation of the company and its governance; a strategic focus on natural consumer healthcare; profitable growth, internationalisation, and last but not least, a unique corporate culture to achieve maximum commitment and passion from all its employees and, through them, some sustainable but extraordinary results.
Uriach is a private, family-owned, yet completely professional enterprise with a more than 180-year history. In the last decade, it has shifted its focus to what it calls “Natural Consumer Healthcare”: products with natural ingredients enhanced by science and innovation. In Spain, the company was a pioneer in this industry, and it has reinforced its position over the previous 10 years through strong organic and inorganic expansion.
Today, it has over 850 partners spread throughout its companies in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Romania, making it the market leader with the greatest direct presence on the continent.
Over the previous decade, Uriach’s turnover has been increased by 7, and its EBITDA by 5. In 2021, the company’s turnover surpassed €235 million (+42 percent over the previous year), and its EBITDA surpassed €38 million (+41 percent). Despite the challenges associated with the current scenario owing to inflation, supply issues, the impact of the crisis in Ukraine, and so on, the firm forecasts that it will continue to expand by roughly 15% organically in 2022.
Key to Constant Growth
A new health paradigm is emerging that goes beyond “disease and cure with a prescription given by a doctor” and is moving toward holistic, natural, and sustainable health that is based on improved habits and prevention and is carried out by a more proactive, expert, and empowered consumer. Uriach’s goal is to assist, guide, and facilitate the customer on this journey, leading the transition to this new paradigm of health and well-being, allowing us to have a beneficial influence on people’s lives and the earth. And it accomplishes so by relying on two pillars:
- innovation, in order to offer the best natural formulations and alternatives, and
- its brands, which are its most valuable asset and primary means of communicating with and presenting itself to consumers.
Uriach’s portfolio includes brands with a European scope, which are positioned in different categories and with different business models, such as Aquilea (the leading food supplement brand in Spain, which is highly innovative and focused on consumers and pharmacies), Fisiocrem (a muscle preparation and recovery brand, also used for joint pain), and Laborest (Italy’s leading brand of highly sophisticated food supplements with clinical studies, which is marketed through medtech). The firm also boasts prominent local brands in their categories, such as Depuralina (Portugal), Sidroga and Ems (Germany), Biodramina, and Aerored (Spain), among many others.
Multiple recognitions and prizes, according to Oriol, highlight Uriach’s portfolio’s degree of innovation. Here are a few examples: Fisiocrem won Best Product for Athletes at the iDermo Awards in August 2020; its Colpofix nebuliser spray won ‘Excellence in Pharma’: Finished Products’ at the CPhI Awards in 2020, and our Sinopol product was a finalist in the same category in 2021. Uriach got the Nutraingredients award for the best botanical product in 2020, and it has kept the prize with its product Fuca in 2022. Uriach was recently named a Catalonia Exponential Leader 2022, an award that recognizes the ten most disruptive Catalan companies based on their positive social impact, differentiated value proposition, potential for exponential growth, international scalability, team and business culture, and traction capacity for other companies.
Advice to the Next Generation of Healthcare Leaders
He further adds that once you have defined it, you have to follow the path towards that destination bravely, and make the necessary decisions based on determination. With a clear goal in mind and the flexibility/agility to adapt to such a constantly changing environment (VUCA), the next step, according to Oriol, is to recognize that a company is its people and corporate culture—everything happens through a sustainable competitive strategic advantage. Humanizing the organization so that it embraces not only the rational dimension, but also the individual’s other dimensions (physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being) is critical for creating a comfortable, trusting work environment in which challenges and healthy ambitions can be expressed through the infinite talent that people have when they are passionate about their work and identify with the company’s common project.
Vision for Future
Health, like other business sectors, is expanding and changing at a rapid pace, and technology may cause big disruptions for customers seeking new horizons as generations shift. 3D printing, wearables, and IoT, as well as the opportunities opened up by big data and the metaverse, all present new possibilities for people’s wellbeing, and the world must remain vigilant and open-minded in this regard. “Beyond the pill” is now a reality, and Uriach’s dedication to leadership means that it is constantly interested in implementing these new options as quickly as possible, as long as they are helpful and relevant to the customer.
In terms of Uriach’s future plans, Oriol’s vision entails leading the natural consumer healthcare business in Europe, increasing our direct footprint on the continent, and growing organically (taking advantage of cross-country synergies that increase as we grow) and inorganically (through acquisitions in France, the Nordic countries, and some Eastern European countries) until we reach a turnover of around €500 million in 2025.
The main levers for achieving this will be those that currently constitute Uriach’s pillars: innovation; the development of leading global and local brands, rapid and profitable growth, sustainability, its corporate reputation, and the maximum expression of its corporate culture and unique people practices that make it a benchmark and an enjoyable place to work. For the past six years, Uriach has been recognized as a top employer.
Quotes:
If we have learned anything in our journey of transformation over the last 10 years, it is that the important thing is to have a single, clear, and consumer-focused purpose.
It’s a transformation that we are very proud of, by the way. It’s been an extraordinary journey in which I’ve had the best years of my professional life, like many others who are part of this great family. And we still have a lot of challenges ahead of us!”
Written by Steve Sanchez.
