John Dawber is the Corporate Vice President leading the Global Business Service (GBS) centre at Novo Nordisk in Bangalore since September 2022. He leads an organisation of over 4400 employees where he leads cross-functional teams to promote innovation, improve efficiencies, and support the company’s overall growth plan. With more than 25 years of expertise in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors, he has a demonstrated track record of fostering business expansion and achieving beneficial outcomes for both the organization and its clients.

A strong leader, and communicator, John is driven by a passion for success through people, and people development. He is also a strong proponent of employee experience and engagement at workplace.

Under his leadership, Novo Nordisk GBS has reduced rolling annual attrition from 18% in September 2022 to 5.9% in December 2024 and was ranked #1 Best Place to Work in India across all sectors and all sizes of company and #1 Best Place to Work for Women in India. Novo Nordisk GBS was also ranked amongst the top 25 workplaces for career growth by LinkedIn.

In his nearly three-decade career in the pharmaceutical industry, John has leadership experience across many functions including Sales, Marketing, Global Marketing, and Country Management. As a UK national, he has lived and worked in 5 countries, including UK, Denmark, Japan, Thailand, and India, and is fascinated by the cultural dimension of these experiences and understands how local cultural norms can both help, and hinder progress. Driving change for the patient is at John’s core, and delivering this change through people is his passion