The Pegasus Award for In-House Team of the Year

Summary of work

Set against a backdrop of one of the most profound periods of change in the company’s 100 year history, the AstraZeneca Group Corporate Affairs team flawlessly executed its objectives and delivered outstanding outcomes – dramatically changing perceptions of the company and increasing employee engagement to its highest-ever levels and beyond high-performing company norms. All this alongside successfully engaging stakeholders to build understanding of the company’s outstanding science and the value of remaining an independent company in the face of a $116bn takeover approach.

“The performance of the Group Corporate Affairs team in 2014 was truly remarkable. They exceeded their objectives and played an important role in AstraZeneca’s transformation. The extraordinary events of 2014 called upon their skills in unprecedented ways and it was clear to me and to all of their colleagues across AstraZeneca that they were a team that was up to the challenge.” – Pascal Soriot, Chief Executive Officer, AstraZeneca.

Judges comments

This team really rose above the competition in terms of the calibre of the team and the work that they did. They faced a challenge that very few communicators have to deal with in their career and they really rose to it. They managed to seamlessly blend R&D communications with a corporate story and helped them fight off a corporate invader. As a judging panel, the words we used to describe them were awesome, they were outstanding and they were people we’d really love to work with.