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Sally Susman

Former Executive VP & Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Pfizer

Search every verified Sally Susman interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Sally Susman, Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Pfizer, has been discussing communication, leadership, and her experiences during the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in recent podcast appearances. On the *Money Majlis* podcast (June 2026), Susman described the "cynicism" she encountered during the vaccine rollout, stating it was "so deep and so at odds with what I saw inside the industry." She said she was "about ready to give it up" before the pandemic and that she was "grateful" she did not leave. Susman also commented on "green hushing," arguing that "if you're just changing your language or your headlines but not changing anything else, it seems transparently disingenuous." She advised communicators to "dare to be boring," emphasizing the need for repetition to ensure messages are absorbed. In a separate interview (March 2024), Susman discussed her book *Breaking Through: Communicating to Open Minds, Move Hearts and Change the World*. She argued that communication "can no longer be considered a soft skill" and is instead a "rock-hard competency" in an era of low public trust. Susman recounted Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla's decision to appoint himself project manager for the vaccine effort, saying the company put "$2 billion at risk" and "did not accept government money" to remain independent. She also reflected on the importance of authenticity, describing her experience coming out to her parents in her early 20s as "the single most important conversation" she had with her family.

Recent appearances

Notable quotes

“I believe that this green hushing will come around to bite people because if you're just changing your language or your headlines but not changing anything else, it seems transparently disingenuous to me. And employees are by and large pretty smart people and they care about the places where they work and they watch their leaders very closely.”

“Albert then did something I've never seen any of the other nine CEOs do and that is he appointed a project manager, looked around the room and appointed himself. And that's when I thought well maybe just maybe this is going to happen. And from that moment forward the company went about doing things very differently. Put $2 billion at risk. did not accept government money so that we would be liberated from any strings”

“We put our clinical trial protocols, which is our treasured intellectual property, up on the website because we didn't have three years to fill these clinical trials.”

“We could have charged anything, but we knew that wasn't the right thing to do for the long-term trust and reputation of the company. In places like the United States it was $19 per vaccine; in mid-tier countries it was half that, and for poorer countries it was donated.”

“There is in my world really only one truth. There can be more than one truth, but there are facts and the facts need to be understood if we're going to have a civil and important conversation about politics and policy in the future of the country.”

Other executives at Pfizer

The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →