Cfo Thought Leader

Few megadeals within the past decade have received as many recurring kudos as the acquisition of Genzyme, of Cambridge, MA by France’s biggest pharmaceutical company, Sanofi. The marriage of Sanofi and Genzyme appears to have exceeded expectations, allowing all of those involved in minting the newly merged entity to rightfully keep a feather in their postmerger caps. Thus it was for Mike Kaseta, who in the wake of the merger found himself tasked with integrating the finance and IT functions of the two companies. “It’s probably the achievement that I’m most proud of in my career,” explains Kaseta, who, after nearly a decade climbing the finance ranks inside Sanofi, exited the giant pharmaceutical company to stake a claim inside the realm of early-stage biotech, where today he is CFO of Aerami Therapeutics. Looking back, Kaseta believes that the greatest lessons he gleaned from the Sanofi–Genzyme merger were people-related: “There was no iron fist. We listened to employees. We understood. In the end, we had no