AGE: 37
POSITION: Executive director and site head, Amgen Rhode Island quality assurance
LIFEONG AMBITION: To learn
FAVORITE BOOK: “The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life,” by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander
GUILTY PLEASURE: Shopping for shoes
When Amgen was founded in 1980, it was just a few scientists working on a single lab bench in one building. Today, it is the world’s largest biotechnology company, with more than 20,000 employees worldwide – and growing.
But success in this field requires enormous care, and Tia Bush, who has been with Amgen since 1992, has a crucial role at the company: She leads the Rhode Island operation’s quality organization, working to ensure the purity, safety, potency and efficacy of the therapeutics manufactured in the West Greenwich plan, most notably Enbrel.
Since last year, Bush has been Amgen’s primary site contact for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Community Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency; she leads a team of 400. Previously, she was quality assurance director at the site, and she led the quality startup team for the $1 billion plant construction, which included four separate buildings. She was also responsible for securing the licensure of the facility and for the FDA inspection that was required.
Throughout her tenure at Amgen, Bush has also shared her knowledge and expertise in biotechnology with industry leaders, giving presentations at several conferences since 1995. Within Amgen, she has developed training programs for staff members in the quality organization and served as the global team leader for two curriculum programs presented at all the Amgen commercial bulk manufacturing sites.
For the last five years, Bush has focused on studying the principles and practices of leadership, completing a program offered by the Strozzi Institute for Embodied Leadership in California and going on to serve as a mentor for Amgen staff members. She recently served as a leadership coach to 25 quality professionals who went through a 12-month training program.
“Helping others refine their leadership competencies has been a career-defining moment,” Bush said in her 40 Under Forty application.
Bush has also helped transform Amgen’s business culture. She is one of four team leaders for life@ari, an initiative exclusive to Amgen Rhode Island’s site with the goal of retaining and attracting the best employees. She heads the “Trust and Candor” team, which strives to enhance the work experience of all 1,700 employees by fostering an environment where candor is expected, open dialogue is encouraged, and conflict is managed effectively.
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