Today’s brand leaders face a convergence of pressures that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago. This two-part series shares insights from an interview with Christie Conn, who has experienced these challenges from both sides: first as a brand team leader and now as VP of IQVIA’s Brand & Commercial Strategy Center of Excellence.

In this first post, Christie reflects on the mounting pressures and complex challenges facing today’s brand leaders. In an upcoming post, she will explore how strategic partnerships and emerging technologies can empower brand leaders to navigate today’s environment more successfully.

Here are highlights of our conversation:

The Performance Pressure Cooker

IQVIA: What are the most urgent challenges brand leaders face today?

Christie: Maximizing brand performance is probably the most critical to their own careers. Brand leaders are under intense pressure to meet expectations for their senior staff, deliver on promises to patients and healthcare in general, and meet commitments to investors. This pressure applies across the board, whether you’re working with launch brands at small-asset companies or large pharma and biotech companies releasing results publicly to Wall Street. The stakes have never been higher, and the margin for error continues to shrink.

The Cost of Lost Time

IQVIA: The demand for speed in decision-making has fundamentally changed the game. Can you share an example of how delayed insights have impacted brand performance?

Christie: We’re seeing a shifting tide within the ecosystem toward specialty pharmacy assets. But many times, teams are still relying on more traditional retail pharmacy analogs that don’t map well to external policy forces, patient populations, or even the launch curve itself. The time it takes to find those appropriate analogs can not only delay a launch but also impact the team’s ability to optimize by using the right metrics.

Data: Too Much, Too Little, Too Late?

IQVIA: Perhaps nowhere is the modern brand leader’s dilemma more evident than in their relationship with data. What’s the biggest mistake brand teams are making with data?

Christie: I see so many brand teams get stuck when they look at the wealth of data available and try to evaluate what to do next. Most of the time, the biggest barrier is information overload. The data tells slightly different, nuanced stories, and the drivers of success aren’t all pointing to the same outcome. It’s not a clear, linear path. This data paralysis is particularly frustrating because teams often have access to more information than ever before, yet struggle to transform it into actionable insights.

Short-Term Survival vs. Long-Term Success

IQVIA: In addition to the challenges you mentioned earlier, virtually every brand leader must manage the tension between immediate performance demands and sustainable brand building. How do successful brand leaders balance short-term and long-term goals?

Christie: This is probably one of the hardest things most brand leaders struggle with. It's a daily challenge of meeting quarterly expectations while looking at long-term brand strategy. The pressure for quarterly results often forces leaders into tactical thinking when strategic vision is what’s needed most. This creates a cycle where short-term decisions can undermine long-term brand potential, yet missing quarterly targets can eliminate the opportunity for long-term success entirely. Successful leaders balance the short-term needs with lining them up to the strategic objectives and map the tactics and their KPIs directly to the strategic objectives.

Lessons Learned

IQVIA: Christie, when you look back on your own experience in brand leadership, what’s one lesson you wish you’d learned earlier?

Christie: As a member of the brand team with a data-driven analytical mindset, I would often get stuck in the “easy” answer. Market trends might point to one solution, but I wouldn’t go deeper into the why or root cause of that change. I’d have the knee-jerk reaction of “Last time this happened, and this was the answer, so we’ll take the same course of action.” But assuming that current situations mirror past experiences is risky in an industry experiencing rapid structural changes. What worked five years ago may be ineffective or even counterproductive to your goals.

IQVIA: What other advice would you give to new brand leaders?

Christie: New brand managers are in a deer-in-headlights moment with so much information to absorb and so many voices to listen to. Mining through what to trust without getting into analysis paralysis is one of the hardest challenges. The volume and velocity of information, combined with the diversity of stakeholders and opinions, can overwhelm even experienced professionals. The traditional apprenticeship model of learning brand leadership over time simply doesn’t accommodate the pace of today’s market demands.

What’s Ahead

For today’s pharmaceutical brand leaders, the challenges are real, they’re complex, and they’re continually accelerating. Traditional approaches to brand leadership are being put to the test, often revealing the need for new and different ways of understanding and addressing commercial opportunities. The second part of the conversation with Christie, From Data to Direction: How Strategic Partnerships Transform Brand Leadership, will explore how the technological advances and market evolution fueling complexity are also enabling new solutions and partnership models. The post will be published on the IQVIA Insights page and shared on the IQVIA United States LinkedIn page.