Kantar in Conversation with Global Employer Brand Leader 2025: Daniel Perkins

We had the opportunity to sit down with Daniel Perkins, Global Head of Employer Branding at Sanofi, who was recently named Global Employer Brand Leader of the Year 2025. With over 25 years in the field, Dan reflects on what truly makes employer branding work today; creativity grounded in data, leadership that shows up, and employees empowered to tell their own stories.

Congratulations on being named Global Employer Brand Leader of the Year 2025, Dan! We're thrilled to have a chat with you. You’ve spent over 15 years in employer branding across multiple industries from leading Rolls-Royce’s employer brand team to GE HealthCare, and now as Global Head of Employer Branding at Sanofi. What keeps you passionate about this field?

I’ve actually been working in this space for over 25 years now starting out in recruitment advertising (think fax machines and print ads!), then moving through employer branding and RPO agencies before going client-side. There are lots of reasons I’ve stayed, and why I’m still just as passionate about it today.

One is the variety. I’ve had the chance to work across so many industries, from aerospace to FMCG, the public sector to biopharma and I’ve always loved learning about the people and roles behind the brands, products and innovations. One of my favourite clients when I worked agency-side was the British Antarctic Survey, where I discovered jobs and worlds I didn’t even know existed!

I’m naturally quite creative, so I love the storytelling and marketing side of employer branding working with teams, agencies and employees to bring campaigns to life is hugely energising. But what keeps me engaged is that the work is never finished. Markets change, expectations evolve and technology moves fast. Every brief is a new puzzle: what’s the real challenge, who are we trying to reach, how do we engage them, and how do we know it’s working?

I also love the range of people you meet. From interviewing CEOs to filming apprentices at the start of their careers, there are endless stories to tell. And when employees start sharing theirs with confidence and pride, that’s when you know the work really matters.

You gained significant attention for incorporating the Paris Olympics into your employer branding strategy. Can you share how you got buy-in from stakeholders and what impact this creative initiative has had?

I joined Sanofi two years ago, just after we’d come together as one organisation under the Sanofi name. It wasn’t just a rebrand, but the start of a much bigger shift to create an environment where people can do their best work.

Our partnership with Paris 2024 was the perfect way to bring that change to life. The Olympics aren’t just about sport. They’re about teamwork, resilience, inclusion and what’s possible when people come together around a shared purpose. That’s very similar to what it takes to develop medicines and improve lives, so the connection made sense straight away and the buy-in was there early on. The real challenge was how to use such a big, visible moment to tell a story that felt honest, human and genuinely about our people.

We worked closely across Employer Brand, Communications, Social, Talent and our local teams, and went all-in on employee engagement from volunteer and torchbearer programmes to the Sanofi Cup (our first internal global Olympics), and even a large exhibition at our Paris HQ. That created a lot of energy and pride, but more importantly, it created real stories and real emotion.

While the corporate campaign focused on our “Team Sanofi” Olympians, we created a spin-off focused on employees. Like elite athletes, our people often work for years toward outcomes that aren’t guaranteed, only a tiny fraction of potential medicines ever reach patients. That takes persistence, belief and resilience. So our campaign, Ignite Your Potential, was about celebrating everyday greatness and the moments, mentors and journeys behind scientific progress.

Employees became the heroes through their own stories, supported by a multilingual, multi-channel campaign across five key markets, with content living on our careers site. The results for this campaign alone were strong: 425 million impressions, 12 million video views, 4.5 million clicks, 16,000 apply clicks, a 66% increase in career site visits and a 99% increase in job search views. But the biggest impact was cultural. Employees didn’t just watch the transformation - they helped tell it.

How have you aligned your employer branding strategy with Sanofi’s broader company transformation? What results have you seen so far?

From the start, we were clear that employer branding had to move in step with Sanofi’s transformation. As the business came together as “One Sanofi,” with a clear ambition to become the go-to employer in biopharma, our role was to help bring that to life and amplify awareness externally and internally.

We evolved our EVP to align with our new corporate narrative and built clear talent value propositions for our key business units and functions. We refreshed our employer brand design to ensure consistency with the corporate brand, and rebuilt our careers site from the ground up, creating a multilingual, content-rich experience that makes it easier for people to explore roles, our culture and growth opportunities.

In parallel, we made employee advocacy the heart of our strategy. In a regulated environment, that meant focusing on confidence, capability and trust. Not just guidelines. With strong leadership support, we piloted, tested and then scaled globally to thousands of employees through training, storytelling clinics, one-to-one support, gamification and community building. Our goal was twofold: enabling our people to share their own stories online and amplifying our employer brand through authentic storytelling.

Creatively, we activated our brand through campaigns like Ignite Your Potential and The Sanofi Feeling - the latter showcasing not just what we do, but what it feels like to work here and the unique, collaborative workplaces we’re investing in. We’ve used a multi-channel approach and held ourselves accountable with clear KPIs, measuring data and impact across the hiring funnel.

It has been an intense but fulfilling few years, and the impact has been significant. We’ve generated over a billion impressions, moved from #4 to #1 on the Employer Brand Index among our competitors, increased applications by 36%, reached nearly five million career site visits and built an ambassador community of over 6,000 Sanofians.

More importantly, we’ve changed the conversation. Employer branding is now an integral part of our Talent & Learning function and how we attract key skills, support career development and build trust in the market.

While the principles of employer branding are universal, their application must adapt to regional nuances. What cultural differences have you navigated in your global role?

One of the things I love about working at Sanofi is the global nature of the business and my role. I lead a truly global team, and I’ve been able to visit many key markets and experience different cultures first-hand. That face-to-face contact makes a real difference in understanding the unique challenges and ways of working in different regions.

Sanofi places a strong emphasis on this and even hosted Erin Meyer (author of The Culture Map) recently at our head office in Paris. She led a masterclass on how cultural differences show up in our day-to-day work, and how we can navigate them with more empathy and inclusion to help our teams lead together.

We’ve also built a strong employer brand community that meets regularly to share insights, progress and ideas so everyone can understand regional nuances. For example, I’ve learned so much about China, the speed, the unique channels and the different approaches to content and experienced this first-hand in Shanghai last year while working on our Sanofi Feeling campaign. This campaign showed how consistent our workplace experience is globally, while highlighting regional differences such as food and design. In total, we filmed and photographed across six countries and eleven sites, featuring over 750 Sanofians, and delivered more than 100 videos in five languages.

In terms of what talent wants, the basics are the same everywhere: purpose, growth and belonging. But how people express those needs varies. In some markets, people want structure and clarity; in others, flexibility and autonomy. In some cultures, people are comfortable sharing their stories publicly; in others, that requires more trust. Our reputation and employer brand awareness also vary significantly between markets, so all these factors must be considered when activating our brand.

So, we’ve focused on building a strong global framework while giving local teams the freedom to bring it to life in a way that feels natural and authentic in their context. Consistency builds credibility, but relevance builds connection and you need both.

Leadership buy-in and advocacy are more critical than ever for successful employer branding. How do you keep senior leadership and different departments engaged in your initiatives?

By making it relevant to what they care about. Leaders want to attract the best talent, stay competitive, engage their people and protect the organisation’s reputation. So we ensure our employer brand strategy supports those goals.

We also involve leaders directly – in storytelling, campaigns and moments that humanise the organisation. We even involved our CEO, Paul Hudson, in a competition where he had to identify our unique Sanofi scent (yes, we’ve developed our own signature fragrance, which you can smell in all our offices!) among a few imposters. When leaders show up, it sends a powerful signal that this work matters.

We are also extremely fortunate to have a strong and passionate sponsor in Audrey Clegg, our Chief Talent & Learning Officer, who has led the charge from day one. She brought deep experience in driving advocacy from her time at Coca-Cola and understood the effort, energy and investment required to build a world-class programme.

We focus on cross-collaboration with our social media team, Communications and our global employer brand network to ensure alignment. And we run regular sessions with different teams to educate employees about how to participate in the programme and the impact it has on our brand and reputation.

Finally, we measure what we do and link it back to outcomes. That combination of relevance, visibility and impact keeps leadership engaged and the data is hard to ignore. To date, our employee advocacy community has generated over 40 million in reach through Sprinklr alone, over $2 million in earned media value, and has clearly helped increase awareness of our employer brand globally. Winning the RAD Award for Employee Engagement last year was the cherry on top.

Finally, what advice would you offer to other employer brand leaders who aspire to elevate their company’s employer brand? What lessons from your journey are essential for success?

After more than 25 years, I’ve learned that there isn’t a secret formula, but a few things make a huge difference.
1. Choose your next job carefully. Employer branding only works when leaders genuinely believe in it and are willing to invest time, energy, budget and trust.

2. Stay curious and stay connected. Spend time listening. not just within your own function, but across the business. Employer branding sits at the intersection of Talent, Marketing, Communications, Culture and Leadership, so the more you can join the dots, the more value you create.

3. Get comfortable with data. You will always be asked “so what?” and “does it work?”, so being able to demonstrate impact builds credibility and earns you a seat at the table.

4. Never stop educating. Employer branding is still misunderstood, so part of the job is continually explaining what it is, why it matters and how it supports the business. Things also move fast, so make sure you stay on top of new trends and understand how AI is shaping the future of our industry.

One final thing - don’t underestimate employee advocacy. Helping people feel confident telling their own stories is one of the most powerful ways to build awareness of your brand and strengthen trust.

Beyond that, there’s no shortcut. Just curiosity, collaboration, discipline and a willingness to keep learning. Work hard, stay humble, and as we say at Sanofi, never settle.