Maja Pedersen on AI, Strategic Leadership, and Evolving as a Quality Leader

Maja Pedersen says following a process is what she does least, and she built a career in Quality because a clear framework gives people room to make pragmatic decisions.

In today's episode, we revisit a conversation with Maja Pedersen from July 2025. Maja is now President and Chief Operating Officer at FUJIFILM Biotechnologies. When we recorded this conversation she was Chief Quality Officer, responsible for six sites with a seventh being built in Japan. I really wanted to bring this conversation back because she moved from a TrackWise rollout in medical devices to leading Quality, IT, digitalization and science across a global CDMO. She is at the forefront of AI adoption, and her approach to Quality leadership is built around people and a pragmatic framework.

We talk about:

How Maja went from a TrackWise rollout in medical devices to leading a Quality team early in her career
Taking over a Quality team of roughly 30 at Cook Medical and understanding people before trying to be understood
Becoming site head of Quality at Biogen in Hillerød and learning to perform through her team
Leading a global team across six sites, including four in-person meetings a year and meditation at the last leadership summit
Why she wants Quality to move from correction to prediction, and why she recommends putting Quality and IT under one leader

Thank you Maja for sharing your journey.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Quality, IT, digitalization and science under one leader

(02:45) Why following a process is what she does least

(13:34) Inheriting a team of 30 and presenting yourself as a human being

(21:56) Moving from tactical to strategic thinking

(27:32) Too loud about AI, and how IT landed on her desk

(33:06) A global team that meets four times a year and meditates together

(38:51) At least an hour and a half of daylight, every day

(42:28) Corrections more than preventions: where Quality goes next

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