Joan’s Bio

While pursuing a career in the fields of business and healthcare, Joan Snyder has used her background of leadership in both the private and social sectors.  Joan began honing these leadership skills as a student at the University of Pittsburgh.  Serving as President of the Student Government Board and actively participating within the College of Business Administration, she was recognized upon graduation with the CBA Senior Leadership Award.

After graduation, Joan began her professional pursuits with Eli Lilly and Company in neuroscience sales, where she achieved top 2% results. In 2005, she was promoted to Managed Care Regional Account Executive. As 1 of 25 individuals in this role for Lilly’s US Affiliate, Joan was the lead contact for regional and national accounts. Working with clients during mergers and acquisitions, she negotiated contracts across 11 product brands. In May of 2007, Joan was promoted to District Sales Manager of the New Jersey Diabetes Team. In this role, she had the responsibility to lead and motivate 14 sales representatives and to drive the growth of the Lilly legacy products treating diabetes. Her turnaround leadership tactics helped the team climb from their position as #77, the last team in the division, to become the #1 team in the nation. In 2009, Joan accepted a position with Forest Laboratories, at the company’s headquarters in New York City. In this role, Joan led the Managed Care Marketing Team focusing on commercial payer strategies, research and promotion of Forest’s products across all therapeutic areas. She was involved in pre-launch managed markets plan for Daliresp, Viibryd and Patent Expiration strategy for Lexapro including market segmentation analysis, pricing recommendations and account manager training materials. In 2011, Joan was promoted to Associate Director, Training and Development, with the responsibility to recruit a team of managed markets experts to design, build and deploy an enterprise wide healthcare training curriculum.

New Jersey North Diabetes Team poses for a pic with Eli Lilly's CEO, John Lechleiter

Joan has a long and active commitment to community service. She is a former Events Chair for the Girls Hope Organization. As the assistant coach for Girls On The Run in Manhattan, she helped to inspire elementary school girls to develop self-esteem and healthy lifestyles through running. Joan was selected to be on the 1st Junior Board for Step Up For Women in NY, which provides teen empowerment programs for under-served girls, women’s health education and advocacy, professional mentorship and social networking opportunities. Assisting in the creation of the Frances Hesselbein Global Academy of Student Leadership and Civic Engagement, Joan was proud to be a member of the advisory board. Serving in her 3rd term as a Director at Large for the University of Pittsburgh Alumni Association, Joan remains committed to the students at her alma mater. In 2010, Joan was nominated to serve on the Board of Governors for The Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute (formerly the Peter Drucker Foundation for Non-Profit Management then Leader to Leader Institute). Joan led the task force to relaunch the Hesselbein Institute in 2012.

Joan poses with Frances Hesselbein, President and CEO of The Leader to Leader Institute and former CEO of the Girl Scouts of America.

In recognition of her volunteer work and dedication to mentoring students, Joan received the Ivan and Mary Novick Young Alumni Award in 2009 and has been chosen as the inaugural recipient of the 2010 CBA Outstanding Alumni Award from the College of Business Administration at the University of Pittsburgh.

Joan earned an MBA from Rutgers University in May 2009 and studied global business strategies in Beijing and Shanghai, China.

Since 2005, Joan has spoken to thousands of high school and college students as a trained speaker for the Making It Count Program on Career and College preparation for success. Over 525 leaders from 37 countries representing 375+ organizations joined a global webinar to hear Joan and Frances Hesselbein for “Women in the Lead” on March 9, 2011. Joan is frequently invited to speak to MBA students including NYU, University of Pittsburgh, Rutgers University and LIM college. She was the student speaker at her own undergraduate graduation and invited back as an alumni commencement speaker for the University of Pittsburgh. As a panelist for the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth, The Young Women’s Leadership Network: Hot Jobs Cool Women and Trendsetters Annual Conference, Joan helped inspire students, parents and professionals to strive to achieve their potential and have the confidence to see their dreams through.