Julie Kim
President and CEO,
Takeda Pharmaceuticals
trailblazer AWARD
Julie Kim will receive the 2026 Trailblazer Award at CKA’s Envision Gala on Saturday, October 24, 2026, at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles. The Trailblazer Award celebrates Korean American leaders who have redefined their fields while elevating the community’s presence, voice, and values nationwide — and Julie’s three decades of global healthcare leadership, culminating in her role at the helm of Takeda, embody exactly that spirit of trailblazing. As she steps into this expanded role, her experience and example are poised to teach, inspire, and empower the next generation of Korean American leaders.
This year’s Gala marks CKA’s 15th anniversary, with the theme “Our Evolving Community” — reflecting the continued growth, resilience, and influence of Korean Americans nationwide.
Julie Kim is President and CEO of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited and a member of Takeda’s Board of Directors. She previously served as President of the U.S. Business Unit and U.S. Country Head, where her portfolio encompassed gastroenterology, neuroscience, plasma-derived therapies, and rare diseases.
She joined Takeda in 2019 through the acquisition of Shire, where she held several diverse roles with increasing responsibility, including President of the Plasma-Derived Therapies Business Unit and, from April 2022, President of the U.S. Business Unit and U.S. Country Head, before being named CEO in June 2026.
Julie has 30 years of experience in health care, with leadership positions at global, regional, country, and functional levels. In the biopharmaceutical industry, her experience has spanned a variety of therapeutic areas, international market access, country and regional general management, marketing, and emerging market development.
Julie is known for strong, collaborative, and inclusive leadership that enables Takeda to meet the needs of the people the company serves while driving innovations that improve patients’ lives. Her global outlook — shaped by work across Europe, Asia, and Latin America, and by having lived in the U.K., Switzerland, and the U.S. — has helped her build teams that are diverse across multiple dimensions, enabling inclusive decision-making that keeps the patient at the center.
Julie serves on the boards of directors for PhRMA, which represents the country’s leading innovative biopharmaceutical research companies, and Croda International, a company that leverages smart science to create high-performance ingredients and technologies that improve lives. She was named one of Boston’s 50 Most Influential Asian American Pacific Islanders in 2023, to The 2022 PharmaVoice 100 list, and to Fierce Pharma’s list of 2020’s Fiercest Women in Life Sciences.
She earned an M.B.A. from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.A. in economics from Dartmouth College. She resides with her family in the Boston area.
trailblazer AWARD
Julie Kim
President and CEO,
Takeda Pharmaceuticals
Julie Kim will receive the 2026 Trailblazer Award at CKA’s Envision Gala on Saturday, October 24, 2026, at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles. The Trailblazer Award celebrates Korean American leaders who have redefined their fields while elevating the community’s presence, voice, and values nationwide — and Julie’s three decades of global healthcare leadership, culminating in her role at the helm of Takeda, embody exactly that spirit of trailblazing. As she steps into this expanded role, her experience and example are poised to teach, inspire, and empower the next generation of Korean American leaders.
This year’s Gala marks CKA’s 15th anniversary, with the theme “Our Evolving Community” — reflecting the continued growth, resilience, and influence of Korean Americans nationwide.
Julie Kim is President and CEO of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited and a member of Takeda’s Board of Directors. She previously served as President of the U.S. Business Unit and U.S. Country Head, where her portfolio encompassed gastroenterology, neuroscience, plasma-derived therapies, and rare diseases.
She joined Takeda in 2019 through the acquisition of Shire, where she held several diverse roles with increasing responsibility, including President of the Plasma-Derived Therapies Business Unit and, from April 2022, President of the U.S. Business Unit and U.S. Country Head, before being named CEO in June 2026.
Julie has 30 years of experience in health care, with leadership positions at global, regional, country, and functional levels. In the biopharmaceutical industry, her experience has spanned a variety of therapeutic areas, international market access, country and regional general management, marketing, and emerging market development.
Julie is known for strong, collaborative, and inclusive leadership that enables Takeda to meet the needs of the people the company serves while driving innovations that improve patients’ lives. Her global outlook — shaped by work across Europe, Asia, and Latin America, and by having lived in the U.K., Switzerland, and the U.S. — has helped her build teams that are diverse across multiple dimensions, enabling inclusive decision-making that keeps the patient at the center.
Julie serves on the boards of directors for PhRMA, which represents the country’s leading innovative biopharmaceutical research companies, and Croda International, a company that leverages smart science to create high-performance ingredients and technologies that improve lives. She was named one of Boston’s 50 Most Influential Asian American Pacific Islanders in 2023, to The 2022 PharmaVoice 100 list, and to Fierce Pharma’s list of 2020’s Fiercest Women in Life Sciences.
She earned an M.B.A. from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.A. in economics from Dartmouth College. She resides with her family in the Boston area.