If you take care of the patients, the business should INTRODUCTION

Paul Perreault defies the widespread stereotype of a biotech CEO. He is humble, not brash; understated, not self-promoting. Within a values-based culture, he trusts his leaders and their people to do the right things and he keeps patients at the forefront not as customers, but as people in need. n Perhaps that low-key style is why, as Paul liked to joke ten years ago, CSL was “the biggest company no one’s ever heard of” even as it became the world’s third-largest biotech company and one of the largest companies in Australia, by market capitalization. But Paul’s ten-year success story couldn’t stay under the radar. In 2019, Harvard Business Review included him on its list of the top 100 best-performing CEOs in the world—alongside Tim Cook of Apple and Robert Iger of Disney. CSL has been named among the Best Places to Work in the world by Forbes and highlighted as a leader in Diversity and Inclusion by Thomson Reuters. n Paul’s innate relationship skills, so central to his success, weren’t crafted; they come naturally. As one of eight children, he grew up relying on a knack for negotiation. He honed that awareness of interpersonal dynamics in his study of psychology at the University of Central Florida, advanced business management training, and his years in commercial operations at Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories (now part of Pfizer) and in leadership at Aventis Behring (which became part of CSL) and at CSL Behring. n People marvel at his ability to remember names and details of someone he met only briefly. He has a great and unmatched memory, a method for making mental notes, and the desire to connect with people in an authentic way. He has the sort of old-fashioned values that everyone wishes were still the norm: His word is bond. A promise made is a promise kept. n In the early 1990s, Vicki and Fred Modell went to a hematology conference, looking for help launching the Jeffrey Modell Foundation in memory of their son Jeffrey, who died of complications of primary immunodeficiency, which left him vulnerable to infection. Jeffrey took an early version of immunoglobulin, and at an exhibit booth for Centeon, a precursor of Aventis Behring, the Modells understood for the first time that the life-saving therapy came from donations of