UCB partnered with Impel Talent to strengthen leadership capability, rebuild connection and create greater alignment across a growing global Quality team. Through a bespoke multi-phase leadership journey combining Emotional Intelligence, coaching, mentoring, workshops and cross-regional learning, the programme helped 90 people across four regions develop a shared leadership language, strengthen cultural intelligence and build a sustainable culture of continuous learning.

Client Overview

UCB is a global biopharmaceutical company founded in 1928 and headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, with operations across approximately 40 countries and a workforce of around 9,000 employees.

With a strong patient-centric ethos, UCB focuses on improving the lives of people living with severe diseases, particularly across neurology, immunology and rare diseases.

Within the organisation, UCB’s Quality function brought together a diverse team of approximately 90 professionals across four regions, including Directors, their direct reports and consultants supporting the business.

As the Quality team expanded across locations, functions and levels of seniority, effective leadership, collaboration and cultural intelligence became increasingly important to maintaining alignment and ensuring the team could continue working effectively as one global function.

The Challenge

As UCB’s Quality team grew, signs of increasing organisational friction began to emerge.

Conflicts were becoming more frequent, engagement was declining and the genuine human connection between senior leaders and the wider team was beginning to weaken.

With approximately 90 people working across four regions, differences in location, experience, culture and ways of working created additional complexity.

Leadership recognised that transformation could not be achieved through isolated individual learning. If the team was going to work differently, people needed to develop together.

The organisation therefore needed to:

• Build stronger self-leadership capability across the team
• Equip leaders and employees to navigate a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment with greater resilience
• Establish a common leadership vocabulary and practical toolkit
• Strengthen relationships between senior leadership and the wider Quality team
• Improve collaboration across regions and organisational levels
• Develop greater Emotional and Cultural Intelligence
• Encourage peer-to-peer learning and knowledge sharing
• Build confidence among leaders
• Create a sustainable culture of continuous learning
• Help individuals take greater ownership of their careers and development

The challenge was therefore broader than delivering a traditional leadership programme.

UCB needed a long-term development journey capable of changing how people understood themselves, interacted with one another and worked together across an increasingly global organisation.

Our Approach

Working closely with UCB’s Quality leadership team, Impel Talent designed a bespoke multi-phase leadership development journey centred on the core skills of Emotional Intelligence.

Rather than beginning with a predetermined programme, we started by listening to the organisation and understanding what employees genuinely wanted and needed to develop.

Discovery Through Listening

Before delivery began, Impel Talent engaged the wider team to understand which leadership and development topics were most relevant to them.

This helped create stronger programme buy-in from the beginning and ensured that development was connected to the real challenges employees were experiencing.

Emotional Intelligence Development

The foundation of the programme was built around four core Emotional Intelligence capabilities:

• Self-Awareness
• Self-Management
• Social Awareness
• Relationship Management

These capabilities provided a common foundation from which participants could strengthen their resilience, confidence, communication and ability to work effectively with others.

Modules, Workshops & Masterclasses

Learning was delivered through a combination of structured modules, workshops and masterclasses across multiple phases.

Topics evolved with the needs of the team and included areas such as:

• Building resilience
• Emotional Intelligence
• Cultural Intelligence
• Career ownership and personal development
• Leadership confidence
• Cross-cultural collaboration
• Artificial Intelligence versus Human Intelligence

This phased approach allowed learning to progress from understanding the individual towards applying those insights more effectively within teams, relationships and an increasingly global working environment.

One-to-One Coaching & Mentoring

Participants received individual coaching and mentoring throughout the journey.

These one-to-one conversations created space for participants to reflect on their development, discuss challenges openly and translate programme learning into practical workplace behaviours.

As the programme progressed, confidence grew significantly, with leaders becoming increasingly comfortable leading conversations and applying what they had learned.

Cohort Design for Connection

Cohorts were deliberately mixed across locations, levels of experience and tenure.

This gave participants opportunities to work with colleagues they might not normally interact with, build relationships across the organisation and learn from different perspectives.

The cohort structure became particularly valuable as the Quality team expanded internationally, helping participants strengthen their Cultural Intelligence and understand how different perspectives influence communication and collaboration.

Check-Ins, Reflection & Accountability

Each phase incorporated regular peer check-ins and opportunities for reflection.

Sessions concluded with participants making personal commitments around what they would apply during the next phase of the programme.

This helped move development beyond formal learning sessions and created greater accountability for practising new behaviours in everyday work.

The Impact

The programme successfully supported the Quality team across three years of learning and organisational change, maintaining strong engagement even as the team continued to evolve.

During the programme, UCB completed an acquisition that introduced further organisational change. Despite this disruption, the Quality team achieved a 98% retention rate.

The programme also helped establish a common language across the team.

Participants became more confident leading discussions, working across organisational levels and applying shared leadership concepts within their day-to-day roles.

Cultural Intelligence became increasingly important as the team expanded globally.

Through cross-regional cohorts and shared learning, participants developed a stronger understanding of different perspectives and ways of working, helping balance technical capability with stronger Emotional and Cultural Intelligence.

The programme encouraged leaders to approach cultural differences through greater Awareness, Behaviour and Curiosity, strengthening collaboration across regions.

Continuous learning also developed into a team habit.

Rather than viewing development as an isolated programme or annual intervention, participants increasingly recognised the importance of deliberately creating time for reflection, learning and personal growth alongside operational delivery.

The impact extended beyond the original Quality team.

The success of the partnership resulted in Impel Talent being referred to UCB’s External Manufacturing team, leading to a further two-year engagement within the organisation.

Project Highlights

• 🌍 Approximately 90 people connected across four regions
• 🧠 Multi-phase leadership development journey built around Emotional Intelligence
• 📚 More than three years of learning together as one team
• 📈 98% retention rate, maintained through an acquisition
• 🎯 Increased confidence among leaders to lead discussions and apply a shared leadership language
• 🤝 Stronger relationships between senior leaders and the wider team
• 🌐 Increased Cultural Intelligence as the organisation became more globally distributed
• 💬 Mixed cohorts connecting colleagues across locations, experience levels and functions
• 👥 One-to-one coaching and mentoring throughout the development journey
• 🔄 Continuous learning established as an ongoing team habit
• 🧭 Development spanning resilience, Emotional Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence and AI versus Human Intelligence
• 🚀 Programme success resulted in a referral to UCB’s External Manufacturing team and a further two-year engagement

Client Testimonial

“I had an overwhelmingly positive response from my entire team to keep the program going each year — they discussed topics they don’t normally talk about, met colleagues they don’t normally work with, and learnt from each other. I can’t recommend Impel enough.”

— Liesbeth Foesters, Head of Quality, UCB

Our Expertise in Action

This partnership demonstrates Impel Talent’s ability to design long-term leadership development journeys that strengthen individual capability while also influencing culture, relationships and organisational performance.

Our strengths include:

• Bespoke Leadership Development: Designing programmes around the organisation’s real challenges and employee needs rather than relying on standardised training.
• Emotional Intelligence Development: Strengthening self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management as practical leadership capabilities.
• Cross-Cultural Leadership Development: Helping globally distributed teams understand different perspectives, improve Cultural Intelligence and collaborate more effectively across regions.
• Executive & Leadership Coaching: Providing personalised support that helps leaders reflect, build confidence and translate learning into meaningful behavioural change.
• Resilience & Self-Leadership: Equipping individuals with the tools required to manage themselves effectively through complexity, uncertainty and organisational change.
• Learning Culture Development: Helping organisations move beyond standalone training interventions and create sustainable habits of continuous learning and reflection.
• Cohort-Based Learning: Connecting colleagues across functions, regions and levels to strengthen relationships and encourage peer-to-peer development.
• Long-Term Talent Partnerships: Building trusted relationships that evolve with the organisation and create opportunities to support additional teams and business functions over time.

Through the partnership, UCB’s Quality team developed more than individual leadership skills.

The programme created a shared language for leadership, strengthened relationships across regions and organisational levels, increased confidence and helped establish continuous learning as part of how the team worked together.

With 98% retention through a period of significant organisational change and the programme subsequently expanding into a further two-year engagement with UCB’s External Manufacturing team, the partnership demonstrates the wider impact that sustained investment in leadership, culture and human capability can create across a global organisation.