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CEOs are often advised to be circumspect about their own views when running a meeting, lest they suppress new ideas. But in any meeting with Henri in charge, it was immediately apparent what outcome he wanted, because he would state it up front. Then, quite sincerely, he would encourage dialogue and dissenting views. Of course, in the end, having been listened to, we almost always decided to do what Henri had suggested.



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Fortunate breaks occur when you create an environment that has ample opportunity and the foresight to capture them. —HENRI TERMEER



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Termeer was not just present at the creation of the orphan drug revolution—he was in many ways its catalyst and instigator. He took the first steps on a journey that would lead to the approval of dozens of orphan drugs and the growth of a multibillion-dollar industry and would take Genzyme from a company with 17 full-time U.S. employees to a powerhouse with more than 14,000 employees in 50 offices and labs around the world. At the beginning of this adventure, Henri Termeer might well have felt it was just him and Brian Berman taking an enormous chance. There is always a risk in going first in a clinical trial. There is no conventional wisdom, no standard operating procedure, and no history of trial and error. But for Brian Berman and his family, it was the ultimate leap of faith. “I can tell you that of all the things that I remember from the 30 years that I was there,” Henri Termeer told an audience of business students, “those are the moments that I remember the most, and those motivated me forever the most—that moment of saying, ‘Wow. It works.’



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Henri Termeer’s and Genzyme’s success would later be measured by the growth of Genzyme into a multibillion-dollar, Fortune 500 company and the development of a roster of innovative, life-saving treatments. But to families of rare disease patients like Brian Berman, it all added up to one word—hope. And, exclaiming in front of a gathering that had assembled to honor Henri Termeer, the grief-stricken father of a rare diseased daughter remembered his words the day he had learned of a therapy being developed by a Boston biotech company, “Hope was spelled Genzyme.”



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The manner in which Termeer ran his shop reflected his Dutch commercial upbringing. His principles were fundamental. Your reputation was paramount. You were to avoid indebtedness, operate modestly with pureness, and conduct yourself as an individualist. In the spirit of how he ran his shop, Jacques Termeer’s message to his kids and grandkids would be, “go forth, work hard, redouble your efforts.”



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Henri Termeer would live his adult life with little connection to organized religion, but he no doubt drew many of his philosophies and moral foundation from these youthful impressions. His style of servant leadership, his modesty, his empathy for the plight of those less fortunate—these core traits derived, at least in part, from his faith and, by extension, his mother.



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As described by his siblings, Henri Termeer was an ambitious yet unexceptional young boy. He was compliant, well-mannered, smart, and ingenious, but hardly a boy wonder. He did have a deeply competitive drive that sometimes got the better of him, as his brother, Bert, recalls. “He was one class below me in primary school, and one day there was a contest to make drawings of safety signs for people who drive cars and bicycles. I made a drawing and Henri looked at it very carefully, because sometimes he had no inspiration himself, and I had too much inspiration. So, I made a drawing of a crossroads and a sign, and he looked at it very carefully and made exactly the same drawing himself. I won first prize, and he got nothing. He was so angry! He said, ‘They’re the same, there’s no difference, why didn’t I also get first prize?’



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“When you’re young, being asked to take responsibility for managing people or operations is a magnificent experience,” Henri said. “I learned a lot. Thousands of things needed to be managed and controlled in order to keep the planes in the air.



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People would often talk about how passionate Bill Graham was about patient care, eclipsing the personal dedication and emotion of all his other employees, except one. Monica Higgins quotes a businessman who said that Graham’s “only rival in his passion for saving lives is Henri Termeer. Henri can make you cry.”



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The “Baxter way” was akin to stretching a rubber band. Take a hugely talented, relatively inexperienced leader/manager and place him (nearly all of the MBAs hired in this era were men) in a role beyond his experience curve. At Genzyme, Termeer often employed this technique as a way of identifying his top performers, developing these executives, building out his management ranks, and, in the end, providing for leadership succession.