Even after 35 years and by her count 16 or 17 different jobs across every division at Charles River Laboratories, Birgit Girshick still made visiting the company's far-flung outposts one of her first priorities after taking over as CEO on May 5.

"I want to roll out my strategy to them so that they know why we're doing things, why the urgency, what are we trying to accomplish and really what it means to them," Girshick told me during a recent visit to the Leadership Institute 's offices. "And the other one is to listen to them and hear their challenges."

It's just one way an ultimate insider is in some ways acting as if she's an outsider in her quest to transform Charles River, which provides drug-development services. Girshick, who started at Charles River as an executive assistant in her home country of Germany, is just the third CEO in the company's nearly 80-year history and the first unrelated to the founder.

Her appointment, which she said follows a two-year transition during which then-CEO James Foster let her basically run things, comes as the company appears on an upswing. Its stock is up more than 50% since Girshick took over. That doesn't mean the pressure is off. An agreement in May 2025 with Elliott Investment Management added four new directors to the board.

Her strategy involves modernizing the company-for instance, it put in place an AI-enabled digital pathology system that promises faster turnaround times. It also includes examining the company's portfolio, which involves determining what it might outsource. And she wants even closer relationships with pharmaceutical and biotech clients.

For Girshick, all of these goals merge here: "My mission on what we want to do with Charles River is really reducing the time it takes to get a drug into the clinic, because number one, the patients are waiting. Two, it's still costly."

Behind that strategy are perhaps less visible shifts that play a big role in how she's trying to reshape Charles River.

For one thing, she is emphasizing that her executive leadership is the first team-a concept I discussed recently with Gong CEO Amit Bendov. As Girshick noted, this "is the team that thinks holistically, and it has to be your first thought every single day, and then secondarily you think about your functional or your business responsibility."

She reinforced this shared responsibility for solving companywide problems by having her team swap roles at an off-site. So the head of communications, for instance, became the head of finance as they tackled issues.

This is different from when Foster was CEO where issues went up to him and decisions came back down, she said.

Girshick is also working to incorporate outside perspectives, something she said is critical in a sector with few competitors. So outside CEOs, scientists and customers now visit. They often share "a nibble...that we didn't think about," she said, adding "that's so important when you go through a transformation like we currently are."

Erle Norton Managing Editor, C-Suite Content

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