Her Story
About Jill
Jill Chrencik serves as Senior Principal Scientist at Merck, where she has worked for nine years after beginning her career at Pfizer, spending time at a startup, and returning to Pfizer. She holds a bachelor's degree from Syracuse University, a PhD in biochemistry and X-ray crystallography from the University of North Carolina, and completed postdoctoral training at Scripps in structural biology. In her role, Chrencik aligns strategy across a large portfolio, mentors junior scientists, and spends time in the lab advancing projects. She is a member of the Healthcare Businesswomen's Association as well as Merck's internal women's network and capability network. Chrencik facilitates workshops for I Am Remarkable to build self-advocacy skills. She attributes her success to grit, perseverance, and hard work, particularly as a woman in a male-dominated field, and values trust, honesty, and vulnerability. Chrencik advises young women entering pharma and science to seek mentors and sponsors, network actively via LinkedIn, and embrace vulnerability and failure, noting that 90 percent of the work involves setbacks.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Jill
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to a lot of grit and perseverance. It's not been easy coming up as a female in science, but I've persevered through challenges. I'm a pretty hard worker and can persevere through almost anything.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Somebody told me once that you can't make other people work. People are gonna do what they want to do, and you kind of just have to learn to work with their pace or abilities, and instead of getting angry about it, try to figure out how to best work with them.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Get a mentor and get a sponsor, and utilize them. Network like crazy, make it your job. Use LinkedIn actively. Be willing to make mistakes and be vulnerable. In pharma and science, 90% of what we do is failure, and you just have to get really good at failing.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The industry is male-dominated, which is a challenge, but there's massive opportunity with AI/ML changing how we work, making mundane tasks obsolete. This is great for women juggling home and work. The opportunity is to prepare the next generation of women for leadership positions so that in 10 years pharma has a different look.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Trust, honesty, and vulnerability are the two things that make me tick. (Note: transcript 'trust. Stress and vulnerability' corrected to trust, honesty and vulnerability based on context)
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