Greg Ross
President, North America / Opella North America
Greg Ross, President of North America at Opella, discusses why 2026 will be a pivotal year for the expanding healthcare business following its successful transition from Sanofi.
Since April 2025, Opella, the former Consumer Healthcare business unit of Sanofi, has operated as a standalone, fast-moving consumer healthcare company with a new name and a fresh perspective.
Based in Paris, France, Opella is now the third-largest business worldwide in the over-the-counter (OTC) and vitamins, minerals and supplements (VMS) market, proudly serving more than half a billion consumers in over 140 countries.
Featuring 100 beloved household brands, Opella’s wide range of products include popular names such as Allegra, Enterogermina, Doliprane, Magne B6, EVE, DulcoLax, Essentiale, Qunol, IcyHot, Cenovis, Buscopan/No Spa, Mucosolvan/Bisolvon, Pharmaton, Dorflex, and Novalgina.
Opella stands out as a bold, non-traditional healthcare company and is proud to be the first global consumer healthcare firm to receive B Corp certification. Its modern, customer-centric, and more sustainable approach to healthcare and self-care has established its strong reputation that continues to grow in 2026.
Pioneering Opella’s Transformation
Greg Ross, President of Opella North America, leads Opella’s operations across the U.S. and Canada from its headquarters in Morristown, NJ. He joined the team in June 2024, at the start of the company’s separation from Sanofi.
Ross tells CEO North America that when he first came on board, one of the biggest opportunities he saw for Opella was in the healthcare industry as a whole, which was stagnant, complicated, and in desperate need of a major wake-up call.
“What inspired me about Opella was the mission of the company, which is about putting health in your hands by making self-care as simple as it should be.”
“I think when you look across all categories, and it’s true regardless of what industry you work in or what region, you have your share takers and your market makers. I think the role that we play within North America is to be a market maker.”
At the time, Ross also appreciated seeing how the company envisioned its future as a standalone business. The transition would require speed, rigor, operational intensity, and effort across all functions, making the journey both exciting and challenging for the new President.
“Obviously, going on that journey and carving out from a much bigger organization with a very different business model in the pharmaceutical world and going into a truly fast-moving consumer healthcare world required a massive transformation in terms of everything that we do as a business.”
Now that the transition is well and truly behind Opella and the company is forging its own path, Ross believes the greatest opportunity in the company’s future is “Establishing what is best in class and being part of a true challenger company that’s here to revolutionize the industry.”
Becoming a Market-Maker
Ross believes Opella is a genuine market-maker with promising opportunities in North America. He also says the company can leverage its strengths by showcasing what makes it special.
“We can embrace our smaller size relative to some of our peers. Often, when people ask me what it’s like to work at Opella, I describe it as a $5 billion startup. We’re small and agile, but we have the resources of a large company.”
For Ross, this is where the opportunity lies for Opella to “shape the market” and be true challengers within North America. “Our mission is to revolutionize the industry. But I think our secret sauce will be our size, our brands and our people.”
Being small compared with its competitors makes Opella increasingly able to adapt to the ever-changing market, and for Ross, speed is the key to the company’s success. “Today our industry is changing at the speed of TikTok, so we need to move quickly and respond to consumer needs and trends.”
Additionally, Opella’s success lies in its champion team that supports the company’s reputable, science-backed brands. “We also have well-known, well-loved, well-trusted brands that are truly rooted in science. For me, it’s the science-backed superiority we bring with our brands, combined with the agility we have, and a truly entrepreneurial and tenacious workforce that’s out to win and make a difference.”
Aligning Market Needs with Organic Growth
When Opella was established as a standalone global consumer healthcare leader, its parent company, Sanofi, maintained a significant stake through a 48.2% equity interest. The rest of the company is owned by Bpifrance with 1.8% and by private investment firm, CD&R, holding the remaining 50.0%.
Since becoming independent, Opella has pursued global organic growth, staying aligned with the company’s broad vision for the future: “To become the best fast-moving consumer health company in and for the world.”
The company operates 13 top-tier manufacturing sites globally and has four specialized centers dedicated to scientific and innovative development. One of its largest centers is situated in Chattanooga, Tennessee, overseen by Kevin Hazel, Head of Manufacturing & Supply, North America for Opella.
Regarding the region’s medium- to long-term growth plans, Ross tells CEO North America, “When you look at us globally, we’re the number three OTC & VMS player in the world, but in North America, we’re only number seven. So, I have a mandate to scale this business quickly and drive that growth.”
A key driver of Opella’s growth is its emphasis on innovation. “If we want to modernize our brands and truly be market makers, we need to 10x our innovation, agility, speed, and disruptiveness. We need to drive that digital transformation and make sure that data and AI stay at the center of our strategy, so we can ultimately leapfrog in certain key areas.”
“It’s a privilege to have our brands invited into our consumers’ homes. Only by being consumer-obsessed can we earn that invitation.”
Moving forward, Ross is also leaning into operational excellence, not just in marketing or sales, but in terms of how Opella manufactures and supplies its products, for example, at the facility in Tennessee. “For us, it’s not just about being better than where we were, but about understanding what best-in-class looks like, setting that as our new benchmark, and then hopefully creating a new benchmark as we continue to excel.”
Streamlining Opella’s Operations
At the forefront of Opella North America’s manufacturing supply strategy is a digital transformation, which Ross sees his team making tremendous progress in as the company moves forward, “Bringing not just efficiencies, but resilience so we can withstand kind of any future shocks that might come to a global supply chain or isolated shocks that might occur.”
Despite being a newly formed independent provider, Ross’s team continues to build its resilience and capabilities. “We embrace the challenge or mindset even as we scale and maybe are no longer the size of a challenger, but we never want to lose that kind of entrepreneurial spirit.”
Ross notes that navigating the complex healthcare landscape is challenging because it’s a constant effort to stay one step ahead of competitors. “We need to future-fit our portfolio and how we bring our products to market to make sure they’re always accessible.”
In the current economic climate, Ross and his team navigate market needs by staying grounded and listening to the customer. “Having the right sizes at the right price points for our consumers, innovating solutions that allow us to meet their unmet needs, and also bringing benefits that are worth paying more for.”
He sums it up, “We’re eight months into being a stand-alone company, so we have to really change our operational intensity as a company and bring in those true FM CH best practices into everything that we do. And once we get that flywheel going, I am convinced we will be unstoppable.”
Making Collaboration Count
A non-negotiable factor in Opella’s success, according to Ross, is assembling the right team. “Ensuring we have individuals with a true enterprise mindset who can understand where we need to be integrated across the organization and can look at the business through the lens of different business owners will be critical to our success.”
In 2026, Ross aims to enable his team to concentrate on five main areas: revitalizing Opella’s brands, adopting operational excellence best practices, strengthening customer partnerships with retailers, enhancing supply chain resilience, and further developing Opella’s sustainability initiatives.
“We need to turbocharge the marketing machine by embedding our brands in culture, moving at the speed of social, and bringing innovation to the forefront.”
“We’re the first consumer healthcare company to achieve global B Corp certification, and for us, there’s a lot of work to maintain that and continue to set the standard in sustainability. That’s another key area of focus we want to bring throughout the organization.”
“We have brands that I think you’ll see really transform as a brand, but also transform within the industry, and hopefully people take away that this is a place where entrepreneurs and those with a desire to make a difference in the world will come.”
What Distinguishes Opella in 2026?
“For us, it’s about bringing novel innovation. To create new use cases and drive household penetration among non-treaters in the category.”
One trait the President values is his team’s “challenger mindset,” embracing and owning the “$5 billion startup mentality” and acting swiftly to bring innovation to market.
“It’s really about how we’re rethinking and re-engineering our processes so that we compete at a different level of speed than some of our larger competitors.”
Overall, Ross sees 2026 as an exciting year for both the company and the entire healthcare industry, which is currently in a state of transformation. “Opella is going to be at the forefront of leading that transformation.”
“Whether you look at beauty, personal care, or other categories that have already gone through a similar transformation, you see not just the benefit for the consumer but also the benefit for the categories and the business as a whole.”
He acknowledges, despite many recent breakthroughs, that “We’re lagging as an industry.” However, this creates an opportunity for Opella to step in as the challenger, transforming a boring, complex category into something radically simple and easy to shop. “Something that drives interest and brings a little bit of joy to otherwise stale categories.”
In 2026, Ross and his team are confidently positioned to keep breaking barriers and making self-care as simple and accessible as it should be.
“I don’t think we’ll ever be where we want to be because we’ll keep raising the standards. But at the end of the day, we have the foundation of the brands, the resources, the science, and we have the people. Now we’re just going to get out there and make it happen.”
