Chirfi Guindo

Chirfi Guindo is executive vice president, Strategic Access, Policy & Communications, and a member of the company’s executive team. In this role, Chirfi is responsible for the company’s global policy, pricing and access strategies, ensuring strong alignment and integration between strategy and execution, and delivery of impact for our stakeholders and our company in the U.S. and globally. 

Chirfi previously led the development and implementation of the company’s strategy for the Human Health portfolio as senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Human Health. He brings deep experience across commercial disciplines, international policy and global patient access to his current role and is recognized for developing strong talent and forging innovative public-private partnerships that expand access to Merck medicines and innovations—ultimately elevating Merck’s profile as a patient-focused company. 

From 2017 to 2022, Chirfi was executive vice president and head of global product strategy and commercialization at Biogen and before this, spent more than 25 years with Merck. During this tenure, Chirfi held positions of increasing responsibility in finance, commercial, marketing strategy and P&L. Notably, he led global marketing for Merck’s HIV portfolio, as well as the company’s Human Health businesses in Canada, the Netherlands and South Africa. 

In 2024 he was elected to the board of Beam Therapeutics, a biotech company pioneering the development of base editing to address genetic diseases. 

Chirfi is a graduate of Ecole Centrale de Paris (France) with a degree in engineering and has a Master of Business Administration degree from New York University’s Stern School of Business.