Veeva: A Public Benefit Corporation

“We believe social and economic benefits go hand in hand and have always operated with the long-term view that doing the right thing for our customers, employees, and communities ultimately allows us to deliver the best results for investors.”

Peter Gassner, Founder and CEO, Veeva Systems

Operating as a Public Benefit Corporation

As a Public Benefit Corporation, we are guided by our core values — do the right thing, customer success, employee success, and speed — to help the life sciences industry improve health and extend life and to create high-quality jobs that benefit our employees and communities.

Our PBC Commitment

As a PBC, we operate as a for-profit company, but we also pursue a public benefit purpose that is listed in our certificate of incorporation, can only be changed by shareholder vote, and is intended to provide societal benefits beyond just shareholder financial returns. Our public benefit purpose is as follows:

To provide products and services that are intended to help make the industries we serve more productive and to create high-quality employment opportunities in the communities in which we operate.

Equally important, as a PBC, our directors have a legal responsibility to balance the interests of shareholders with the interests of customers, employees, and other key stakeholders.

Why a PBC?

Operating as a PBC aligns with our longstanding Vision and Values.

  • Vision: Building the Industry Cloud for Life Sciences
  • Values: Do the Right Thing, Customer Success, Employee Success, and Speed

Our goal is to be the most strategic technology partner to the life sciences industry. Our PBC structure and purpose helps ensure that we are aligned with the life sciences industry and will remain so into the future as we support the industry’s broad mission to improve health and extend life.

We also strongly believe in the multi-stakeholder approach. Throughout Veeva’s history, we have always taken customers, employees, partners, and our communities into account when making decisions. Indeed, we believe that to achieve meaningful success and maintain market leadership over longer periods, companies must balance the interests of key stakeholders.

Overall, we believe that pursuing our public benefit purpose and considering the interests of our key stakeholders enhances our relationships with customers, employees, job candidates, partners, and the communities where we operate in a way that makes our business more durable. In turn, shareholders stand to benefit when employees are engaged and happy, when partners can collaborate and add value, when customers are more productive, and when customers feel more comfortable partnering for the long term.

Our PBC Objectives

Our board of directors has established objectives in pursuit of our PBC purpose. Our objectives may change over time as our business and our relationship with the industries we serve evolves. For more details on our PBC objectives and progress, see our PBC Report.

  • Enable faster and less expensive clinical trials that are less burdensome and more accessible to patients
  • Support customer choice and remove competitive barriers from the life sciences industry
  • High-quality job creation—10,000 employees by 2025
  • Advocate for the elimination of the use of non-competes as a condition of employment in the U.S. by 2030

Reporting Against Our PBC Objectives

We report against our PBC obligations annually and publicly. We believe in transparency and the value of formalizing commitments by writing them down and communicating clearly. Our PBC Report explains how the PBC structure reflects our Vision and Values and how we are pursuing our public benefit purpose and multi-stakeholder obligations when we make important decisions.