When Doug Lankler attended Cornell Law School in the late 1980s, he met Zach Shulman and the two quickly struck up a friendship. On September 18, Lankler ’90 and Shulman ’90, director of Entrepreneurship at Cornell, reunited at the Law School’s Landis Auditorium for a fireside chat about Lankler’s journey from Cornell Law to his pivotal role as general counsel at Pfizer during the COVID-19 pandemic. In conversation with his longtime friend, Lankler recounted his formative experiences, his commitment to compliance and corporate ethics, and the unique challenges he faced during the pandemic.

Starting his career as a litigation associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Lankler soon moved into public service as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, where he was the recipient of the U.S. Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award.

“My dad was an assistant district attorney in Manhattan. He worked in a homicide bureau. And unlike a lot of ADAs back then, even today, he stayed in the job for a very long time,” said Lankler. “He would come home and tell stories about his job. I could tell he really loved what he did… My older brother and I both became lawyers because of dad’s passion for it.”

Before working his way to Pfizer though, Lankler recalled the moment he knew he didn’t want to continue on as a trial lawyer. It occurred when he was sitting in a courtroom as a member of a Japanese crime family, whom they had pursued for three years and eventually prosecuted, was being sentenced. The mobster had been involved in stock trading activities, and after a lengthy trial, the prosecution won. “It should have been a joyous moment for me since justice prevailed,” said Lankler, “but I remember feeling more sad than anything. This just kind of stinks that life goes in this way. I realized at that moment that I was done.”

In 1999, Lankler joined Pfizer, where he led the development of a groundbreaking compliance program, resulting in significant organizational changes. Between 2003 and 2006, the newly formed “zero tolerance” compliance program resulted in the termination of a number of country managers, finance people, marketers, and others. “Regardless of what a great performer the person might have been—if we concluded that the person was in violation of our policies or law they were gone,” said Lankler.

In 2013, Lankler was named general counsel and executive vice president at Pfizer. “I have had a lot of luck throughout my career,” said Lankler. “I was in the right place at the right time.”

“He calls it luck, which partly I guess is a little bit of the right timing, but I want you all to think about the fact that good things happen to good people,” said Shulman.

When asked why he’s remained at Pfizer after all of these years, Lankler replied, “Mission!” When the COVID-19 pandemic devastated the world in 2020, Lankler said, by far his proudest moment working at Pfizer has been the development and release of the Pfizer vaccine in March 2021, calling it the “career privilege of a lifetime.”

Shortly before the coronavirus made waves across the globe, Lankler was actually up for consideration for the general counsel position at another large company. He reflected on not having gotten the role, but did say that “When we did the vaccine, I remember thinking, if I was there watching these guys do this, I would have been devastated.”

Although working for Pfizer has been mostly positive for Lankler, there were times that he and the company faced adversity. Following the initial success of Pfizer’s vaccine rollout, anti-vaccine backlash intensified in 2022, eventually leading to a significant drop in the company’s stock.

“Politics got involved, so we saw a large number of people start to cancel contracts and we lost billions of dollars,” said Lankler.

The hardest part for Lankler though was witnessing the impact on the morale of his colleagues. They felt like they had done a really good thing, but then were faced with the difficulty of having to lay people off. Eventually Pfizer found ways to move forward and improve profitability with new drugs such as Paxlovid. “At this point, we have moved on from COVID, and we are more focused on things like oncology,” said Lankler.

Before the fireside chat ended, Lankler offered encouragement to the students in attendance. “First of all, pat yourself on the back. It is definitely harder for you than it was for us, simply because of the internet and speed of information and the sheer fact it all has to be broadcast,” he said. “I think it adds a layer of pressure to your generation that we did not deal with ourselves. For you to do all you have done, it is really impressive.”