Empower Pharmacy Appoints Suzanne Farhoud as VP, Chief of Staff to Support Next Phase of Growth

Empower Pharmacy, one of the fastest-growing healthcare companies in the U.S., has appointed Suzanne Farhoud as Vice President, Chief of Staff. Empower is a vertically integrated compounding pharmacy focused on delivering personalized, affordable medications directly to patients and providers at scale.

The business has grown rapidly, scaling from $100M in 2022 to a projected $750M+ by 2025. As it moves into its next phase, the focus shifts from growth to how that growth is managed, with greater structure, visibility, and consistency across the organization.

Farhoud’s background is closely aligned with that shift. She most recently served as Director, Strategy within Microsoft’s AI business, where she led enterprise-wide initiatives across a $20B advertising portfolio, working across product, engineering, and commercial teams. Her work included building governance frameworks, driving large-scale program execution, and translating emerging technologies into practical operating models.

Prior to Microsoft, she held senior leadership roles at Xandr as Chief of Staff and Head of Business Operations, and earlier roles at Google in strategy and finance.

Across these environments, a consistent thread emerges. She has operated inside complex, fast-moving organizations where execution depends on clear priorities, strong operating cadence, and the ability to align leadership around measurable outcomes.

That is increasingly where the Chief of Staff role is evolving.

In high-growth environments, it is no longer a coordination function. It sits closer to the center of how the business runs, helping leadership teams stay aligned, focused, and accountable as complexity increases.

Empower’s operating environment makes that especially relevant. With a leadership team that prioritizes urgency, accountability, and results, the role is designed to support execution at scale, not slow it down. 

At The Lancer Group, this is also where we are seeing the most meaningful shift in how AI capability is being brought into organizations.

Rather than hiring standalone AI leaders or building isolated teams, many high-growth and PE-backed companies are embedding this capability into core operating roles. Chief of Staff and business operations leaders are increasingly expected to understand how new tools and data can be applied to improve execution, not just explored at the edge of the business.

The focus is practical. Where can automation remove friction? How can reporting become faster and more reliable? How do leadership teams get clearer signals to make better decisions?

These are operating questions, not technical ones.

Farhoud’s experience reflects that direction. Her time across Microsoft, Xandr, and Google combines systems thinking with hands-on execution in environments where scale and complexity are constant. She’s also a classically trained opera singer.

This appointment reflects both where Empower is in its growth journey and how companies are thinking about building the leadership required to support it.

We congratulate Suzanne on her new role and wish her and the Empower team continued success in this next phase of growth.