Executive Escalation-Triage Recovery Leader

The mandate

A contested instrument result, late component and research-priority dispute each now trigger executive escalation because functional leaders no longer trust local resolution. The chief executive received 126 exception requests last quarter, many without a requested decision or consequence clock. Amid that noise, a customer-science signal affecting a critical experiment waited nine days. The chief of staff departed after an emergency board review exposed the triage failure.

The seven-month assignment starts within ten days and will rebuild escalation from first signal through closure, learning and return of ownership. During the first twenty working days, the leader must classify the existing queue, protect science and quality pathways, and establish daily triage for customer or enterprise-critical cases. Two laboratory residencies will test whether thresholds make sense where technical uncertainty originates.

Successful handover means the inherited queue is cleared, ninety percent of exceptions resolve at the lowest competent level, all executive escalations name a decision and clock, and no critical signal is lost for twelve consecutive weeks. A permanent executive-operations head enters in month five and must handle an unseen scientific ambiguity plus supply exception during a five-week overlap without defaulting both upward.

The interim can return incomplete escalations, assign a resolution owner, convene cross-functional decisions, close delegated exceptions and deploy up to USD 4 million from the authorised recovery reserve. Scientific validity remains with designated research and quality authorities; the executive committee retains portfolio, material customer, investment and reputation choices. The leader cannot overrule a safety, quality or scientific-integrity stop.

Research prioritisation, product roadmap, supplier remediation, laboratory quality-system redesign, commercial compensation and organisation restructuring remain outside scope. The role restores the route by which an exception reaches the correct authority and returns with closure. Suspected misconduct, data integrity or regulated quality matters bypass management triage and enter protected channels immediately.

Why this seat is open

Rapid growth replaced experienced informal networks with escalation by visibility and persistence. The former chief of staff became the human router until the volume overwhelmed both that role and the executive committee. A temporary leader is needed to rebuild thresholds, recover the queue and prove local resolution before a permanent appointment.

What you will own

• Classify 126 inherited exceptions by consequence, urgency, technical authority, decision request and lowest competent resolution level.
• Establish thresholds separating local variance, cross-functional collision, executive choice and protected quality or integrity escalation.
• Return submissions that lack evidence, owner, alternatives, clock or a decision capable of being made by the recipient.
• Chair daily critical triage and weekly learning forums without appropriating scientific, quality or portfolio accountabilities.
• Track ageing, repeated causes, unnecessary upward movement, bounced ownership and critical-signal detection by functional source.
• Exercise delegated recovery authority and route reserved customer, capital, reputation or research choices to executives.
• Transfer the recovered queue, twelve-week evidence and unfamiliar science-plus-supply exception to the incoming leader.

Candidate qualifications

• Held executive operations authority in biotechnology, research instrumentation or another evidence-intensive scientific enterprise.
• Recovered an overwhelmed escalation system where volume concealed a smaller number of genuinely enterprise-critical signals.
• Understands scientific, quality and integrity authorities well enough to preserve them while accelerating commercial resolution.
• Has returned decision ownership downward without appearing indifferent to material customer, safety or reputational consequences.
• Built exception analytics that changed thresholds and local capability rather than merely producing executive heat maps.
• Completed succession through unfamiliar live escalations requiring different technical authorities and consequence clocks.

Non-negotiables

• Can start in Boston within ten days and complete both laboratory residencies during the seven-month term.
• Brings executive exception-command experience in a scientific setting; chief-of-staff coordination alone is not sufficient.
• Will protect independent quality, research-integrity and misconduct channels from performance-driven triage.
• Accepts that product, research, scientific-validity, material customer and enterprise-investment choices remain reserved.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe an overloaded escalation system where the most serious signal was hidden by routine exceptions.
2. 49 words maximum. What is your earliest Boston start date, and can you complete both laboratory residencies?
3. 49 words maximum. How would you return decisions downward without suppressing weak but potentially consequential scientific signals?