Partner – Organisation and Leadership — Cell-Therapy Programme

The mandate

A leadership advisory firm is frequently asked to assess individual executives in cell and gene therapy, but its clients’ harder problem lies between the roles. Companies moving from research into clinical and manufacturing scale often add functions faster than they define enterprise decisions. Scientific founders, chief medical officers, technical-operations leaders and quality executives can each be strong while portfolio choices stall, patient issues escalate ambiguously and scarce experts become permanent members of every forum.

The firm’s assessment and search work provides privileged insight, yet its organisation advice is inconsistent. Some partners offer thoughtful operating-model support; others extend a succession engagement with generic spans, layers and competency frameworks. The regional council has decided to build a specialist organisation and leadership offer grounded in the actual work of advanced therapies: programme governance, development-to-operations interfaces, independent quality, technical careers, founder transitions and executive-team effectiveness under evidence pressure.

The Partner – Organisation and Leadership will originate and lead this work while contributing to selected CEO and succession mandates. The role has influence across approximately 225 partners, consultants, researchers and affiliates in the wider practice, with a smaller dedicated team to build. Success requires better client decisions and a durable advisory franchise, not a high volume of assessments or workshops.

The appointment is based in Boston with a hybrid working pattern and reports to the Global Managing Partner and regional partner council. It is advisory in structure and subject to full conflict, independence and partnership review. Client work will be international, but the Partner is expected to build deep relationships in the Boston biotechnology ecosystem without depending on a small founder network.

Why this seat is open

This is a new position created after several board reviews showed that executive succession and operating-model questions were being handled separately. No incumbent is being displaced. The council wants a partner with sufficient sector and organisation depth to establish a coherent practice before demand is captured by generalist transformation advisers or reduced to search follow-on work.

What you will own

• Define the firm’s organisation and leadership proposition for cell and gene therapy, specifying the decisions, evidence and client situations where specialist insight changes the answer.
• Originate and lead board engagements involving founder transition, CEO and executive succession, programme governance, technical-operations interfaces and clinical-stage organisation design.
• Diagnose work and decision flow before recommending boxes, including how safety, evidence, manufacturing and portfolio questions enter, escalate and close.
• Build assessment methods that distinguish scientific authority, enterprise leadership, people management and technical contribution rather than forcing every expert into one leadership archetype.
• Advise on scarce-talent capacity and career systems across process development, manufacturing science, quality, clinical operations and regulatory disciplines.
• Lead and develop a multidisciplinary team within a network of approximately 225 professionals and partners; establish review by credible scientific and organisation experts.
• Protect independence where the firm may advise on a role, assess its incumbent and conduct a subsequent search; obtain informed client agreement or separate work when conflicts cannot be managed.
• Create a commercially viable practice with transparent pipeline, pricing, delivery margin, repeat work and successor ownership.

The first 12 months

• Days 1–90: Review current client work and losses, interview board and executive buyers and identify where the firm’s advice has been genuinely distinctive or too generic. Define three priority situations, set conflict rules and take personal responsibility for a live diagnostic where the organisation problem cannot be reduced to replacement of one leader.
• Months 4–9: Build the core team and methods, publish evidence-led points of view without exposing client cases, and convert existing relationships into at least two integrated organisation and leadership engagements. Establish a quality forum that tests sector assumptions, assessment evidence and implementation practicality before recommendations reach a board.
• Months 10–12: Show client outcomes such as faster decisions, clearer accountability, successful executive transition or improved critical-talent coverage. Deliver a sustainable pipeline and contribution margin, transfer account or delivery ownership to at least two other leaders, and close any offer that repeatedly produces activity without consequential decisions.

What the board will measure

• Revenue and margin from clearly defined organisation and leadership work, distinguished from executive-search fees and generic assessment activity.
• Board and executive evidence that recommendations changed decision rights, leadership choices or talent systems and remained in use after the engagement.
• Repeat and referral work from cell-therapy clients without unacceptable concentration in one investor, founder group or originating partner.
• Quality and independence of integrated assessment, advisory and search engagements, including explicit management of role and information conflicts.
• Strength of the partner and consultant bench, with assignments led successfully without the incoming Partner occupying every client interaction.
• Contribution to firm-wide knowledge and collaboration while protecting sensitive individual, clinical and organisation information.

The person

You are an organisation and leadership partner, senior adviser, chief people officer or enterprise transformation leader with 22–28 years of relevant experience. Your work includes cell and gene therapy, biotechnology, biologics or another science-led sector where patient and technical risk shape organisation choices. You have advised or led an organisation of at least 200 people and carried a practice, budget or transformation perimeter of at least USD 75 million.

You can diagnose decision systems, not only roles. You have worked through a founder transition, executive-team redesign or development-to-operations shift and can show which accountabilities changed in practice. You understand why independent quality cannot be subordinated to schedule, why technical career paths matter, and why a brilliant scientist may be miscast as a large-team manager.

Candidates from established advisory partnerships should demonstrate personal origination and implementation depth. Operating executives must show that clients beyond their own employer have trusted and paid for their judgement, or provide compelling evidence of comparable board advisory work. The firm values assessment expertise but will not appoint someone whose work ends with psychometrics and individual reports.

The Partner will be based in Boston and travel to client sites across the United States and internationally. Personal networks will be assessed for quality and ethics, not harvested contact lists. The role requires collaborative economics, careful stewardship of individual data and a willingness to recuse or restructure an engagement when the firm’s multiple services create a conflict.

Compensation and terms

The expected base or drawings range is USD 360,000–480,000, supplemented by annual incentive and long-term participation under the partnership model. Performance will reflect client outcomes, ethical origination, practice economics, collaboration and successor development. The advisory appointment supports a hybrid pattern. Partnership capital, deferred awards, notice and restrictive obligations will be reviewed transparently during diligence.

Confidentiality

The firm, clients, assessed individuals and live succession matters will remain unnamed until mutual fit and confidentiality protections are established. Candidates must not provide restricted assessment data, solicit individuals connected to a current mandate or infer client identities through informal market enquiries.

Each response must contain no more than 49 words.