Interim Solutions Life Sciences Principal

We are mission-driven to advance wellbeing across the Quality of Life ecosystem through impactful leadership. Come join us!

THE FIRM

WittKieffer has been providing search services to the life sciences industry for over 8 years and recently added leadership advisory offering. At the end of 2023, WittKieffer extended its Interim Solutions to the Global Investor-Backed Markets, including life sciences, to better serve its clients with our multi-solution approach to impactful leadership.

The role of Principal Business Development Life Sciences will focus on being a trusted advisor to senior leadership at our life sciences or investment firms, like PE & VC, focused on life sciences and bringing them the optimal leadership solution, which may be a combination of search, leadership advisory, and/or interim. The principal will work closely with colleagues in search and leadership advisory to develop the right leadership imperative for WittKieffer's current and new clients while representing interim solutions.  The principal will identify, develop, grow, and close new life science and/or PE/VC clients to provide interim solutions and promote search and/or leadership solutions, often as part of a team. The business development principal will work closely and sometimes directly manage consultants and senior associates. This role also works closely with talent delivery to service short and long-term interim opportunities.

THE ROLE

The Principal Business Development will be a strong, trusted advisor to our clients and focus on client identification and development and engagement activities for Interim Solutions within the life sciences or investor-backed healthcare market. They also will help to connect the dots across search and advisory solutions, as well as leadership advisory, to identify integrated solutions and more expansive client opportunities. In doing so, they will work collaboratively with (1) life sciences market team and search consultants, and (2) members of the Leadership Advisory team.

In addition, the BD Principal will contribute to developing and implementing best practices, policies, procedures, and operations for the growth of the Interim Leadership Solutions team as a whole.

RESPONSIBILITIES

To identify, nurture, and bring impactful solutions to clients:

• Finds and grows identified target clients/client segments in life sciences. Builds and manages productive client relationships, including with PE and VC investors, that position WittKieffer as a trusted leadership advisor across solutions. 

• Independently drives the identification of needs at clients and works with Talent Delivery to serve those needs. Combines deep industry knowledge of the Quality-of-Life Ecosystem and solution expertise in a pragmatic manner to deliver the very best possible results for our clients.

• Collaborates closely within the interim group as well as with other WittKieffer colleagues, bring a team-oriented approach to business development.

To bring the very best of themselves to colleagues:

• Lives the WittKieffer values in all that they say and do.

• Continually seeks opportunities to develop themselves and others.

• Gives timely, constructive feedback to ensure people feel stronger and more capable as a result.

Business Development:

• Target responsibility of $5M Gross Revenue/$1.6+M Gross Profit; Initial year $1-2M.

• Develops market and account plans to reach the target.

• Develops and maintains "anchor" clients that generate profitable repeat business and close collaboration.

• Identifies potential clients and projects in collaboration with Market-based and solution-based senior consultants.

• Is a trusted advisor to clients and identifies how interim solutions can help solve client challenges.

• Customizes pitches and helps shape proposals that are focused on client needs, appropriately customized, differentiated from others and strongly positions WittKieffer and our brand.

• Maintains an appropriate mix of repeat and new business.

• Generates and manages project discovery calls; schedules initial follow-ups and prepares for them.

• Works closely with Talent Delivery to address clients needs; explores frames budgets (weekly rates) to deliver target economics; negotiates other key engagement terms (subject to necessary approvals).

• Ensures MSAs ad NDAs (as needed) are put in place.

• Maintains and grows relationships with purchasing and HR in support of all efforts.

• Actively represents WittKieffer at conferences, industry events.

Client Management and Impact:

• Develops deep understanding of all WittKieffer services, as well as demonstrates expertise in Life Sciences to help bring solutions that deliver measurable client impact. 

• Communicates clearly the capabilities of our interim and on-demand leaders and where they add value to a client. 

• Participates in teams (and may lead smaller teams) across WittKieffer to listen and truly understand client needs and develop the very best solutions, delivering real impact.

• Supports and helps put in place mechanisms to measure the impact of our work on client performance. 

• Manages directly mid-size to large accounts; helps expand accounts.

• Develops profitable business with large and mid-sized clients through effective client relationship building and proactive collaboration with colleagues across WittKieffer. Identifies opportunities at clients for future engagements by understanding pain points across the organization.

• Drives research, analysis and interpretation on client/sector business issues, to identify other areas for positive impact on our clients’ business.

• Expands existing portfolio of relationships with chosen sector leaders to understand their needs and consequently increase opportunities to further impact the client’s success.

• Ensures, collaborating with Talent Delivery, client satisfaction through proactive check-ins, problem solving and active engagement; Develops and sustains key talent network relationships and recommends leaders when possible.

MSA and SOW Management:

• Drives putting MSAs in place, working closely with WittKieffer resources.

• Assists TD in contracting, as needed.

• Manages purchasing relationships with TD.

Brand Positioning and Thought Leadership:

• Positions WittKieffer in the marketplace by contributing to offerings/thought leadership and generating market awareness. 

• Develops relationships with emerging thought leaders and networks of influence to position WittKieffer as the preeminent leader in the market.

• Develops thought leadership and white papers with competitive intelligence group; participates in creating and promoting solution and market-relevant thought leadership within Interim Solutions, building firm/solution/personal brand.

• Posts and engages actively on LinkedIn in support of our brand promise and standards.

Self and Others Development:

• Demonstrates WittKieffer's values.

• Consistently behaves as a positive member of a diverse, equitable and inclusive place to work.

• Actively seeks opportunities to develop peers or more junior team members.

• Helps to develop and retain a high performing, diverse and inclusive team.

• Develops an internal brand and participates as a truly collaborative member of the team. 

• Continues to deepen and broaden own business development, advisory skills, client management, selling, account management, sector and business understanding, expertise and behaviors to enable a more positive impact on clients, colleagues, and all others.

Contributions to the Management of the Firm:

• Identifies opportunities to improve practice and/or firm performance (e.g., developing capability, communications, operations) and raises appropriately, participating in implementation.

• May take on formal leadership of more junior colleagues.

CANDIDATE PROFILE

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree is required; Masters preferred.

• 10+ years' in consulting and/or interim talent acquisition, with a substantial portion of that experience related to life sciences and PE/VC clients.

• Business development experience and ability to persistently originate, build and sustain client relationships. Demonstrated high achievement.

• Strong executive presence.

• Unabated commitment to quality and consistency in delivery contributing to exceptional experiences for clients, talent and team members.

• Entrepreneurial and able to operate independently, but not individually, with a bias to action.

• Comfortable with ambiguity and seeks to contribute insight and structured thinking to define the path forward.

• Demonstrated ability to foster relationships across organizational boundaries and inspire trust; skilled in facilitating collaboration among teams.

Critical Competencies:

• Innovative, operationally disciplined, enterprise minded.

• Execution-oriented and pragmatic, strong sense of urgency.

• Empathetic leadership skills.

• Displays a high degree of resilience.

• High professional client service orientation and positive values.

• Listener and translator of needs into solution opportunities; problem solver.

• Business acumen and sensibility.

• Highly organized, proactive, detail-oriented, and self-motivated.

• Driven, with a clear bias to proactive decision making, delivering results, and excelling.

• Ability to see the bigger picture and the patience to walk the path toward it, adjusting as need be to reach desired outcomes.

• Builds internal collaboration through strategic influence and servant leadership.

• Articulate, succinct, and proactive communicator; excellent interpersonal and influencing skills.

• Embraces a culture of purpose, collaboration, and trust.

• Unwavering integrity and authenticity.

Witt/Kieffer Inc. ("WittKieffer") provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants. WittKieffer will recruit, employ, train, promote and compensate our employees without regard to race, religion, creed, color, national origin, citizenship, gender, pregnancy, military status, age, marital status, sexual orientation, sexual identity, disability or any other personal characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local law. WittKieffer will endeavor to make reasonable accommodation, as required by law, for qualified individuals with known disabilities or religious practices unless doing so would result in an undue hardship on the operation of our business.