Operating Partner, Head of Strategy and Operations

About Us

What if…you could join an organization thats building life science bioplatform companies that are transforming human health and sustainability?

Flagship Pioneering is a biotechnology company that invents and builds platform companies that change the world. We bring together the greatest scientific minds with entrepreneurial company builders and assemble the capital to allow them to take courageous leaps. Those big leaps in human health and sustainability exponentially accelerate scientific progress in areas ranging from cancer detection and treatment to nature-positive agriculture.   

 What sets Flagship apart is our ability to advance biotechnology by uniting life science innovation, company creation, and capital investment under one roof in a way that is largely without precedent. Our scientific founders, entrepreneurial leaders, and professional capital managers are each aligned around an institutionalized process that enables us to innovate and transform for the benefit of people and planet.   

Many of the companies Flagship has founded have addressed humanity’s most urgent challenges: vaccinating billions of people against COVID-19, curing intractable diseases, improving human health, preempting illness, and feeding the world by improving the resiliency and sustainability of agriculture.  

Flagship has been recognized twice on FORTUNE’s “Change the World” list, an annual ranking of companies that has made a positive social and environmental impact through activities that are part of their core business strategies, and has been twice named to Fast Company’s annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies. 

 

The Role

This is an outstanding career opportunity for an experienced executive to provide highly strategic and operational leadership to Flagship General Partner and Pioneering Business Unit (PBU) Head, Geoffrey von Maltzahn. Within Flagship Pioneering, a Pioneering Business Unit (PBU) is comprised of scientific and operational teams reporting to the PBU Head responsible for the ideation of new platform technologies, and the development of those technologies into first-in-class platform companies that will change the world. In addition to being a thought partner to Geoff, you will also collaborate closely with the PBU teams to support portfolio company growth.

We are looking for a dynamic and highly experienced leader to join Flagship Pioneering to serve in two distinct capacities:

• Act as the Operational Leader of Geoff’s PBU, ensuring that each function runs smoothly. You will be the manager to dedicated Functional Leads (Legal, Finance, HR, Talent, Digital, etc.) and will focus on developing fast paced and streamlined processes to serve the needs of our companies as to define AI-centric strategies for the future of each of these functions.
• Serve as an “omni-COO” across a portfolio of platform companies, to influence and drive operational excellence at a leadership level. Within these teams, you will implement transformative projects and foundational improvements pioneering advancements in biotechnology and sustainability industries.

With success, this Leader will continually make Flagship Pioneering and Geoff’s PBU faster paced, lower friction, and more strategic and will continually oversee the testing, customization, and adoption of AI-based tools to improve each of Flagship’s functions (Legal, Finance, HR, Talent, Digital, etc.).

 

Responsibilities

Internal Operations

• Partner with business and functional leads to design, implement, and maintain streamlined processes that are more nimble, faster paced, and better connected to NewCo needs across their respective organizations (including but not limited to approvals, budgeting, recruitment, R&D, NewCo incubation)
• Define and own a vision for how AI tools will fundamentally change the way legal, HR, talent, and other Flagship and NewCo functions operate. Mastermind the strategy for Flagship functions becoming the first AI-centric platform for startup creation in life sciences.
• Foster a culture of innovation and excellence by iterating on, synthesizing, and updating existing processes, as well as identifying areas of talent improvement
• Define roles and responsibilities and drive efficiency by enhancing the cross-functional collaborations and productive intersection of the portfolio companies, supporting operational teams, and functional domains
• Enhance defined governance structures that maximize value creation and speed within the PBU, its interaction with portfolio companies, and Flagship leadership, ensuring the continuous evolution of the operating model for advanced scalability

Internal Portfolio Strategy

• Review portfolio plan with PBU lead