Cambridge, MA Strategy and Business Development Lead; Vice President level

Strategy and Business Development Lead (Vice President level)

Cambridge, MA USA

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 have 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.

About the role:

The VP Strategy and Business Development Lead is a senior leader that will own the articulation and initial execution of the business development strategy for a subset of companies within the Flagship Pioneering ecosystem, with the opportunity to negotiate or learn negotiations as of interest. The primary objective of the business development team at Flagship is to drive the closing of valuable business development deals between our platform companies and Pharma.

The Lead will be a key member of the company teams with a high degree of visibility within the company and within Flagship Pioneering. The successful executive will bring a proven track record in establishing the business development strategy for organizations that aligns to their long‑term growth plans, identifying and triaging potential partners, and understanding what it takes to design meaningful partnership concepts and term sheets.

Responsibilities:

• As an embedded company team member, drive development of the business development strategy for a portion of the Flagship Pioneering portfolio companies to enable consistent deal flow across the ecosystem.
• Work as a cross‑functional leader of the company, collaborating across multiple areas of the business to become an expert in their platform technology and products. Focus will be on establishing the BD strategy for the company and driving it to deal execution. Deal execution (deal concept or term sheet to final executed agreement) can be performed in partnership with transaction leaders.
• Work closely with the CEO, relevant partner group, and members of the senior management team on the development of business development strategy as a contributor to corporate strategy and long‑range planning, including identification of relevant value drivers of impactful deals.
• Enable the communication of the value proposition of the platform technology and portfolio by developing key messages and narratives to pressure‑test with stakeholders and build out into full partner able packages and deal concepts.
• Frame the BD action plan including working with leadership to define data generation for validation, partnership scopes, research plans and exclusivity constructs.
• Define the relevant biotech and pharma stakeholders.
• Lead and execute business development initiatives including outreach to potential pharma partners, diligence, and structuring of a transaction leveraging cross‑functional team (e.g., R&D, Strategy, IP, legal, finance).
• Cultivate a strong and effective partnership with the CEO and relevant partners as a united team that pursues buy‑in for…