Senior Vice President / Partner, R&D Partnering Strategy & Operations

Flagship Pioneering is seeking a strategic, results-driven executive to lead strategy and operations for its Product R&D and Partnering functions. Reporting directly to Paul Biondi, Managing Partner, this individual will build and scale the processes, capabilities, teams, and governance required for a high-performing, cross-functional strategy and operations function. The role will ensure alignment and integration across Pioneering Medicines (PM), Partnering, and Pipeline & Product Innovation (P&PI), driving consistency in decision-making and execution. This is a high-impact opportunity to shape and lead key strategic initiatives that optimize Flagship’s product and partnering platforms and their connection to the broader organization. The ideal candidate will bring deep operational expertise in life sciences or biopharma, coupled with a passion for translating breakthrough science into transformative solutions 

Key Responsibilities  

• Strategic Leadership: Partner with the Managing Partner to refine and execute the strategic vision of product R&D and partnering capabilities across Flagship, ensuring alignment across scientific, operational, and business functions.  

• Functional Leadership: Design and implement scalable systems, workflows, and infrastructure to support research, clinical, regulatory, and commercial readiness. Build an operations team to drive integrated R&D Operations across all product R&D and partnering groups.  

• Program Oversight: Provide leadership to the project management functions to integrate across program operations.  

• Lead Strategic Initiatives: Collaborate with the Managing Partner on strategic initiatives (either within the three functions or their interface with Flagship), providing leadership and direction to the effort and ensuring successful implementation.  Current examples include: 

• • Implementing and owning Product and Portfolio governance 

• • Partnering with P&PI leaders to operationalize new P&PI function 

• • Work with PM AI lead to drive PM & Product AI Strategy and implement PortfolioGPT 

• • Integrate platform engagement process 

• Interface with Flagship Functional Groups: Liaise with the G&A functions to understand their initiatives and how they relate to Partnering and Product R&D, managing change management efforts and ensuring smooth interfaces and interactions. 

• People and Culture: Partnering with teams to foster a culture of accountability, innovation, and collaboration.  

• Risk Management: Identify and mitigate operational risks, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements and industry best practices.  

Qualifications  

• Proven experience (10+ years) in a senior operational leadership role, preferably in biotech, pharma, or life sciences.  
• Demonstrated success scaling organizations through rapid growth or transformation phases.  
• Deep understanding of drug development processes and regulatory environments.  
• Strong track record of cross-functional leadership and collaboration.  
• Exceptional organizational, analytical, and communication skills.  
• Advanced degree in business, science, or related field (MBA, PhD, MD, or equivalent preferred).  

About Flagship Pioneering:
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.