Coulter Partners Expands As Life Sciences Sector Booms
June 26, 2017 – Global life sciences recruiter Coulter Partners has made seven new appointments in the U.S., Switzerland, Germany and at its London headquarters.
Joining the firm are Nona Footz, client partner; Samantha Simonnet, director on the U.S. West Coast; Jean Kim, associate director in New York; and Marie-Garance Leroy, senior consultant in Zurich. Also, Samantha Ng was appointed senior production associate in London; Patrick Williams was named production associate in Boston; and Jodie Gadd joined the Frankfurt team as research associate.
“We are delighted to attract such exceptional talent to the global team and welcome all our new colleagues with their diverse experience and specialist knowledge,” said Bianca Coulter, CEO of Coulter Partners. “A very buoyant life science industry around the world has driven this recent growth at Coulter Partners, and we will continue to respond to market need by consolidating our own team in key areas.”
New Additions
Ms. Footz joins the firm as lead on global business development, board and C-suite executive search delivery across the spectrum of life sciences, with an emphasis on board governance, succession planning, commercial and general management roles. She brings over 14 years of sourcing experience, having worked with emerging and established companies in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device and professional services sectors. Ms. Footz previously spearheaded the life science practice at RSR Partners. Before that, she was client partner for Korn Ferry’s global human resources and life science practices in New York, Princeton, NJ and Chicago.
Ms. Simonnet will focus on C-suite and senior level U.S. and global executive search with an emphasis on biotech, cleantech and the intersection of the two. She brings over 15 years’ experience in executive search and talent acquisition for early-stage through to large multi-national corporations across the U.S., Europe and APAC. Her background includes stints with Intrexon, a bioengineering company; Epic Sciences, a cancer companion diagnostics firm; and Life Technologies (now Thermo Fisher), a leader in life sciences. Her sector experience includes bioengineering, synthetic and molecular biology, biofuels, genomics, food technology, bioinformatics, R&D and clinical operations.
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Ms. Kim will specialize in senior level U.S. and global executive search with an emphasis on clinical development and operations, data science technology and pharmacovigilance. She has over 20 years’ experience in executive search across pharmaceutical, biotech, medical devices and healthcare services, from early stage, to large global companies, as well as the investor community. This includes 18 years in global pharmaceutical recruiting, most recently with global consultants, InVentiv Health, formerly Smith Hanley Associates and in strategic search for AlphaKAP.
Ms. Leroy will work on senior level international executive search with an emphasis on pharmaceutical technical operations. She draws on over 10 years of talent sourcing experience acquired in-house with Roche talent acquisition and in retained international executive search, encompassing quality, manufacturing, technical regulatory, supply chain, contract manufacturing, operational excellence and engineering. With additional search expertise in the chemical industry, Ms. Leroy previously worked in contract law and international commercial arbitration.
Ms. Ng will concentrate on senior level international search assignments with a broad focus to include commercial, scientific and enabling functions. She brings over 11 years of talent sourcing experience, gained both with international search firms and in-house at Eisai and Astra Zeneca.
Mr. Williams’ responsibility will be executing board and senior level executive search with a broad life science focus, encompassing commercial, technical and scientific roles. He joins Coulter Partners with over five years of executive search experience, having worked at WinterWyman and NRS Global Partners across a range of sectors and majoring in HR and technology.
Ms. Gadd, who will work from the Frankfort office, will focus on senior executive research assignments with an emphasis on the DACH region and medical technology.
Sector In Transition
Coulter Partners is a senior level executive search boutique exclusively devoted to identifying global life sciences leaders and board directors. With offices in the U.K., Europe and North America, the firm serves clients in the pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices, diagnostics, CRO and services sectors.
Coulter currently operates overseas offices in the U.K., Germany, Switzerland and Denmark. The firm’s U.S. offices are in Cambridge, New York, Los Angeles, Short Hills (NJ) and Newton (MA).
According to Deloitte’s global sector outlook report on life sciences, persistent talent shortages and the need to develop and retain employees with critical business and technology skill-sets will continue to challenge global life sciences companies as they try to navigate a new world of work. This will require a dramatic change in strategies for leadership, talent and human resources.
“Our sector has changed beyond anyone’s expectations over the last two decades,” said Ms. Coulter. “We need to understand the appetites and needs of the major multinationals. This requires reach into all corners of the market. While our office network is growing, the key has been to have multilingual, multi-market experienced and connected researchers and consultants. Our team speaks many languages and has worked in all major bio-pharma markets and is organized as one P&L, to ensure collaborative information and experience sharing.”
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor; and Chase Barbe, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
