Lauren Lee White joined ZRG Partners in 2018 as a Managing Director in the firm’s Global Life Sciences and Healthcare practice. With over 15 years of executive search experience, Lauren brings an extensive track record of success in recruiting senior-level talent at both premier global executive search firms and Fortune 500 companies. She has broad experience recruiting for a wide range of functional areas, including C-Suite, R&D, legal, regulatory, human resources and other strategic leadership positions for diverse industries.
Most recently Lauren was the Global Head, Executive Talent Acquisition for Merck’s R&D division – Merck Research Laboratories. She led the build-out of the executive recruitment function and advised senior business and HR leaders in identifying key talent gaps as well as driving effective talent strategies. In addition, she developed sourcing strategies and initiated talent mapping, talent pipelining and succession planning for MRL’s most senior level roles and business critical positions for the South SF Hub, discovery research, preclinical & early development, clinical development, regulatory affairs and business development.
Previously Lauren served as Executive Vice President and Managing Director at DHR International, the 5th largest global retained firm. Based in the firm’s New York and New Jersey offices, she was the Leader of DHR’s Legal Center of Expertise as well as a core member of the CEO and Board Services, and Healthcare practice groups. In addition to conducting board searches for Fortune 500 companies, she was instrumental in building a new management team across all functional areas for a multi-billion dollar company, which became the single largest client of the firm.
Lauren began her search career at Korn Ferry International in New York. As a partner in the Global Healthcare and Life Sciences practice, she specialized in recruiting senior-level executives for biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device companies at all stages of development. A former corporate attorney, she transitioned into executive recruiting in 1994 with a large legal search firm and later became Managing Director for the firm’s New York office. She continued in a leadership role with a major executive search firm in New York, where she was responsible for developing the life sciences practice after having successfully built the company’s legal and human resources divisions.