Slone Partners Recruits Chief Commercial Officer for Argonaut Manufacturing Services
February 14, 2019 – Executive search firm Slone Partners has placed Eric Blair as the new chief commercial officer of Argonaut Manufacturing Services in Carlsbad, CA. He will be responsible for the development and execution of the company’s commercial activities, alliances and growth opportunities.
“Argonaut is poised to do great things in biotech, and world-class leadership will prove vitally important to drive global growth,” said Tara Kochis-Stach, president of Slone Partners. “Eric is an exceptional commercial marketer and business developer with an award-winning track record, great energy and an entrepreneurial spirit. Together, there is great upside and potential.”
“We are very pleased to have Eric join our leadership team at Argonaut,” said Wayne Woodard, CEO of Argonaut. “Our commercial success is poised to accelerate in 2019 under Eric’s ‘get it done for the client’ style of leadership. Existing clients and new prospects will find him a great person to work with.”
Prior to joining Argonaut, Mr. Blair built a strong record of leadership and success at Thermo Fisher Scientific, a top science services company with $20 billion in annual revenues and 70,000 employees. During his 15-year tenure, he held the titles of associate director of marketing, global strategic corporate accounts leader, North American sales manager, team leader of corporate operations management, and gene expression/genotyping business development. Most recently, Mr. Blair worked at Metabolon Inc., a health technology company advancing metabolomics for precision medicine clients, as vice president of global academic sales.
Argonaut is an independent contract development and manufacturing organization dedicated to providing manufacturing and supply chain solutions for life science, medical technology, drug development and molecular diagnostic companies.
Slone Partners is a nationally recognized senior-level recruitment provider that specializes in delivering executive, management and leadership talent for the diagnostic, biopharmaceutical, healthcare information technology and laboratory testing industries. The firm has offices in Boston, New York, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. Recently, Slone Partners was included among Hunt Scanlon Media’s “Top 50 Healthcare & Life Sciences Search Firms.”
Chief Commercial Officer Recruiting
The CCO is essentially responsible for the commercial strategy and the development of an organization. The role typically involves activities relating to marketing, sales, product development and customer service to drive business growth and market share. As a corporate officer, the CCO generally reports directly to the CEO and is charged with ensuring the integrated commercial success of an organization. The role typically combines technical knowledge of the relevant field with strong marketing and business development skills.
A CCO in large part takes ownership of the customer and the customer interface with the product or service offering, making sure that all functions of the organization are aligned to meet its strategic commercial objectives, said the search firm. This means that the role is closely linked to the organization’s strategic management function, in drafting, implementing and evaluating cross-functional decisions that enable an organization to achieve its long-term objectives.
A handful of companies have turned to executive search firms in recent months to find new chief commercial officers. Here is a sampling from the Hunt Scanlon Media archives:
Coulter Partners placed Christian Jones as chief commercial officer of Helsinki-based drug particle engineering and nanotechnology company Nanoform. Client partner Eskil Westh led the assignment. Mr. Jones has international business development and commercial experience within both pharmaceutical, and biotechnology industries, specifically in the particle engineering and drug delivery fields.
The Onstott Group, a Wellesley, MA-based search firm, has placed Micah Mitchell as chief commercial officer of Myomo Inc., a NYSE-traded wearable medical robotics company located in Cambridge, MA. Mr. Mitchell has extensive experience growing revenues for companies in the durable medical equipment industry.
BSG Team Ventures placed Don Kelly as chief commercial officer of Onyx CenterSource in Dallas. Managing director and co-founder Clark Waterfall led the assignment. As CCO, Mr. Kelly will be responsible for overseeing the company’s go-to-market strategy, identifying growth opportunities and ensuring the integrated commercial success of the organization.
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor; and Andrew W. Mitchell, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
