Life Sciences Strategy Director

Research Partnership

About us:   We invite you to come grow with us.   Inizio Ignite is the global advisory partner for health and life sciences, encompassing connected expertise across Research Partnership, Putnam, Vynamic, and STEM. Guided by purpose, passion, and precision, we collaborate with clients to ignite impact, accelerate performance, and deliver lasting change for patients. By uniting strategy, insights, and innovation with a unique depth and breadth of expertise, we drive transformation and shape the future of health.   Our Research Partnership healthcare market research team provides research and insights to inform and power healthcare decisions. Serving a variety of clients across the lifecycle, our expertise includes data, research & insights (proprietary syndicated and custom research) and brand tracking (ATU). Proudly part of Inizio – the market-leading commercialization partner for health and life sciences. From early-stage development to loss of exclusivity, we simplify complexity, unlock value, and make collaboration seamless at every pivotal moment – supporting confident, insight-driven decisions that move innovation forward.   About the team:   Our Custom Research team partners with global pharmaceutical and biotech clients to enable them to solve marketing, brand, advertising and communications problems through a mixture of innovative qualitative and quantitative market research techniques.   The team works across a variety of therapy area, research methods and clients, so you will be empowered to develop broad expertise across the healthcare landscape and will have the opportunity to partner with a wide range of expert senior researchers and gain exposure to the full suite of research tools and techniques covered by the team.   Your primary role:   * The purpose of this role is to partner with the existing Directors to help lead, plan and manage and to ensure the growth, development and management of the team * To provide leadership direction and management expertise in terms of growing and sustaining the business through the development and execution of group strategies, product development and sales growth plans * Leading projects and project teams from proposal to final deliverables; focusing on coaching project teams to deliver excellent work and playing a bridging role between the client and project team * Line management of midlevel staff * Involvement in talent acquisition and assessing potential new staff   About You…   Your skills and experience:   * At least 10 years of experience in primary market research, including within the healthcare industry * Have significant experience in leading projects and client management * Capable business developer and relationship manager with new and existing clients * Expertise with both qualitative and quantitative research techniques   Ideal profile: * You are proactive, dedicated and enthusiastic, with a ‘can do’ attitude and approach * You demonstrate a high level of accuracy and attention to detail, as well as strengths in organisation and prioritisation * You are a collaborative team player who works well with colleagues * You communicate ideas and issues in an effective, straightforward fashion * You are highly motivated and want to seize opportunities to develop new skills and progress your career   Life at Research Partnership:   We love what we do and continuously strive for innovation and creativity. We believe everyone should continuously be learning and provide:   * A comprehensive training and development programme for all staff, from entry level apprentice to senior management * A relaxed and friendly working environment * Social events - including a summer day out and end-of-year party, along with regular social events after office hours * Fundraising and charity events   Further information:   This is a full-time role, working in a hybrid pattern (2 days per week in the office) at our fantastic HQ location in Holborn. The role is also available on a remote worker basis (1 day per month in the office). Don't meet every job requirement? That's okay! Our company is dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace. If you're excited about this role, but your experience doesn't perfectly fit every qualification, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right person for this role or others.

Relation Therapeutics

Location: London Relation Therapeutics is an end-to-end biotech company developing transformational medicines, with technology at our core. Our ambition is to understand human biology in unprecedented ways, discovering therapies that will treat some of life's most devastating diseases. We leverage single-cell and multi-omics measurements directly from patient tissue, functional assays, and machine learning to drive disease understanding — from cause to cure. Our medicines are born from high-resolution biology, machine learning, and clinical insights. At the heart of our discovery engine is our Lab-in-the-Loop, which seamlessly integrates single-cell analysis, genomics, and machine learning. This powerful technology allows us to identify druggable targets and develop transformational medicines. Interdisciplinary collaboration. Immense impact. Led by experienced drug developers, computational scientists, and entrepreneurs with backgrounds in biotech, pharma, venture, and academic research, we are driven by a shared hunger to transform drug development — because the patient is waiting. The opportunity As the Head of Data Strategy, you will play a pivotal role in shaping and executing the company’s data strategy, ensuring that Relation can leverage the full value of its data assets. This is a unique opportunity to lead the charge in building and governing the data foundations that will fuel the next generation of drug discovery at Relation. * Develop, implement, and oversee a comprehensive data strategy that positions data as a critical and compounding asset for Relation's research and business initiatives. This will include every aspect of data management, governance and acquisition and will involve working closely with the VPs of Engineering and Data Science and the CTO. * Lead the acquisition, integration, and governance of high-quality datasets from diverse sources, including open-access platforms, biobanks, proprietary studies, and external partnerships. * Ensure the highest standards of data quality, security, and compliance with relevant regulatory frameworks. * Collaborate closely with teams across the organisation, including Data Science, Machine Learning, Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, and our Wet Lab teams, to ensure data is accessible, standardised, and optimised for scientific discovery and innovation. * Guide the creation of data systems that support scalable and efficient data operations. * Drive external relationships with academic consortia, data providers, and industry partners to continuously expand Relation’s data ecosystem. Your Responsibilities * Data Strategy: Define and execute Relation’s data strategy in partnership with key stakeholders, ensuring that Relation’s data is a compounding asset that supports all aspects of drug discovery, research and development. * Data Management: Create and maintain data catalogues, define data standards and ontologies, and ensure proper metadata and data lineage tracking. * Data infrastructure: Work closely with the VP Engineering to guide the development of a robust data infrastructure in a rapidly scaling TechBio * Collaboration: Work closely with interdisciplinary teams, such as machine learning engineers, bioinformaticians, and scientists, to ensure data is ready for use in research and drug discovery. * Data Acquisition: Procure and integrate external datasets (e.g. UK Biobank, public databases) and manage data partnerships to enrich Relation's data ecosystem. * Governance: Implement data governance policies that ensure responsible, secure, and compliant data usage, aligning with evolving regulatory requirements. * Quality Assurance: Lead data curation efforts, ensuring the quality and integrity of data assets across multiple domains including omics, imaging, and clinical data. * Team Leadership: Build and manage a high-performing data strategy, governance and acquisition team, fostering a culture of excellence and continuous improvement. Professionally, you have: * A graduate degree in Bioinformatics, Computer Science, Computational Biology, or a related field (PhD preferred). * Demonstrated success in leading data strategy, including planning and execution in a matrix environment * Extensive experience with data strategy, management and acquisition in the life sciences, preferably including working with large biobanks and public databases. (7 years + experience) * Familiarity with data management, storage and processing tools and cloud-based data management platforms * Ideally, fluency in writing functioning code for a variety of tasks (such as data pipelines), including the skilled use of modern coding agents. Basic knowledge of computer science concepts sufficient to understand important concepts including latency, throughput, bottlenecks, race conditions etc. * Experience of acquisition, curation, and quality assurance efforts in research or drug discovery or a similar regulated setting * Deep understanding of various data types and ontologies, including -omics, imaging, and clinical data. * Proven experience with data governance frameworks and ensuring compliance with data protection regulations. * Ability to lead cross-functional initiatives and manage stakeholder relationships across a wide range of scientific and technical disciplines. * Experience working with machine learning teams and an understanding of data needs for model development. * Experience with large-scale data integration efforts, biobanks like UK Biobank, or databases such as dbGaP. * Knowledge of FAIR data principles and experience implementing data governance strategies in compliance with industry standards. Personally, you are: * collaborative team player with a strong desire to drive impact. * an excellent communicator and are comfortable presenting complex data strategies to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. * detail-oriented, curious, and passionate about using data to drive scientific innovation. * Comfortable and thrive in fast-paced, dynamic environments * Driven by impact, motivated and curious * Humble and hungry to learn and have a strong sense of accountability * Passionate about making a difference in patients’ lives WORKING STYLE & CULTURE AT RELATION At Relation, we operate in a matrixed, interdisciplinary environment, where impact is driven through collaboration across scientific, technical, and operational domains. We collaborate, and you will partner with colleagues across multiple teams and projects, contributing your expertise while aligning to shared company priorities. We work together and win together! The patient is waiting!   RECRUITMENT AGENCIES Please note that Relation does not accept unsolicited resumes from agencies. Resumes should not be forwarded to our job aliases or employees. Relation will not be liable for any fees associated with unsolicited CVs. Relation is a committed equal opportunities employer.

Faculty

WHY FACULTY? We established Faculty in 2014 because we thought that AI would be the most important technology of our time. Since then, we’ve worked with over 350 global customers to transform their performance through human-centric AI. You can read about our real-world impact here. We don’t chase hype cycles. We innovate, build and deploy responsible AI which moves the needle - and we know a thing or two about doing it well. We bring an unparalleled depth of technical, product and delivery expertise to our clients who span government, finance, retail, energy, life sciences and defence. Our business, and reputation, is growing fast and we’re always on the lookout for individuals who share our intellectual curiosity and desire to build a positive legacy through technology. AI is an epoch-defining technology, join a company where you’ll be empowered to envision its most powerful applications, and to make them happen. ABOUT THE TEAM Faculty’s Research team conducts critical red teaming and builds evaluations for misuse capabilities in sensitive areas, such as CBRN, cybersecurity and international security, for several leading frontier model developers and national safety institutes; notably, our work has been featured in OpenAI's system card for o1. Our commitment also extends to conducting fundamental technical research on mitigation strategies, with our findings published in peer-reviewed conferences and delivered to national security institutes. Complementing this, we design evaluations for model developers across broader safety-relevant fields, including the societal impacts of increasingly capable frontier models, showcasing our expertise across the safety landscape. ABOUT THE ROLE This is a brand new senior leadership role to provide technical leadership of Faculty's work on AI safety for the Foundation Labs - and presents a unique opportunity to shape how AI safety is done globally. Faculty is one of the world's leading applied AI companies, helping many of the organisations that shape our world to adopt AI successfully and safely. We play an important role in the emerging AI safety ecosystem. We already have many of the key Frontier Labs as clients, including Open AI and Anthropic, for whom we provide third-party red teaming, technical testing and other AI safety services. And we work with the UK government and other international governments on AI safety, including helping set up the AI Security Institute and delivering technical work which catalysed the first global AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in 2023. With the recent announcement of Faculty's acquisition by Accenture, we are investing to take our work on AI safety to global scale, and this role will be key to shaping that. This will include: * The opportunity to hire and build a world-class AI safety technical team - of calibre unmatched outside of the Labs themselves * The opportunity to design and lead an AI safety R&D programme - creating the advances which will enable AI safety at scale to keep pace with model advances * The opportunity to build our work with the Frontier Labs to scale - helping to test and assure new frontier models ahead of public release * The opportunity to contribute to and shape the international debate on AI safety, including with governments and other key bodies, working closely with Marc Warner Faculty's founder & CEO. This role will suit someone with a deep passion and commitment to AI safety, and represents a unique opportunity to contribute to this agenda globally. WHAT YOU'LL BE DOING: * Owning the technical strategy for AI Safety by determining research directions and building technologies that mitigate risks from alignment to societal harms. * Leading a high-performing R&D team through intentional hiring, mentorship, and the cultivation of a culture defined by technical excellence and high output. * Driving academic impact by guiding complex machine learning projects and securing top-tier publications that cement Faculty’s reputation in the safety domain. * Shaping market-leading offerings for frontier labs and security institutes, translating cutting-edge R&D into practical, groundbreaking safety solutions. * Overseeing technical delivery of AI safety and security projects, ensuring scientific rigor and high-quality outputs across evaluations and red-teaming. * Representing Faculty externally as a primary technical voice, delivering influential thought leadership and speaking at major global industry events. * Collaborating cross-functionally with business unit directors and commercial teams to align research investment with strategic growth and client needs. WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR: * You have a proven track record of designing and leading high-performing technical teams, with the ability to manage R&D budgets and mentor senior technical staff. * You bring deep expertise in AI safety research, specifically regarding alignment, interpretability, and robustness in large language models (LLMs) or safety-critical systems. * You possess a strong scientific background evidenced by high-impact machine learning publications and a comprehensive understanding of transformer architectures. * You are a strategic visionary capable of setting research priorities that align with long-term organisational goals while remaining at the cutting edge of field developments. * You are a compelling communicator who can synthesise complex technical concepts into narratives that influence both C-suite executives and the broader research community. * You exhibit strong commercial acumen and stakeholder management skills, allowing you to navigate complex organisations and accelerate the delivery of high-value projects. INTERVIEW PROCESS 1. Talent Team Screen (45 mins) 2. Principles and Experience interview (60 mins) 3. Research Proposal (90 mins) 4. Leadership Interview (60 mins) 5. Meet with CEO (30 mins) OUR RECRUITMENT ETHOS We aim to grow the best team - not the most similar one. We know that diversity of individuals fosters diversity of thought, and that strengthens our principle of seeking truth. And we know from experience that diverse teams deliver better work, relevant to the world in which we live. We’re united by a deep intellectual curiosity and desire to use our abilities for measurable positive impact. We strongly encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, religions and sexual orientations. Some of our standout benefits: * Unlimited Annual Leave Policy * Private healthcare and dental * Enhanced parental leave * Family-Friendly Flexibility & Flexible working * Sanctus Coaching * Hybrid Working If you don’t feel you meet all the requirements, but are excited by the role and know you bring some key strengths, please don't hesitate in applying as you might be right for this role, or other roles. We are open to conversations about part-time hours.