Associate Partner, Life Sciences

The role is a core member of the senior leadership team for CF and is focused on driving the growth of a business serving life sciences (pharma, biotech, devices, and diagnostics). This involves supporting the development of the Life Sciences strategy and business plan and taking responsibility for aspects of its delivery including developing brand awareness, securing revenues and providing leadership to the delivery of client services.

The role requires extensive, in-depth business development relationships, with a wide range of clients. The role will be a thought leader, developing their and CF’s brand awareness in the market by promoting our services and the skills we bring to innovating and transforming health and healthcare.

The Associate Partner is responsible for delivering their own revenue target, agreed in the business planning cycle, as well as supporting the wider Partner team to hit their own targets via supporting the bid process. They are also responsible for role-modelling and fostering an environment in which high-quality proposals are produced celebrating wins and learning from losses, which is vital for success. 

Core to the CF approach, Associate Partners are materially engaged in the delivery of client work. True to this approach, the Associate Partner role involves leading and supporting client delivery, ensuring high quality deliverables, inspiring teams to develop innovative and creative solutions, and having a lasting and positive impact for our clients. Working in collaboration with other Associate Partners and Partners, the post holder will ensure adherence to quality and commercial standards that are expected within CF’s policies and agreed ways of working practices and ensuring any issues are addressed. 

As part of the senior leadership team for CF, the Associate Partner will engage in supporting the overall development of the business enabling the company to be a great place to work. That means influencing the development of company policy, supporting the recruitment, retention, training and wellbeing of our talented team and engaging in the adoption of best practice approaches.

As a member of the senior leadership team of CF, clear communication and strong interpersonal skills are essential, role modelling the leadership behaviours we are committed to at every level of the company. When working with colleagues in CF, clients, suppliers, and people seeking to engage with CF, professionalism, kindness, diplomacy and professionalism are essential qualities.

These attributes form part of the four CF values and associated behaviours that apply to all staff and create a point of commonality. Upholding these values and behaviours is critical to our being the diverse and inclusive team that makes CF a great place to work. The four values and associated behaviours are set out following the job responsibilities. 

Responsibilities 
The role’s responsibilities are organised into five key areas: 

Business growth 

• Strategic leadership and market expansion: Lead the development of CF services in the life sciences market, shaping our approach to business development for growth and expansion. By spotting emerging market trends and disruptions, you will drive the development of CF offers that address future client challenges, focusing on areas with the biggest impact and opportunities 

• Revenue generation: Deliver anchor revenue targets aligned with the business plan and role-model expectations for yourself and provide bid support to other leadership members to help them deliver their own targets 

• Business planning: Working with CF leadership team to actively engage in the development of the life sciences and wider business plans to ensure they are robust and deliverable by the team as a whole 

Client development

• Establishing and developing relationships with senior clients as a trusted advisor: Continually develop and maintain relationships with senior and influential decision-makers within client organisations, industry bodies, and collaborators. Develop the intimacy, credibility and reliability to be sought after for your advice as someone who puts their interests first. 

• Cultivate and expand your network expansion: ,  Identify key client organisations who could benefit from CF’s offering Grow your own network and that of other team members, including facilitating introductions.

Brand leadership and thought leadership 

• Brand development: Maintain a compelling and distinctive personal brand in your area of expertise, establishing a reputation as a trusted advisor and thought leader. Engage in speaking and participating at key events to elevate CF's profile.

• Lead the development of distinctive insights and thought leadership that contributes to enhancing CF’s reputation, creating new lines of client service, and developing our capabilities. Produce timely thought-leadership with a global lens adopting the CF brand guidelines  

• Market presence and communication: Build CF's brand in the life sciences market, using the website and other digital platforms to enhance your own and CF's visibility. Communicate with a range of clients using diverse materials, ensuring CF's value proposition is clearly articulated across all channels. Be active both online media and in person at conferences and events. 

• Capability building Act as a faculty leader for life sciences, creating content that engages and inspires. Deliver expert counsel around due diligence in the life sciences practice. Role-model and lead teams in adopting best practice and embedding innovation in all work  

• Codifying knowledge developed in client delivery and frameworks for approaches and methods used to be leveraged by other teams in proposal development and client delivery.  

• Creating reference cases through our work and capturing these to share CF story of impact

Client delivery 

• Act as Delivery Partner on multiple client engagements simultaneously, ensuring excellent client relationships are developed in each and balancing time appropriately 

• Lead the orchestration and delivery of complex and multi-workstream projects to agreed scope, quality, timeframe and resources, actively providing direction to the content of the work 

• Lead the project team on the ground, monitoring and evaluating team performance, and actively developing team members by providing regular feedback and mentorship 

• Build teams that get the right mix of people and capabilities to best serve the client and strengthen the relationships 

• Address risks and issues that may arise during the course of client project delivery, communicating these and mitigating any negative impact on the desired project outcomes 

• Work in collaboration with the Accountable Partner for delivery, ensuring they are kept up to date on progress, able to perform the QA role in a timely manner and leveraged appropriately to support client engagement and team problem-solving. 

People leadership & mentorship 

• Create effective team working internal to CF and in partnership with clients  

• Mentor client delivery teams to enable the growth and development of team members  

• Mentor bid managers to ensure excellent high-quality and distinctive proposals   

• Act as a Development Sponsor to support the ongoing personal and professional development of the CF team

• Support development of staff, acting as a development sponsor to up to five team members  

• Act as faculty in training modules which relate to your strengths   

• Provide stable and situational leadership under pressure and across competing priorities   

• Role model and create the context for all staff to live the CF values and adhere to the CF code of conduct.  

• Socialise with colleagues and clients to create a meaningful and trusted relationship, fostering psychological safety for all.    

Requirements

• 8 years experience in a consulting role within Life Sciences globally 

• 5 years of managerial experience 

• Extensive project leadership experience 

• Fluency in English and ideally another European language 

• Exceptional team management skills, including multi-disciplinary teams 

• Excellent verbal and written communication 

• People development skills 

• Ability to delegate efficiently 

• A strong network in the industry and / or proven sales and business development ability 

• Extensive industry knowledge with an eye towards the future especially in EMEA 

• Relevant degree or certification 

• Flexibility to travel across the UK, EMEA and Americas 

Benefits

• Holiday entitlement: 30 days year for leadership, increasing by 1 day for every year of service up to a maximum of 35 days of holiday per year
• We contribute 7% of your salary into your pension, while you contribute 3% (or more if you like)
• Access to a flexible benefits programme giving you the chance to increase pension contributions, gain access to a cash plan or benefit from a ClassPass subscription
• Annual leave purchase: employees with less than 35 days annual leave entitlement are able to purchase additional annual leave days
• Income protection: in the event of long-term incapacity and a qualifying claim, 75% of salary will be paid
• Enhanced sick pay benefit beyond Statutory Sick Pay for up to a total 12 weeks in any 12-month period
• Life insurance covering four times your basic salary in a tax-free lump sum payable to your beneficiaries in the event of your death whilst in service
• Enhanced family leave policies: additional pay for parents who have a baby or adopt
• Access to an interest-free season ticket loan, repayable by 12 monthly instalments
• Workplace nursery scheme: access to a scheme to help working parents save tax and NI on the cost of the nursery care
• Flexible working policy: including the ability to work fully remotely for up to 4 weeks a year
• An employee assistance and wellness Program: including access to telephone counselling, life coaching, interactive tools online and digital content downloadable from Lifeworks
• Seasonal flu jabs: provided by Boots annually
• Eye care tests: vouchers and discounts at Vision Express
• Ride to work scheme, saving up to 42% on bikes and cycling accessories at Evans Cycles
• Membership to the Health Service Journal (HSJ)