August 11, 2025 • 58 mins
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On this week's episode, Bill Holodnak, Cofounder and CEO of Occam Global, a life sciences executive recruitment firm (and occasional investor), shares insights from his decades of experience pairing executives with drug development companies, and talks about the psychology of successful biotech leadership. From building an advisory board to the sequencing of executive hires, such as CSOs, CMOs, CBOs, and CFOs, as a company grows, Holodnak offers specific tips to help founders and investors create leadership teams capable of winning the "slow motion roulette" business of biotech.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ben Comer (00:07):
Welcome back to the Business of Biotech.
I'm your host, Ben Comer, chiefEditor at Life Science Leader,
and today I'm speaking with BillHolodnack, founder and CEO of
New York City-based Occam Global, a life science executive and
board member recruitment firm.
Bill founded Occam Global withhis son, john, in 2012, after
(00:27):
spending more than 25 yearsleading a multinational search
firm owned by FidelityInvestments.
Bill is a renaissance man whoseinterests extend from pharma
and biotech to music, film,history, technology and beyond,
and he's also an engaging writer, a claim that I'm making based
(00:48):
on the strength of his founder'snote on the Occam Global
website, which quotes theRussian novelist Ivan Turgenev.
He's also a member of theadvisory board at Life Science
Cares, New York.
I'm pleased to connect withBill to talk about what makes a
person capable of shepherdingexperimental drug candidates
through clinical development,approval and into commercial use
(01:11):
, what secrets he whispers intothe ears of CEOs to help them
succeed, and how he thinks aboutmatching company leaders with
board members, investors andadditions to the executive team.
Thanks so much for joining metoday, Bill.
Bill Holodnak (01:27):
Happy to be here, Ben.
Ben Comer (01:30):
My younger sister worked for a couple of years in
executive recruiting for largehealthcare organizations,
hospital systems and the like.
It ultimately was not for her.
She found it extremelydifficult and stressful.
So, bill, I'm curious how didyou come to executive search
initially and what interestedyou about executive placement
(01:55):
and leadership and team dynamics?
Bill Holodnak (02:08):
tell you a tale of intentional action, but it
was largely improvised.
Recruiting is a profession untoitself, but, unlike disciplines
such as law or medicine,there's no established what the
Latins used to call a cursushonorum, a progression into it.
It's usually a profession bydefault and you find yourself
there and it works.
My own story is I tried anumber of different things.
(02:31):
I was an academic and a teacherfor a period of time.
I ran a series of smallbusinesses for a period of time
I was a public accountant.
I have a CPA, much to mysurprise, and that didn't please
me, and so I went to arecruiting agency and they kept
(02:52):
offering me jobs like internalauditor, controller, financial
analyst, misery that I wastrying to escape from, not
compound, and my willfulness, Iguess, or my self-awareness
about what was not for me, ledthe head of the firm to say well
(03:12):
, why don't you try this?
And I tried it and all of asudden it was something that I
got good at.
I got good at quickly, which Itook as a measure of
compatibility.
Recruiting is a business that ispart psychology, it's part
business analytics, it's partwitch doctor.
(03:38):
There's a bunch of differentbusiness skills that go into it.
If it's done right and it'sabout creating the right match.
It's about being determined,it's about listening, and you
have to enjoy people.
You don't have to always lovethem, because that's not
possible I don't think but it'sreally wonderfully and it's
(04:01):
wonderfully enriching from aneducational standpoint.
I just talked to one of mystaff members today, a person
who was doing a CEO search inclinical research organizations
that are backed by privateequity and it's a little bit
different from what we normallydo, and she was just rattling on
how educational it was, howgetting to know this different
(04:23):
species of humanity, thisdifferent industry, this
different modality of investingwas, and so, whether it's within
the strict bounds oftherapeutics or it's in
adjacencies, it's a wonderfullyeducational enterprise if you
have the capacity to listen, andif you don't have the capacity
to listen, you probablyshouldn't be in LaCroix.
Ben Comer (04:43):
So you worked at the Fidelity-backed research firm,
global research firm for 25years.
What was the impetus forfounding and ultimately leading
Occam Global?
Bill Holodnak (04:59):
Well, I worked both at Fidelity and for this
Fidelity-sponsored organizationfor 25 years.
I built the organization andaccomplished a lot internally at
Fidelity and it felt like itwas time to do something else.
Both of our children were grownand lived in New York and we
(05:19):
thought we would try somethingdifferent in Boston.
So it was a bit of anexperiment and I was retired for
all of two weeks when I wasgiven by my wife the thought
that it might be better if Iwent back to work.
Right, so, anyhow, I began bydoing some consulting for
clients that I had had before,including the Gates Foundation,
(05:42):
and then people started offeringme work, and my son was just
getting out of business schooland was in finance, didn't
particularly like any of the joboffers that he was getting, and
so we agreed to work together.
So it was escaping my wife'swrath, it was finding something
productive to do with my time.
It was an opportunity to workwith my son, and we kind of
(06:04):
started it in a veryimprovisatory mode and it's
worked.
He and I work together.
I'm still pleasantly engaged bythe profession and we're
growing a business.
And what you didn't ask me,which I expect you will is you
know why the life sciences?
Have I gotten ahead of you?
Ben Comer (06:24):
No, no, there's no cues in this conversation.
Let's do it.
What excited you?
Or yeah, why did you get intolife sciences?
In particular?
Because I believe at Fidelityyou were across a lot of
different sectors, right.
Bill Holodnak (06:36):
That's absolutely true and thank you for working
without rules here, I do best inthat mode.
Working without rules here, Ido best in that mode.
So I was at I'm self-taught asa recruiter.
I never worked for a large firmand I began recruiting in
technology and venture capital.
(06:56):
That was pre-fidelity.
And then, once I worked forFidelity, my job with Fidelity
was a little more complicated.
I worked a lot directly for thechairman, recruiting senior
people in the asset managementspace.
But he knew that I was veryinterested in entrepreneurship
and innovative businesses and sohe, on behalf of Fidelity,
(07:17):
funded the search firm that Ibuilt and ran and grew to 100
people and set up offices.
How I got to life sciences?
At the time I was in Boston andthe life sciences revolution
was just beginning to happen.
There were these companies likeBiogen and Genzyme and Genetics
Institute that were changingthe world and my boss at the
(07:45):
time said to me have you heardof this thing called biotech?
And I was busy recruiting diskdrive people and enterprise
software people and materialscience executives.
And I said, no, but I'll giveit a try.
And I went out and I kind ofjust forced the issue and I met
people.
(08:05):
I met biologists, I metchemists, I met life sciences
investors and I kind of fell inlove with the industry.
I fell in love with it becauseof the very high level of
intellect and education amongthe people who are doing this,
among the people who are doingthis.
And not only were theyinteresting and supple
(08:27):
intellectually, but they had apurpose, and not that developing
the latest enterprise softwarewasn't purposeful, but it didn't
have quite the humanisticimpact.
So I don't want to pretend anyfalse nobility here, but what it
(09:10):
added to is a population ofexecutives that were both
brilliant, they were innovativeand they had the greater good in
mean it was.
I always make the joke that itwas much like Benjamin in the
first reel of the Graduate,where somebody at the cocktail
party whispers plastics in hisear.
Ben Comer (09:16):
One word plastics.
Bill Holodnak (09:18):
One word, plastics and anyhow, the people
I met were interesting and itjust kind of crescendoed from
there.
It was one of those oddconfluences of opportunity and
personal inclination.
Ben Comer (09:32):
Well, I can relate to that, Bill.
It's what keeps my job engagingand exciting.
For me is being able to speakwith people in the industry who
are a lot smarter than I am andwho are doing, you know, really
incredible things as it relatesto human health.
You know you mentioned thepsychology aspect of recruitment
(09:53):
and search and I wonder, youknow, if there's something
unique about the psychology ofyou know, someone who wants to
become the CEO or the leader ofa biotech company?
Is there, given your experience, are there archetypes, so to
(10:13):
speak, in terms of the peoplewho will ultimately or are
likely to be successful?
Now, you can't control thescience.
The best executive in the worldcan have a failed experiment, a
failed clinical trial, due inno part to them, but what could
you say about the kinds ofpeople that you've seen succeed
(10:36):
and if there are any kinds ofqualities they share?
Bill Holodnak (10:41):
That's a terrific question.
So because the science is sodense and so complicated, it's
helpful if a person has ascientific background.
But there are theme andvariations here and some of the
(11:05):
most successful CEOs are peoplewho are liberal arts trained but
have true intellectualcuriosity which you can't avoid.
You either have to know thescience by virtue of your
education and early establishedinterest, or you have to come to
terms with understanding thescience through just
intellectual appetite.
Understanding the sciencethrough just intellectual
(11:27):
appetite and intellectualcuriosity is one of the most.
Intellectual curiosity andself-awareness are two of the
most important things I look forin terms of potential leaders.
But with biotech, because ofthe density of the science, you
have to either get to it througheducation and developed
experience or you have to get toit by virtue of just sheer
inquisitiveness and engagementof the other.
(11:48):
You know.
Ben Comer (11:50):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Well, let's talk about theself-awareness side of that.
You know, what could you sayabout I don't know how and this
I think gets into how a leaderpresents herself or himself
internally and externally, ifwe're talking about potential
(12:10):
investors or regulators,internally, with other team
members, with with board members.
Is there, you know?
Is there coaching that you cando on that?
Is it something that thatpeople are born with a certain
amount of self-awareness?
What would you say on that?
Is it something that people areborn with a certain amount of
self-awareness?
What would you say to that?
Bill Holodnak (12:28):
In answering that question, I'm fond of invoking
Shakespeare, who said, in aslightly different context there
are those people who are great,there are those people who make
themselves great and there arethose who have greatness thrust
upon them, you know.
So it's an interestingexperiment in watching people
(12:52):
who either come to it naturallyor develop it in process.
A person I like to callattention to is one of the most
extraordinary biotech executivesthat I have met.
It's a guy by the name of PeterHecht.
I first met Peter when he wasfresh out of the Whitehead
(13:13):
Institute at MIT.
He was, I believe, a cellbiologist and he had an idea for
drug discovery and so, withoutany business training, he
decided to start a business onthe basis of his science and he
did the family and friends thingby getting money.
(13:34):
Then he was just adapting tothe capital raising with venture
capitalists and he got someexcellent venture investors.
I believe Venrock was one of hisearly investors and Paul
Klingenstein from Accel was oneof his investors, and he was
just about to build out theorganization.
That's when I met him.
So he's this remarkable guywho's a brilliant scientist and
(13:56):
then who had this emerging willto be a commercial person or an
executive and he was anautodidact.
He learned on the job, headapted in amazing ways.
So I got to him and helped himbuild out his organization.
But he had already convincedvery seasoned venture
capitalists to put money withhim and he just progressed as
(14:17):
the company moved along all theway to commercialization.
And he did that through kind ofnative intelligence,
adaptability, inquisitiveness.
So he raised money from friendsand family that's an easier
thing, I think, than raising itfrom venture capitalists.
Then he raised interimfinancing what we used to call
(14:44):
what was it called mezzaninefinancing and then he got public
and he addressed publicinvestors.
So he went all along the lifecycle of financing and then he
built the organization out.
He actually focused the companyon a particular product, an
irritable bowel disease and hegot that product approved and
into the market.
He's one of the few examples ofsomebody that I know that has
(15:07):
bridged the gap or moved fromstage to stage, because you know
, as the Brits say, there arehorses for courses.
You know, some CEOs are meantto be catalytic agents and bring
things together and getsomething started.
And bring these things togetherand get something started.
Others are meant to define aproduct development strategy and
(15:29):
begin to build clinicaldevelopment.
Then there are those people whodrive clinical development and
get a product ready for themarket.
And then there are those peoplewho are commercial and if they
don't adapt to the differentchallenges of each stage in the
life cycle, if they don't hirethe right people, they
oftentimes get bogged down, andit's not uncommon in biotech to
(15:50):
change out CEOs every two orthree years because they either
don't succeed, the sciencebetrays them, or they don't
adapt to the changes that comefrom the evolution of a biotech
business.
Ben Comer (16:05):
Right.
And when you met Peter, was hea client and what did you help
him do?
Bill Holodnak (16:13):
He became a client.
I was introduced to him by oneof the investors and I helped
him originally.
I helped him with so manythings.
I helped him with board members.
I helped him recruit his firstchief financial officer, a guy
out of Genzyme.
I helped him recruit his chiefcommercial officer, the person
(16:35):
who ultimately and we recruitedthat chief commercial officer
two years ahead of theintroduction of the product
because Peter was so insightfulthat he wanted to build
commercial thinking into thecompany because it was mostly
R&D types and financial types,people who didn't understand the
implications of what you had todo to get reimbursement, market
access, commercial distribution.
Ben Comer (16:57):
You know it's interesting you say that because
we've published a number ofcontributed articles in Life
Science Leader just reallyhammering on this insight of
thinking about commercialearlier on, earlier on, when
you're in the development phases, let commercial questions guide
trial design, and I can justtell by the article still coming
(17:21):
in that it's not something thatcompanies always do, but that's
interesting.
I did also just want to get asense of Occam Global's client
base.
So are you in a position topair CEOs with a network of
venture capitalists that areeither clients or a part of your
(17:43):
network?
I mean, can you kind of workboth sides?
I mean, do you have VC clientswho are looking to?
You know, perhaps, staff?
You know a new startup?
Do you also work withindependent biotech?
You know leaders who areattempting to build out their
team?
Give me a sense of who yourclient base is and the work you
(18:06):
do at Occam.
Bill Holodnak (18:08):
Well, the root transaction is we get hired by
an investor or a founder aninvestor, founder or board
member or board members torecruit something, whether
that's the first CEO, whetherit's a replacement CEO, whether
it's a head of businessdevelopment, whether it's a
chief scientific officer it canbe any of those possibilities
(18:30):
and ones that I didn't mention.
Oftentimes we develop arelationship either with the
investors or the board or withthe entrepreneur themselves, or
we give them advice on where togo for money, how to pitch
themselves.
Sometimes they listen andsometimes they don't, of course,
but we get involved in a moreelaborate relationship and for
(18:57):
us and this is important for youto understand, ben and people
do say this and it is a bit of acliche, but I'll utter it
anyhow we're in the transactionbusiness because we have to be,
but we're really in therelationship business.
So we try to get more involvedover time, more deeply, with
(19:19):
companies and we wind up givingthem behavioral and
organizational advice andfundraising advice.
For example, we're working witha Scottish company now involved
in automating chemistry.
The major application is in thelife sciences.
This is the first time CEO guywho's brilliant nature
(19:40):
publication academic out of theUniversity of Glasgow.
His name is Lee Corona and Leenever ran.
You know he was inexperiencedin business and he came to us to
help him recruit something thatwould make, or someone would
help him make, a more completeeffort.
(20:02):
Make the effort more completeto grow the business.
Ben Comer (20:05):
So he's kind of the scientific lead and he was
looking for something of abusiness lead.
Bill Holodnak (20:09):
He was looking for a business lead.
We helped him recruit a chiefbusiness officer.
We helped him recruit a chiefoperating officer.
We helped him recruit a chiefoperating officer.
We helped him recruit a chieftechnology officer.
We helped him add two seniorboard members for him.
At this point, we led him tosome sources of financing, so we
became more complete advisorsand we invested in the company
(20:32):
as well.
That's something you shouldunderstand about us.
We're not the only search firmthat does this, but I think
we're uncommon in our commitmentto either work for equity or
actually write checks.
Ben Comer (20:45):
How do you make that decision?
I mean, you're working with anumber of different companies, a
number of different executives.
Is there a kind of a signalthat goes off for you when you
say you know what this is, anorganization and an individual
that I want to actually investin myself?
Bill Holodnak (21:05):
I wish I could point to an algorithm or a
decision rule that led us to sayyes or no.
It's oftentimes intuition aboutthe intellectual openness and
integrity of the person.
Of course, it's his vision.
I mean, lee Cronin, you know,is very, you know, he's honest
and direct, sometimes to a fault, but he's very open.
(21:29):
He's got a big brain, he's gothuge ambition.
He could change the waychemistry is done through the
use of robots and AI and heactually has revenue and he's
hired really intelligently.
For a guy who didn't knowanything about hiring commercial
people, I'll give you anexample.
His chief technology officer isa guy by the name of Mike Bell,
(21:52):
and Mike was one of the primaryproduct engineering executives
at Apple.
He was responsible for theiPhone and the iPad getting into
production and getting made.
So for Lee to be able to, weintroduced him, but for Lee to
(22:14):
be able to close him around,this vision was extraordinary.
The guy could have doneanything he wanted.
So what am I trying to tell you,ben?
It's an intuition based onself-awareness, openness,
respect for us, because we can'tdo the you know people can look
at us as just you knowproviders of resumes.
(22:35):
It's the wrong way to look atus, you might want to look at
somebody else like that.
And if we get a sense of atrusted relationship and an
openness to dialogue where wecan help them, learn from them,
continue to help them at an evenhigher level, that's really
important to us.
So it's a belief in the generalbusiness proposition, of course
, but it's really about anintuition about their quality as
(22:59):
evolving executives.
Ben Comer (23:02):
Well, let's stick with this example of Lee just
for a second, because I'mcurious about how you think
about something like personalitycompatibility.
And now you've mentioned youknow you've surfaced candidates,
for Lee ultimately made thehiring decision, but you brought
these candidates to him itsounds like a number of people
(23:22):
that he's uh ended up hiring.
What you know?
What do you think about?
You know, when you're selectingcandidates to put in front of
lee, and to what extent are you,you know, doing those initial
interviews with potentialcandidates and thinking about
how they might respond or not toLee's personality?
Bill Holodnak (23:42):
He has a big personality and he has a
forceful personality and youknow, sometimes he's a
fire-ready aim, if you know whatI mean.
But we explain the dynamics ofhis personality.
We do that as a way to test thecompatibility that we are
sensing.
We also do it to prepare themfor an intelligent interaction
(24:05):
with him.
And we prepare Lee in the sameway.
Right, we say here's theopportunity to recruit him,
here's the questions he has youshould be thinking of.
Not only do you want his or herskillset, but are you going to
be able to work with them, Areyou going to be able to continue
to evolve with them?
And and Lee is, you know again,he writes page of papers for
(24:29):
nature and you know there is acertain amount of intellectual
confidence there that cansometimes get in the way of
human interactions, if you knowwhat I mean.
But he's very self-aware aboutit.
Ben Comer (24:42):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's really interesting.
Speaking of kind of bigpersonalities and I'm sure you
have had clients who do you know, maybe off the bat, view you as
someone providing resumes, itstrikes me that it could be
difficult to build trust withindividuals like that, gain
their trust, have them be, youknow, looking to you to select
(25:09):
you know a short list ofcandidates that they can then go
through.
How do you do that, bill?
How do you build that level oftrust with someone that they're
essentially in some ways puttingtheir business in your hands,
because ultimately, you know thebusiness is going to succeed or
fail on the strength of theindividuals that work there.
Bill Holodnak (25:29):
Totally true.
And you know, some people justlook at it and say, well, I'll
just see who they got and I'llhire and I'll make the decision.
I don't really need input fromthem.
That's one way of dealing withus and it's one way of making a
decision about a recruiter.
Other times they want to workwith us and respect our
(25:51):
expertise and then sometimesit's in the middle, right,
there's alienation and distance.
There's immediate intimacy, andthen there's something in the
middle, the way we build trust,which is really the most
important thing.
I think the most importantquestion that you asked just now
is when we interview somebody,we try to understand them and we
(26:16):
report on the client on thebasis of that understanding.
And if I'm giving you too muchdetail, let me know.
Ben Comer (26:23):
No, this is great, go ahead.
Bill Holodnak (26:24):
When we write somebody up and we write
everybody up Parenthetically Ibelieve in the importance of
language and I believe in theimportance of writing, because
when you write and you convinceyourself that you've written
clearly, then that means you'rethinking clearly.
So it forces a completeness ofthought and it enforces it.
(26:46):
Really, proper use of languageenforces integrity as well.
Couldn't agree more.
So when we write somebody out,we we take them through their
background.
We understand where they camefrom socioeconomically.
We understand why they chosefrom socioeconomically, we
understand why they chose aprofession or an education and
then a profession.
And then, most importantlyperhaps, we try to understand
(27:08):
how they've managed theirprofessional growth, why they've
gone to work for certainemployers, why they've left
certain employers, what job wasmost fulfilling to them.
We'd like to see people whochange jobs based on learning
rather than just money or title.
And so we look, we look, we, we, we understand the motivational
arc of their, of their history,and we report on that.
(27:29):
And then we also tell themthese are people, this is a
person we want you to see, andthese are the reasons why these
are the skills they bring to thebear, that you want, and these
are their personal leadershipqualities that are going to make
them successful in this context.
But here are some concerns.
So how do we build trust?
(27:50):
Through completeness ofreportage and through
intellectual honesty andevaluation.
We would never write somebodyup that we didn't want them to
see, but we will not tell themthey're perfect because,
unfortunately, perfection iselusive when it comes to human
beings.
Ben Comer (28:09):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I wanted to pick up on you knowyou talked about, you know
Lee's foresight to hire a youknow a commercial executive
early on, before they were,maybe even in late stage trials.
Which leads me to the questionof how do you know when to add
to the executive team?
And maybe we can use just ageneric example, and I have the
(28:35):
audience of business of biotechin mind here.
Have my, you know the audienceof business of biotech in mind
here.
But the scientist-led startupbiotech you know what is and
let's say it's you know the veryearliest stages.
There's a you know a discoverythat maybe this scientist made
herself or himself in the lab,you know, is looking at tech
(28:57):
transfer, is looking at spinningthat out into a company.
What's most important early onfrom a staff or executive team
perspective?
And are there specific cues, Iguess from the very beginning
and then moving forward intopreclinical research and
ultimately clinical trials,where you really need to start
(29:21):
hiring people?
Bill Holodnak (29:24):
Okay, you've asked a number of questions in
there.
Ben Comer (29:27):
I have, I apologize, no, no, no.
Bill Holodnak (29:29):
It's an all-star love and interviewing.
So usually these companies arestarted by brilliant scientists
and all due respect to myscientific friends.
There is a certain tendency tothink that management is down on
(29:52):
the pecking order of the greatchain of being.
You know the gray chain ofbeing, you know scientific
intellect is supreme.
Managerial competence issomething anybody could do if
you had a little bit of time.
Ben Comer (30:04):
Right, the inorganic matter, the rocks.
Bill Holodnak (30:11):
Yes, exactly, exactly so what we try to do.
You know, and look, there aresome of these scientific
founders that have incrediblecommercial moxie.
They understand and you know,they're okay, maybe functioning
a little longer as CEOs.
But two of the key hires inthese cases are chief scientific
officer and chief businessofficer.
The chief scientific officershould be put in place because
(30:32):
if a scientist truly wants tobecome a CEO, then they have to
distance themselves from thescience, distance themselves
from what they do so well andthey're so splendidly competent
in, because the CEO role is arole of.
It involves salesmanship, itinvolves strategy, it involves
organizational development andleadership.
(30:54):
It requires a person who willintegrate effort.
If that person tries to be CEOand CSO, oftentimes their CEO
content is diluted.
So we like to urge them tothink of getting a CSO
relatively quickly An industrialstrength scientist who's used
(31:15):
to, you know, kind of building apath toward most often the case
drug discovery and development.
Then on the business side, youneed somebody who's got contacts
in pharma, knows how pharmathinks, can do deals and can.
Equally importantly, oftentimesthese rich scientific platforms
(31:37):
have multiple possibilities.
These rich scientific platformshave multiple possibilities and
we've always found that theglory of platform companies is
that they could do everything.
The shame is they often wind updoing nothing because they
dissipate energy across too manyprojects.
So somebody like a chiefbusiness officer could help
prioritize opportunities andthen leverage those
(32:01):
opportunities for non-dilutivefinancing with pharma.
So externalizing those twofunctions the management of the
science and commercialnegotiation, and staying in
control as the organizingintelligence of CEO that's a
really a critical thing to getdone.
Not easy.
We can make it a little easier,but it's challenging and it
(32:22):
requires commitment.
Ben Comer (32:24):
I'm envisioning the headstrong founder scientists
who balks a little bit about theneed to hire a CSO.
Do you have a kind of datapackage that you can share with
someone like that, to say X, yand Z company succeeded, they
(32:44):
hired a CSO, they separated theroles.
How do you deal with that?
Bill Holodnak (32:52):
Well, it's a wonderful question and it's
something that's on our mindsfor a variety of reasons.
We have data packages forcompensation and I have
developed various positionpapers in the past talking about
when to hire somebody and howto hire them and how to organize
(33:12):
the evolution of the executiveteam.
But we come equipped withexperience and anecdotal
argument more than quantified,and we're actually working on
our data now to build tools likethe ones you suggested, because
scientists are fact-based andtrust and verify.
(33:33):
We would be better off if we hada database to verify our
choices.
I'm arguing from humanisticwisdom here, I suppose.
Ben Comer (33:43):
Right, okay, yeah, that makes sense.
I wanted to perhaps ask nextabout the potential to hire
prematurely.
As a company is growing andmaybe we'll go back to this
founder scientist, he or she hasnow hired a CSO, they've hired
a chief business officer, maybethey have a chief operating
(34:07):
officer.
What could you say about thesequencing of the executive team
, and is it possible to hire,say you know, a commercial
person too soon or a chieffinancial officer too soon?
Bill Holodnak (34:22):
That's a good those are.
Those are a good series ofvariations and questions and a
theme and variations that you'veyou've called attention to.
Yeah, I think that you can hireprematurely.
You can also be behind thecurve.
(34:42):
I mean, you know, building inpairing a scientific founder
with a CBO is really important.
Building awareness on how theyhave to distance themselves from
the science is also reallyimportant.
On how they have to distancethemselves from the science is
also really important.
Sometimes we're inresource-constrained
environments and we have to talkabout that as an evolution
(35:10):
rather than a specific program.
But getting the foundingscientist away from I can do it
all myself is really importantand they've got to be thinking
of that.
So when do you add a commercialperson?
I go back to my example ofPeter Hecht Peter wanting to
hire, between 18 and 24 monthsahead of product introduction, a
(35:31):
commercial person.
I think that's very smartbecause you have to get that
thinking.
In Hiring a chief medicalofficer, which is a very
expensive and a very risky hire,you don't want to delay too
long on that because you want tobuild clinical wisdom.
Now there are some people whoare not like PhDs but MD-PhDs
that start companies.
But making sure you havedisciplined and highly
(35:55):
professional clinicaldevelopment.
Wisdom is really reallyimportant to making the right
selection and building anargument around the asset value
of the compounds you'rediscovering and developing.
So they're expensive, they'rerisky hires, some of them are
risk adverse, many of them areand they can't be recruited too
(36:15):
early.
But I would err on the side ofrecruiting a little too early
rather than a little too late,with both the CMO and the CMO.
Ben Comer (36:30):
And the chief financial officer.
Well, chief financial officeris different.
Okay.
I'm sorry, the CBO yeah.
Bill Holodnak (36:39):
The CBO should be hired right away, and sometimes
you can get finance embedded inthe talent there.
A CFO, really, you only want tohire that person when you're
looking toward a public offering.
Ben Comer (36:51):
Okay.
Bill Holodnak (36:52):
Because that's really the value.
The managerial economics amongbiotech companies are relatively
simple.
Really the value.
The managerial economics amongbiotech companies are relatively
simple.
You know there's very little inthe way of receivables or
inventory that have to bemanaged.
You have to have orderlybookkeeping and all of that.
(37:13):
But you don't need thehigh-powered CFO too soon.
That's really when you'rewithin a year, maybe 18 months,
of an IPO or you're trying toposition yourself for sale on an
M&A, but it usually when yourbusiness plan is more defined,
your product strategy is moredefined and you have a real need
to package the value of thoseassets in a way that's going to
make the shareholders happy.
Ben Comer (37:35):
Do you ever run into situations, bill, where, let's
say, a client of yours is aninvestor maybe it's a VC group,
maybe it's an individualinvestor who has a kind of
preset idea about what core teamis successful and kind of when
that core team needs to beassembled, team needs to be
(38:01):
assembled, and do you, you know,do you have ever have to push
back on that?
Or do you kind of you know, ifit's your client, you kind of go
along with, you know what, youknow what their scheme is for
setting up a company and gettingit going?
And I asked that because youknow my next question is going
to be has that changed at all?
Is there a change in thinkingin terms of how investors are
looking at leadership and atcompanies and what they need?
(38:23):
But let's start at the firstquestion before I add on four
others here.
Bill, how do you manage that ifyou have a client who is an
investor who says, well, we needthis position and this position
and this position right now?
Bill Holodnak (38:42):
Well, you know, investors vary in their quality.
Some have more instinctualwisdom about how businesses are
run.
Some have come from anoperating background.
Others are more purelyfinancial investors and are
looking for their return.
No matter what their origin are, what their sympathies are, we
(39:04):
try to represent the loyalopposition.
I guess we're trying to help you.
We don't know all of the facts.
We respect you, but have youthought of it this way?
Here's our experience in termsof kinds of CEOs to recruit.
Here's our experience on timingof CMOs and structure of the
CMO package.
(39:25):
Here's, you know.
Here's an idea about when youshould add board members,
because board members we haven'ttalked about this it's a
parallel track in terms of theorganizational evolution and
sometimes adding a really a veryexperienced board member at an
earlier stage can give youbusiness development contacts
(39:45):
and commercial wisdom thatcomplement a founder.
First-time CEO founderoftentimes benefits from a
chairman, sometimes an executivechair, and if you have that in
place and you have the rightkind of relationship between the
chair and the founder, you cansometimes delay the executive
hires because you're gettingeducation, wisdom and substance
(40:09):
at the board level.
So it's a there's a bit of aninterplay between board
population and executivepopulation.
Ben Comer (40:15):
Yeah, almost a mentorship role with those early
board members.
And you're right, we haven'ttalked.
We haven't spoken about theboard yet.
But what's your approach toboard members?
Let's say you're working withsomeone like Lee or Peter and
they want to establish a board.
Maybe you encourage them toestablish a board.
(40:37):
How do you decide who to lookfor?
What's your kind of talent poolfor staffing a board?
Bill Holodnak (40:45):
Well, I mean, let's just take maybe a number
of specific examples.
Oftentimes, when there's ascientific founder or even a
first-time CEO, it's really goodto get a board chair in place
who helps manage the governanceprocess and serves as a mentor.
Now, sometimes there'sfetishism involved here, that
(41:09):
the investors want a luminousboard member who, by virtue of
title and corporate affiliation,adds luster and optical value.
That's all good, but opticsshould be not captured at the
expense of substance, right?
So you need somebody, and bythat I mean, if you get somebody
(41:30):
who's luminary and they jointhe board, you want to make damn
sure that they're going to giveit time and it's not just going
to be an honorific or it's notjust going to be the 18th thing
on their agenda all the time.
The second thing you have tolook for is you not every senior
(41:51):
executive.
Many of them do, but not all ofthem don't have the mentorship
gene.
You've got to find somebody whowants to spend time with a
person and who wants to teach,who wants to help them develop,
not tell them what to do.
That can create more problems.
But if you get somebody whoknows what they're doing and can
use the Socratic method toeducate the CEO that's a great
(42:15):
combination.
The CEO that's a greatcombination.
Ben Comer (42:19):
What about board size ?
Is there?
I mean, is it a case by case?
Is there an appropriate in yourmind size for a board of
directors for, say, a startup,you know, scientific, founder
style company?
Bill Holodnak (42:37):
I mean, there's no magic number.
You know, seven looks like thegolden mean to me, but can it go
as high as 10 and not be wacky?
Yes, can it go as low as fiveor four and still be functional?
Yes, you know.
So it's situational andjudgmental.
But back to an earlier questionyou asked and I didn't answer.
(42:57):
When we come in on these issues,we try to take a strategic
approach.
Assembling a board is like anexercise in portfolio management
.
What we do is we get thecompany to look at itself and
look at its current board.
What are the key skills youwant around the board?
Do you want regulatoryexperience?
(43:18):
Do you want clinicaldevelopment experience?
Do you want disease-statingspecific experience?
Do you want technology-specificexperience?
Do you want businessdevelopment expertise?
Do you want financial expertise?
Do you want a serial CEO,somebody who has been through an
operating cycle to bringgeneral wisdom?
So what we try to do is createa portfolio of desired skills
(43:40):
and then do a gap analysis andthen try to recruit, in an
ordered fashion, people to fillthose gaps, whether it's R&D,
whether it's businessdevelopment and strategy,
whether it's general management,whether it's R&D.
Does that make sense to you?
It does.
Ben Comer (43:58):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And I guess the, you know, theareas of expertise will be sort
of probably adjusted based onthe stage that the company's in
right.
Bill Holodnak (44:11):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Ben Comer (44:17):
You may not need, like you know, a commercial
commercial, someone who'scommercialized you know five
successful products on yourboard when you're in
pre-clinical studies, forexample that's, that's, that's
totally true.
Bill Holodnak (44:30):
Um, uh, I mean uh , we, we, we.
I guess I can mention the namewe work with with Mammoth on a
board search recently and theywere a company that Jennifer
Dowd and the company Gene Ed,and they were focused on
(44:52):
diagnostics at the beginning andthen they were pivoting.
Then they were involved in apivot toward therapeutics for a
variety of you know economic andorganizational reasons or
strategic reasons, and so wehelped them add some of the key
and translate executivetranslation at the executive
level, and we helped them add avery experienced board member,
(45:14):
bob Brown, who was a founder ofDyserna and who was an R&D
expert, and Bob Brown, who was afounder of Dyserna and who was
an R&D expert, and helping themadd to the board real-world
expertise in terms of drugdevelopment, drug discovery and
development as opposed todiagnostics.
Ben Comer (45:30):
Right.
Bill Holodnak (45:31):
So I hope that example was helpful to you and I
can talk about other examplesif you'd like.
I can talk about other examplesif you'd like.
The important thing is we tryto engage clients in a I hate
this word, but I'll use itanyhow holistic way to get them
to think about how they can best, through organizational
(45:52):
gestures, how they can bestposition themselves for success.
You asked me earlier why Ifound biotech so enticing, and I
talked about the people and themission.
I think it's a wildly riskybusiness.
You know I often refer to it asslow motion roulette.
You know the drama goes onforever and then you're either
(46:28):
on black or red and you or youlose.
You know, and and I think thepeople who have us have the
self-possession and strategicengagement are really amazing.
Ben Comer (46:31):
It transmutes into interesting personality
qualities, I think yeah, it musttake a lot of fortitude to live
with that risk, you know, dayin and day out as a trial
progresses.
Bill Holodnak (46:41):
Indeed, indeed.
Ben Comer (46:45):
The current funding environment for early stage life
sciences no surprise ischallenging, to put it lightly.
Right now the public marketsare kind of closed for the
moment.
I wonder what kind of impactthat's had on the talent pool
for maybe a biotech that's justgetting started.
(47:08):
Bill, along with the fundingenvironment, there's been a
number of layoffs.
You know there's, so maybe thetalent pool is is expanding.
What?
What would you say about the,the size and shape of the talent
pool and and good people outthere that you know, that you
(47:29):
can put you know in front ofyour clients?
Bill Holodnak (47:34):
I've been doing this through a number of
economic cycles and peoplealways ask this question.
In down markets you knowwhether the company turmoil
created by the fundingenvironment makes my job easier
because there are more peopleavailable or there's more
opportunity to recruit people.
That's true in one sense, butif you remember why people come
(47:58):
to me or come to a search room,it's to find somebody special,
and the special people areinfrequently unemployed.
If you know what I mean, it canhappen to anyone.
So what I think to you is thatin the cycle of the market
there's either too many jobs fortoo few people or too few
(48:21):
people for too many jobs.
Why did I get into thisprofession?
Sometimes I scratch my headbecause it never gets any easier
based on economic cycle.
Sometimes they're just morebusiness.
But solving the human riddle toget the right person in the
right executive role, which iskey to the company's success,
(48:43):
always requires liberal elbowgrease, if you know what I mean.
Ben Comer (48:48):
Absolutely.
It reminds me I wanted to askyou about skills in terms of
company leaders, and maybe youhear this from your investor
clients.
Maybe you know it's individualfounders who are looking for
this, but have you, you know,noticed, you know, a desire for
any kinds of new skills when itcomes to company leaders,
(49:12):
whether it's and I guess I haveAI and technology kind of in
mind, and maybe it's acase-by-case type of thing that
you can't generalize across theentire industry, but are there
any specific skills that seem tobe more in demand now than, say
, a few years ago?
Bill Holodnak (49:31):
Well, you could argue that right now.
I'm going to give you at leasttwo answers to that question.
Right now, clinical developmentexpertise is really in demand
because the investors andcorporations are buying
developed assets.
So I would say that there's ahigh demand at both the board
(49:53):
level and at the executive levelfor very talented drug
developers, people who cancultivate the asset value of
these discoveries that are beingmade.
So you know, and you know,sometimes pure scientific talent
is more desired or there's morean effort rather on clinical
(50:15):
development, there's an efforton business development.
If the capital markets arerobust and there's lots of
public offerings happening, thenscientific, the functional
desires or the priorities changewith the market.
So I've just given you theexample on the current market.
Clinical experience is reallyimportant In terms of new skills
(50:37):
and I've kind of written onthis a little bit.
Getting people with artificialintelligence, machine learning
capability, is really keybecause for many of these
companies this is a very newlyevolved discipline and there's
(50:58):
not a whole lot of people whoare broadly experienced in it
and there's even fewer peoplewho are experienced managers.
So it's very hard to get peoplewith AIDD experience or AI
experience into the drugdevelopment space and it's very
competitive because of theprices that are being bid up.
Competitive because of theprices that are being bid up.
(51:22):
But what you really need is toget somebody who has real
sympathy for the mission of drugdevelopment and the complexity
of biology.
So you're looking for a hybrid.
You're looking for, and thathybrid match can come with
alternative composition.
By that I mean you can eitherfind an AI person who really is
(51:43):
mesmerized by the possibilitiesof transforming drug discovery
and development or somebody whohas a personal issue.
And I mean there's one guy thatI know very well who became
early on.
He was from Toronto and he wasvery highly developed in neural
networks and he worked for majorindustrial corporations as an
(52:05):
AI scientist.
Then his mother died of cancerand he thought couldn't we find
a cure for cancer more readilywith AI in place?
And he moved his career.
So the people can come fromcomputers, computer science and
(52:30):
AI.
Or they can come from biologyand become our self-taught as AI
people, or they have aconviction as an AI person that
this is where they want to work.
So finding really talented AIpeople to come into drug
discovery and development andthe big pharma clients are eager
(52:52):
for these people.
The biotech companies are eagerfor them, so there's a big
market for them, for them, sothere's a big market for them.
Ben Comer (53:07):
And it's very interesting evolution of a new
species and a high demand one,excellent.
I want to shift gears here alittle bit and ask you about
Life Science Cares New York.
I noted on your LinkedInprofile that you are on the
board of advisory there, I think, board of advisors at Life
Science Cares New York.
I wonder if you could just givea kind of quick overview of
(53:31):
that organization and maybe whyyou joined.
Bill Holodnak (53:34):
Well.
Ben Comer (53:35):
I mean.
Bill Holodnak (53:35):
This was started by a group of thoughtful,
big-hearted life scienceexecutives, most notably Rob
Perez, his old friend, and Robis a wonderfully talented and
successful commercialexecutive-cum-CEO in biotech and
(54:10):
I think he, whether because ofhis upbringing or because of the
exigencies in his own soul,thought that he had such a
wonderful career in biotech thathe ought to give back, and he
thought that there were otherlife sciences executives that
ought to find ways to improvethe communities in which the
industry grew up.
So job creation is one of thebig objectives, so it's like a
wonderful sense of socialmission and giving back and you
know so what's not to like aboutthat.
(54:32):
I've been very successful as aresult of my involvement in the
life sciences world.
I've talked to you earlierabout my huge respect for that
industry and the people in it.
So I'm not trying to proclaimnobility for my own soul, but
that's the logic of it, right,and that's why it was founded
(54:54):
and I'm wholeheartedlysupporting it over that.
And I think it's great to donot-for-profit service.
I sit on another jazznot-for-profit service.
I sit on another jazz, uh innot-for-profit in New York and I
I've been on the board of theBerkeley college of music, uh,
and the San Francisco jazz.
So I I think like, whether it'sbiology or it's jazz, uh, it's
(55:14):
given, it's made my life rich inthe world, a richer place, so
why not give back, Right?
Ben Comer (55:20):
Absolutely, absolutely Well.
Thank you for that.
We are coming up to the end ofour time, bill, but before I,
before I get into my my exitlittle speech here, I wonder if
there is any final advice thatyou would give to, you know, a
(55:41):
potential founder scientist whomight be listening to this show.
Aside from give you a call,we'll take that one as a granted
.
But anything you know, forsomeone who is thinking about,
perhaps you know, taking theplunge, stepping out of academia
attempting to translate adiscovery into a medical product
(56:01):
that could help people, whatwould you tell them?
Bill Holodnak (56:04):
Well, I run into a lot of people who get in, who
start in academics and have gotany either pharma or biotech or
both because they wanted to see.
They wanted to see patientsbenefit and they also wanted
where in academia.
It's pursuing knowledge for itsown sake.
(56:24):
Industry offers the opportunityto make social impact, to
assume a pragmatic focus, and Ithink that that's great.
And I just think that theadvice would be understand.
It's a business and if you wantyour science to be realized,
(56:46):
understand it'll take commercialexpertise to do that and
commercial understanding.
So be prepared for somethingnew and something difficult in
ways that are different thanscientific achievement.
So it's a wonderful thing to do, but understand you're entering
into a different realm withdifferent exigencies.
(57:07):
And back to calling me call meor call somebody.
Get great investors, get agreat board and listen to advice
.
Be your own person, butunderstand you're in for an
adventure of a totally differentsort.
Ben Comer (57:23):
Bill, thanks so much for joining me today.
Bill Holodnak (57:26):
It was great, Ben .
I always enjoy ourconversations.
I hope I was helpful to you andto whomever is listening in.
Ben Comer (57:34):
We've been speaking with Bill Holodnak, founder and
CEO at Occam Global.
I'm Ben Comer and you've justlistened to the Business of
Biotech.
Find us and subscribe anywhereyou listen to podcasts and be
sure to check out our new weeklyvideocasts of these
conversations every Monday underthe Business of Biotech tab at
Life Science Leader.
(57:54):
We'll see you next week andthanks, as always, for listening
.
Welcome back to the Business of Biotech.
I'm your host, Ben Comer, chiefEditor at Life Science Leader,
and today I'm speaking with BillHolodnack, founder and CEO of
New York City-based Occam Global, a life science executive and
board member recruitment firm.
Bill founded Occam Global withhis son, john, in 2012, after
(00:27):
spending more than 25 yearsleading a multinational search
firm owned by FidelityInvestments.
Bill is a renaissance man whoseinterests extend from pharma
and biotech to music, film,history, technology and beyond,
and he's also an engaging writer, a claim that I'm making based
(00:48):
on the strength of his founder'snote on the Occam Global
website, which quotes theRussian novelist Ivan Turgenev.
He's also a member of theadvisory board at Life Science
Cares, New York.
I'm pleased to connect withBill to talk about what makes a
person capable of shepherdingexperimental drug candidates
through clinical development,approval and into commercial use
(01:11):
, what secrets he whispers intothe ears of CEOs to help them
succeed, and how he thinks aboutmatching company leaders with
board members, investors andadditions to the executive team.
Thanks so much for joining metoday, Bill.
Bill Holodnak (01:27):
Happy to be here, Ben.
Ben Comer (01:30):
My younger sister worked for a couple of years in
executive recruiting for largehealthcare organizations,
hospital systems and the like.
It ultimately was not for her.
She found it extremelydifficult and stressful.
So, bill, I'm curious how didyou come to executive search
initially and what interestedyou about executive placement
(01:55):
and leadership and team dynamics?
Bill Holodnak (02:08):
tell you a tale of intentional action, but it
was largely improvised.
Recruiting is a profession untoitself, but, unlike disciplines
such as law or medicine,there's no established what the
Latins used to call a cursushonorum, a progression into it.
It's usually a profession bydefault and you find yourself
there and it works.
My own story is I tried anumber of different things.
(02:31):
I was an academic and a teacherfor a period of time.
I ran a series of smallbusinesses for a period of time
I was a public accountant.
I have a CPA, much to mysurprise, and that didn't please
me, and so I went to arecruiting agency and they kept
(02:52):
offering me jobs like internalauditor, controller, financial
analyst, misery that I wastrying to escape from, not
compound, and my willfulness, Iguess, or my self-awareness
about what was not for me, ledthe head of the firm to say well
(03:12):
, why don't you try this?
And I tried it and all of asudden it was something that I
got good at.
I got good at quickly, which Itook as a measure of
compatibility.
Recruiting is a business that ispart psychology, it's part
business analytics, it's partwitch doctor.
(03:38):
There's a bunch of differentbusiness skills that go into it.
If it's done right and it'sabout creating the right match.
It's about being determined,it's about listening, and you
have to enjoy people.
You don't have to always lovethem, because that's not
possible I don't think but it'sreally wonderfully and it's
(04:01):
wonderfully enriching from aneducational standpoint.
I just talked to one of mystaff members today, a person
who was doing a CEO search inclinical research organizations
that are backed by privateequity and it's a little bit
different from what we normallydo, and she was just rattling on
how educational it was, howgetting to know this different
(04:23):
species of humanity, thisdifferent industry, this
different modality of investingwas, and so, whether it's within
the strict bounds oftherapeutics or it's in
adjacencies, it's a wonderfullyeducational enterprise if you
have the capacity to listen, andif you don't have the capacity
to listen, you probablyshouldn't be in LaCroix.
Ben Comer (04:43):
So you worked at the Fidelity-backed research firm,
global research firm for 25years.
What was the impetus forfounding and ultimately leading
Occam Global?
Bill Holodnak (04:59):
Well, I worked both at Fidelity and for this
Fidelity-sponsored organizationfor 25 years.
I built the organization andaccomplished a lot internally at
Fidelity and it felt like itwas time to do something else.
Both of our children were grownand lived in New York and we
(05:19):
thought we would try somethingdifferent in Boston.
So it was a bit of anexperiment and I was retired for
all of two weeks when I wasgiven by my wife the thought
that it might be better if Iwent back to work.
Right, so, anyhow, I began bydoing some consulting for
clients that I had had before,including the Gates Foundation,
(05:42):
and then people started offeringme work, and my son was just
getting out of business schooland was in finance, didn't
particularly like any of the joboffers that he was getting, and
so we agreed to work together.
So it was escaping my wife'swrath, it was finding something
productive to do with my time.
It was an opportunity to workwith my son, and we kind of
(06:04):
started it in a veryimprovisatory mode and it's
worked.
He and I work together.
I'm still pleasantly engaged bythe profession and we're
growing a business.
And what you didn't ask me,which I expect you will is you
know why the life sciences?
Have I gotten ahead of you?
Ben Comer (06:24):
No, no, there's no cues in this conversation.
Let's do it.
What excited you?
Or yeah, why did you get intolife sciences?
In particular?
Because I believe at Fidelityyou were across a lot of
different sectors, right.
Bill Holodnak (06:36):
That's absolutely true and thank you for working
without rules here, I do best inthat mode.
Working without rules here, Ido best in that mode.
So I was at I'm self-taught asa recruiter.
I never worked for a large firmand I began recruiting in
technology and venture capital.
(06:56):
That was pre-fidelity.
And then, once I worked forFidelity, my job with Fidelity
was a little more complicated.
I worked a lot directly for thechairman, recruiting senior
people in the asset managementspace.
But he knew that I was veryinterested in entrepreneurship
and innovative businesses and sohe, on behalf of Fidelity,
(07:17):
funded the search firm that Ibuilt and ran and grew to 100
people and set up offices.
How I got to life sciences?
At the time I was in Boston andthe life sciences revolution
was just beginning to happen.
There were these companies likeBiogen and Genzyme and Genetics
Institute that were changingthe world and my boss at the
(07:45):
time said to me have you heardof this thing called biotech?
And I was busy recruiting diskdrive people and enterprise
software people and materialscience executives.
And I said, no, but I'll giveit a try.
And I went out and I kind ofjust forced the issue and I met
people.
(08:05):
I met biologists, I metchemists, I met life sciences
investors and I kind of fell inlove with the industry.
I fell in love with it becauseof the very high level of
intellect and education amongthe people who are doing this,
among the people who are doingthis.
And not only were theyinteresting and supple
(08:27):
intellectually, but they had apurpose, and not that developing
the latest enterprise softwarewasn't purposeful, but it didn't
have quite the humanisticimpact.
So I don't want to pretend anyfalse nobility here, but what it
(09:10):
added to is a population ofexecutives that were both
brilliant, they were innovativeand they had the greater good in
mean it was.
I always make the joke that itwas much like Benjamin in the
first reel of the Graduate,where somebody at the cocktail
party whispers plastics in hisear.
Ben Comer (09:16):
One word plastics.
Bill Holodnak (09:18):
One word, plastics and anyhow, the people
I met were interesting and itjust kind of crescendoed from
there.
It was one of those oddconfluences of opportunity and
personal inclination.
Ben Comer (09:32):
Well, I can relate to that, Bill.
It's what keeps my job engagingand exciting.
For me is being able to speakwith people in the industry who
are a lot smarter than I am andwho are doing, you know, really
incredible things as it relatesto human health.
You know you mentioned thepsychology aspect of recruitment
(09:53):
and search and I wonder, youknow, if there's something
unique about the psychology ofyou know, someone who wants to
become the CEO or the leader ofa biotech company?
Is there, given your experience, are there archetypes, so to
(10:13):
speak, in terms of the peoplewho will ultimately or are
likely to be successful?
Now, you can't control thescience.
The best executive in the worldcan have a failed experiment, a
failed clinical trial, due inno part to them, but what could
you say about the kinds ofpeople that you've seen succeed
(10:36):
and if there are any kinds ofqualities they share?
Bill Holodnak (10:41):
That's a terrific question.
So because the science is sodense and so complicated, it's
helpful if a person has ascientific background.
But there are theme andvariations here and some of the
(11:05):
most successful CEOs are peoplewho are liberal arts trained but
have true intellectualcuriosity which you can't avoid.
You either have to know thescience by virtue of your
education and early establishedinterest, or you have to come to
terms with understanding thescience through just
intellectual appetite.
Understanding the sciencethrough just intellectual
(11:27):
appetite and intellectualcuriosity is one of the most.
Intellectual curiosity andself-awareness are two of the
most important things I look forin terms of potential leaders.
But with biotech, because ofthe density of the science, you
have to either get to it througheducation and developed
experience or you have to get toit by virtue of just sheer
inquisitiveness and engagementof the other.
(11:48):
You know.
Ben Comer (11:50):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Well, let's talk about theself-awareness side of that.
You know, what could you sayabout I don't know how and this
I think gets into how a leaderpresents herself or himself
internally and externally, ifwe're talking about potential
(12:10):
investors or regulators,internally, with other team
members, with with board members.
Is there, you know?
Is there coaching that you cando on that?
Is it something that thatpeople are born with a certain
amount of self-awareness?
What would you say on that?
Is it something that people areborn with a certain amount of
self-awareness?
What would you say to that?
Bill Holodnak (12:28):
In answering that question, I'm fond of invoking
Shakespeare, who said, in aslightly different context there
are those people who are great,there are those people who make
themselves great and there arethose who have greatness thrust
upon them, you know.
So it's an interestingexperiment in watching people
(12:52):
who either come to it naturallyor develop it in process.
A person I like to callattention to is one of the most
extraordinary biotech executivesthat I have met.
It's a guy by the name of PeterHecht.
I first met Peter when he wasfresh out of the Whitehead
(13:13):
Institute at MIT.
He was, I believe, a cellbiologist and he had an idea for
drug discovery and so, withoutany business training, he
decided to start a business onthe basis of his science and he
did the family and friends thingby getting money.
(13:34):
Then he was just adapting tothe capital raising with venture
capitalists and he got someexcellent venture investors.
I believe Venrock was one of hisearly investors and Paul
Klingenstein from Accel was oneof his investors, and he was
just about to build out theorganization.
That's when I met him.
So he's this remarkable guywho's a brilliant scientist and
(13:56):
then who had this emerging willto be a commercial person or an
executive and he was anautodidact.
He learned on the job, headapted in amazing ways.
So I got to him and helped himbuild out his organization.
But he had already convincedvery seasoned venture
capitalists to put money withhim and he just progressed as
(14:17):
the company moved along all theway to commercialization.
And he did that through kind ofnative intelligence,
adaptability, inquisitiveness.
So he raised money from friendsand family that's an easier
thing, I think, than raising itfrom venture capitalists.
Then he raised interimfinancing what we used to call
(14:44):
what was it called mezzaninefinancing and then he got public
and he addressed publicinvestors.
So he went all along the lifecycle of financing and then he
built the organization out.
He actually focused the companyon a particular product, an
irritable bowel disease and hegot that product approved and
into the market.
He's one of the few examples ofsomebody that I know that has
(15:07):
bridged the gap or moved fromstage to stage, because you know
, as the Brits say, there arehorses for courses.
You know, some CEOs are meantto be catalytic agents and bring
things together and getsomething started.
And bring these things togetherand get something started.
Others are meant to define aproduct development strategy and
(15:29):
begin to build clinicaldevelopment.
Then there are those people whodrive clinical development and
get a product ready for themarket.
And then there are those peoplewho are commercial and if they
don't adapt to the differentchallenges of each stage in the
life cycle, if they don't hirethe right people, they
oftentimes get bogged down, andit's not uncommon in biotech to
(15:50):
change out CEOs every two orthree years because they either
don't succeed, the sciencebetrays them, or they don't
adapt to the changes that comefrom the evolution of a biotech
business.
Ben Comer (16:05):
Right.
And when you met Peter, was hea client and what did you help
him do?
Bill Holodnak (16:13):
He became a client.
I was introduced to him by oneof the investors and I helped
him originally.
I helped him with so manythings.
I helped him with board members.
I helped him recruit his firstchief financial officer, a guy
out of Genzyme.
I helped him recruit his chiefcommercial officer, the person
(16:35):
who ultimately and we recruitedthat chief commercial officer
two years ahead of theintroduction of the product
because Peter was so insightfulthat he wanted to build
commercial thinking into thecompany because it was mostly
R&D types and financial types,people who didn't understand the
implications of what you had todo to get reimbursement, market
access, commercial distribution.
Ben Comer (16:57):
You know it's interesting you say that because
we've published a number ofcontributed articles in Life
Science Leader just reallyhammering on this insight of
thinking about commercialearlier on, earlier on, when
you're in the development phases, let commercial questions guide
trial design, and I can justtell by the article still coming
(17:21):
in that it's not something thatcompanies always do, but that's
interesting.
I did also just want to get asense of Occam Global's client
base.
So are you in a position topair CEOs with a network of
venture capitalists that areeither clients or a part of your
(17:43):
network?
I mean, can you kind of workboth sides?
I mean, do you have VC clientswho are looking to?
You know, perhaps, staff?
You know a new startup?
Do you also work withindependent biotech?
You know leaders who areattempting to build out their
team?
Give me a sense of who yourclient base is and the work you
(18:06):
do at Occam.
Bill Holodnak (18:08):
Well, the root transaction is we get hired by
an investor or a founder aninvestor, founder or board
member or board members torecruit something, whether
that's the first CEO, whetherit's a replacement CEO, whether
it's a head of businessdevelopment, whether it's a
chief scientific officer it canbe any of those possibilities
(18:30):
and ones that I didn't mention.
Oftentimes we develop arelationship either with the
investors or the board or withthe entrepreneur themselves, or
we give them advice on where togo for money, how to pitch
themselves.
Sometimes they listen andsometimes they don't, of course,
but we get involved in a moreelaborate relationship and for
(18:57):
us and this is important for youto understand, ben and people
do say this and it is a bit of acliche, but I'll utter it
anyhow we're in the transactionbusiness because we have to be,
but we're really in therelationship business.
So we try to get more involvedover time, more deeply, with
(19:19):
companies and we wind up givingthem behavioral and
organizational advice andfundraising advice.
For example, we're working witha Scottish company now involved
in automating chemistry.
The major application is in thelife sciences.
This is the first time CEO guywho's brilliant nature
(19:40):
publication academic out of theUniversity of Glasgow.
His name is Lee Corona and Leenever ran.
You know he was inexperiencedin business and he came to us to
help him recruit something thatwould make, or someone would
help him make, a more completeeffort.
(20:02):
Make the effort more completeto grow the business.
Ben Comer (20:05):
So he's kind of the scientific lead and he was
looking for something of abusiness lead.
Bill Holodnak (20:09):
He was looking for a business lead.
We helped him recruit a chiefbusiness officer.
We helped him recruit a chiefoperating officer.
We helped him recruit a chiefoperating officer.
We helped him recruit a chieftechnology officer.
We helped him add two seniorboard members for him.
At this point, we led him tosome sources of financing, so we
became more complete advisorsand we invested in the company
(20:32):
as well.
That's something you shouldunderstand about us.
We're not the only search firmthat does this, but I think
we're uncommon in our commitmentto either work for equity or
actually write checks.
Ben Comer (20:45):
How do you make that decision?
I mean, you're working with anumber of different companies, a
number of different executives.
Is there a kind of a signalthat goes off for you when you
say you know what this is, anorganization and an individual
that I want to actually investin myself?
Bill Holodnak (21:05):
I wish I could point to an algorithm or a
decision rule that led us to sayyes or no.
It's oftentimes intuition aboutthe intellectual openness and
integrity of the person.
Of course, it's his vision.
I mean, lee Cronin, you know,is very, you know, he's honest
and direct, sometimes to a fault, but he's very open.
(21:29):
He's got a big brain, he's gothuge ambition.
He could change the waychemistry is done through the
use of robots and AI and heactually has revenue and he's
hired really intelligently.
For a guy who didn't knowanything about hiring commercial
people, I'll give you anexample.
His chief technology officer isa guy by the name of Mike Bell,
(21:52):
and Mike was one of the primaryproduct engineering executives
at Apple.
He was responsible for theiPhone and the iPad getting into
production and getting made.
So for Lee to be able to, weintroduced him, but for Lee to
(22:14):
be able to close him around,this vision was extraordinary.
The guy could have doneanything he wanted.
So what am I trying to tell you,ben?
It's an intuition based onself-awareness, openness,
respect for us, because we can'tdo the you know people can look
at us as just you knowproviders of resumes.
(22:35):
It's the wrong way to look atus, you might want to look at
somebody else like that.
And if we get a sense of atrusted relationship and an
openness to dialogue where wecan help them, learn from them,
continue to help them at an evenhigher level, that's really
important to us.
So it's a belief in the generalbusiness proposition, of course
, but it's really about anintuition about their quality as
(22:59):
evolving executives.
Ben Comer (23:02):
Well, let's stick with this example of Lee just
for a second, because I'mcurious about how you think
about something like personalitycompatibility.
And now you've mentioned youknow you've surfaced candidates,
for Lee ultimately made thehiring decision, but you brought
these candidates to him itsounds like a number of people
(23:22):
that he's uh ended up hiring.
What you know?
What do you think about?
You know, when you're selectingcandidates to put in front of
lee, and to what extent are you,you know, doing those initial
interviews with potentialcandidates and thinking about
how they might respond or not toLee's personality?
Bill Holodnak (23:42):
He has a big personality and he has a
forceful personality and youknow, sometimes he's a
fire-ready aim, if you know whatI mean.
But we explain the dynamics ofhis personality.
We do that as a way to test thecompatibility that we are
sensing.
We also do it to prepare themfor an intelligent interaction
(24:05):
with him.
And we prepare Lee in the sameway.
Right, we say here's theopportunity to recruit him,
here's the questions he has youshould be thinking of.
Not only do you want his or herskillset, but are you going to
be able to work with them, Areyou going to be able to continue
to evolve with them?
And and Lee is, you know again,he writes page of papers for
(24:29):
nature and you know there is acertain amount of intellectual
confidence there that cansometimes get in the way of
human interactions, if you knowwhat I mean.
But he's very self-aware aboutit.
Ben Comer (24:42):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's really interesting.
Speaking of kind of bigpersonalities and I'm sure you
have had clients who do you know, maybe off the bat, view you as
someone providing resumes, itstrikes me that it could be
difficult to build trust withindividuals like that, gain
their trust, have them be, youknow, looking to you to select
(25:09):
you know a short list ofcandidates that they can then go
through.
How do you do that, bill?
How do you build that level oftrust with someone that they're
essentially in some ways puttingtheir business in your hands,
because ultimately, you know thebusiness is going to succeed or
fail on the strength of theindividuals that work there.
Bill Holodnak (25:29):
Totally true.
And you know, some people justlook at it and say, well, I'll
just see who they got and I'llhire and I'll make the decision.
I don't really need input fromthem.
That's one way of dealing withus and it's one way of making a
decision about a recruiter.
Other times they want to workwith us and respect our
(25:51):
expertise and then sometimesit's in the middle, right,
there's alienation and distance.
There's immediate intimacy, andthen there's something in the
middle, the way we build trust,which is really the most
important thing.
I think the most importantquestion that you asked just now
is when we interview somebody,we try to understand them and we
(26:16):
report on the client on thebasis of that understanding.
And if I'm giving you too muchdetail, let me know.
Ben Comer (26:23):
No, this is great, go ahead.
Bill Holodnak (26:24):
When we write somebody up and we write
everybody up Parenthetically Ibelieve in the importance of
language and I believe in theimportance of writing, because
when you write and you convinceyourself that you've written
clearly, then that means you'rethinking clearly.
So it forces a completeness ofthought and it enforces it.
(26:46):
Really, proper use of languageenforces integrity as well.
Couldn't agree more.
So when we write somebody out,we we take them through their
background.
We understand where they camefrom socioeconomically.
We understand why they chosefrom socioeconomically, we
understand why they chose aprofession or an education and
then a profession.
And then, most importantlyperhaps, we try to understand
(27:08):
how they've managed theirprofessional growth, why they've
gone to work for certainemployers, why they've left
certain employers, what job wasmost fulfilling to them.
We'd like to see people whochange jobs based on learning
rather than just money or title.
And so we look, we look, we, we, we understand the motivational
arc of their, of their history,and we report on that.
(27:29):
And then we also tell themthese are people, this is a
person we want you to see, andthese are the reasons why these
are the skills they bring to thebear, that you want, and these
are their personal leadershipqualities that are going to make
them successful in this context.
But here are some concerns.
So how do we build trust?
(27:50):
Through completeness ofreportage and through
intellectual honesty andevaluation.
We would never write somebodyup that we didn't want them to
see, but we will not tell themthey're perfect because,
unfortunately, perfection iselusive when it comes to human
beings.
Ben Comer (28:09):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I wanted to pick up on you knowyou talked about, you know
Lee's foresight to hire a youknow a commercial executive
early on, before they were,maybe even in late stage trials.
Which leads me to the questionof how do you know when to add
to the executive team?
And maybe we can use just ageneric example, and I have the
(28:35):
audience of business of biotechin mind here.
Have my, you know the audienceof business of biotech in mind
here.
But the scientist-led startupbiotech you know what is and
let's say it's you know the veryearliest stages.
There's a you know a discoverythat maybe this scientist made
herself or himself in the lab,you know, is looking at tech
(28:57):
transfer, is looking at spinningthat out into a company.
What's most important early onfrom a staff or executive team
perspective?
And are there specific cues, Iguess from the very beginning
and then moving forward intopreclinical research and
ultimately clinical trials,where you really need to start
(29:21):
hiring people?
Bill Holodnak (29:24):
Okay, you've asked a number of questions in
there.
Ben Comer (29:27):
I have, I apologize, no, no, no.
Bill Holodnak (29:29):
It's an all-star love and interviewing.
So usually these companies arestarted by brilliant scientists
and all due respect to myscientific friends.
There is a certain tendency tothink that management is down on
(29:52):
the pecking order of the greatchain of being.
You know the gray chain ofbeing, you know scientific
intellect is supreme.
Managerial competence issomething anybody could do if
you had a little bit of time.
Ben Comer (30:04):
Right, the inorganic matter, the rocks.
Bill Holodnak (30:11):
Yes, exactly, exactly so what we try to do.
You know, and look, there aresome of these scientific
founders that have incrediblecommercial moxie.
They understand and you know,they're okay, maybe functioning
a little longer as CEOs.
But two of the key hires inthese cases are chief scientific
officer and chief businessofficer.
The chief scientific officershould be put in place because
(30:32):
if a scientist truly wants tobecome a CEO, then they have to
distance themselves from thescience, distance themselves
from what they do so well andthey're so splendidly competent
in, because the CEO role is arole of.
It involves salesmanship, itinvolves strategy, it involves
organizational development andleadership.
(30:54):
It requires a person who willintegrate effort.
If that person tries to be CEOand CSO, oftentimes their CEO
content is diluted.
So we like to urge them tothink of getting a CSO
relatively quickly An industrialstrength scientist who's used
(31:15):
to, you know, kind of building apath toward most often the case
drug discovery and development.
Then on the business side, youneed somebody who's got contacts
in pharma, knows how pharmathinks, can do deals and can.
Equally importantly, oftentimesthese rich scientific platforms
(31:37):
have multiple possibilities.
These rich scientific platformshave multiple possibilities and
we've always found that theglory of platform companies is
that they could do everything.
The shame is they often wind updoing nothing because they
dissipate energy across too manyprojects.
So somebody like a chiefbusiness officer could help
prioritize opportunities andthen leverage those
(32:01):
opportunities for non-dilutivefinancing with pharma.
So externalizing those twofunctions the management of the
science and commercialnegotiation, and staying in
control as the organizingintelligence of CEO that's a
really a critical thing to getdone.
Not easy.
We can make it a little easier,but it's challenging and it
(32:22):
requires commitment.
Ben Comer (32:24):
I'm envisioning the headstrong founder scientists
who balks a little bit about theneed to hire a CSO.
Do you have a kind of datapackage that you can share with
someone like that, to say X, yand Z company succeeded, they
(32:44):
hired a CSO, they separated theroles.
How do you deal with that?
Bill Holodnak (32:52):
Well, it's a wonderful question and it's
something that's on our mindsfor a variety of reasons.
We have data packages forcompensation and I have
developed various positionpapers in the past talking about
when to hire somebody and howto hire them and how to organize
(33:12):
the evolution of the executiveteam.
But we come equipped withexperience and anecdotal
argument more than quantified,and we're actually working on
our data now to build tools likethe ones you suggested, because
scientists are fact-based andtrust and verify.
(33:33):
We would be better off if we hada database to verify our
choices.
I'm arguing from humanisticwisdom here, I suppose.
Ben Comer (33:43):
Right, okay, yeah, that makes sense.
I wanted to perhaps ask nextabout the potential to hire
prematurely.
As a company is growing andmaybe we'll go back to this
founder scientist, he or she hasnow hired a CSO, they've hired
a chief business officer, maybethey have a chief operating
(34:07):
officer.
What could you say about thesequencing of the executive team
, and is it possible to hire,say you know, a commercial
person too soon or a chieffinancial officer too soon?
Bill Holodnak (34:22):
That's a good those are.
Those are a good series ofvariations and questions and a
theme and variations that you'veyou've called attention to.
Yeah, I think that you can hireprematurely.
You can also be behind thecurve.
(34:42):
I mean, you know, building inpairing a scientific founder
with a CBO is really important.
Building awareness on how theyhave to distance themselves from
the science is also reallyimportant.
On how they have to distancethemselves from the science is
also really important.
Sometimes we're inresource-constrained
environments and we have to talkabout that as an evolution
(35:10):
rather than a specific program.
But getting the foundingscientist away from I can do it
all myself is really importantand they've got to be thinking
of that.
So when do you add a commercialperson?
I go back to my example ofPeter Hecht Peter wanting to
hire, between 18 and 24 monthsahead of product introduction, a
(35:31):
commercial person.
I think that's very smartbecause you have to get that
thinking.
In Hiring a chief medicalofficer, which is a very
expensive and a very risky hire,you don't want to delay too
long on that because you want tobuild clinical wisdom.
Now there are some people whoare not like PhDs but MD-PhDs
that start companies.
But making sure you havedisciplined and highly
(35:55):
professional clinicaldevelopment.
Wisdom is really reallyimportant to making the right
selection and building anargument around the asset value
of the compounds you'rediscovering and developing.
So they're expensive, they'rerisky hires, some of them are
risk adverse, many of them areand they can't be recruited too
(36:15):
early.
But I would err on the side ofrecruiting a little too early
rather than a little too late,with both the CMO and the CMO.
Ben Comer (36:30):
And the chief financial officer.
Well, chief financial officeris different.
Okay.
I'm sorry, the CBO yeah.
Bill Holodnak (36:39):
The CBO should be hired right away, and sometimes
you can get finance embedded inthe talent there.
A CFO, really, you only want tohire that person when you're
looking toward a public offering.
Ben Comer (36:51):
Okay.
Bill Holodnak (36:52):
Because that's really the value.
The managerial economics amongbiotech companies are relatively
simple.
Really the value.
The managerial economics amongbiotech companies are relatively
simple.
You know there's very little inthe way of receivables or
inventory that have to bemanaged.
You have to have orderlybookkeeping and all of that.
(37:13):
But you don't need thehigh-powered CFO too soon.
That's really when you'rewithin a year, maybe 18 months,
of an IPO or you're trying toposition yourself for sale on an
M&A, but it usually when yourbusiness plan is more defined,
your product strategy is moredefined and you have a real need
to package the value of thoseassets in a way that's going to
make the shareholders happy.
Ben Comer (37:35):
Do you ever run into situations, bill, where, let's
say, a client of yours is aninvestor maybe it's a VC group,
maybe it's an individualinvestor who has a kind of
preset idea about what core teamis successful and kind of when
that core team needs to beassembled, team needs to be
(38:01):
assembled, and do you, you know,do you have ever have to push
back on that?
Or do you kind of you know, ifit's your client, you kind of go
along with, you know what, youknow what their scheme is for
setting up a company and gettingit going?
And I asked that because youknow my next question is going
to be has that changed at all?
Is there a change in thinkingin terms of how investors are
looking at leadership and atcompanies and what they need?
(38:23):
But let's start at the firstquestion before I add on four
others here.
Bill, how do you manage that ifyou have a client who is an
investor who says, well, we needthis position and this position
and this position right now?
Bill Holodnak (38:42):
Well, you know, investors vary in their quality.
Some have more instinctualwisdom about how businesses are
run.
Some have come from anoperating background.
Others are more purelyfinancial investors and are
looking for their return.
No matter what their origin are, what their sympathies are, we
(39:04):
try to represent the loyalopposition.
I guess we're trying to help you.
We don't know all of the facts.
We respect you, but have youthought of it this way?
Here's our experience in termsof kinds of CEOs to recruit.
Here's our experience on timingof CMOs and structure of the
CMO package.
(39:25):
Here's, you know.
Here's an idea about when youshould add board members,
because board members we haven'ttalked about this it's a
parallel track in terms of theorganizational evolution and
sometimes adding a really a veryexperienced board member at an
earlier stage can give youbusiness development contacts
(39:45):
and commercial wisdom thatcomplement a founder.
First-time CEO founderoftentimes benefits from a
chairman, sometimes an executivechair, and if you have that in
place and you have the rightkind of relationship between the
chair and the founder, you cansometimes delay the executive
hires because you're gettingeducation, wisdom and substance
(40:09):
at the board level.
So it's a there's a bit of aninterplay between board
population and executivepopulation.
Ben Comer (40:15):
Yeah, almost a mentorship role with those early
board members.
And you're right, we haven'ttalked.
We haven't spoken about theboard yet.
But what's your approach toboard members?
Let's say you're working withsomeone like Lee or Peter and
they want to establish a board.
Maybe you encourage them toestablish a board.
(40:37):
How do you decide who to lookfor?
What's your kind of talent poolfor staffing a board?
Bill Holodnak (40:45):
Well, I mean, let's just take maybe a number
of specific examples.
Oftentimes, when there's ascientific founder or even a
first-time CEO, it's really goodto get a board chair in place
who helps manage the governanceprocess and serves as a mentor.
Now, sometimes there'sfetishism involved here, that
(41:09):
the investors want a luminousboard member who, by virtue of
title and corporate affiliation,adds luster and optical value.
That's all good, but opticsshould be not captured at the
expense of substance, right?
So you need somebody, and bythat I mean, if you get somebody
(41:30):
who's luminary and they jointhe board, you want to make damn
sure that they're going to giveit time and it's not just going
to be an honorific or it's notjust going to be the 18th thing
on their agenda all the time.
The second thing you have tolook for is you not every senior
(41:51):
executive.
Many of them do, but not all ofthem don't have the mentorship
gene.
You've got to find somebody whowants to spend time with a
person and who wants to teach,who wants to help them develop,
not tell them what to do.
That can create more problems.
But if you get somebody whoknows what they're doing and can
use the Socratic method toeducate the CEO that's a great
(42:15):
combination.
The CEO that's a greatcombination.
Ben Comer (42:19):
What about board size ?
Is there?
I mean, is it a case by case?
Is there an appropriate in yourmind size for a board of
directors for, say, a startup,you know, scientific, founder
style company?
Bill Holodnak (42:37):
I mean, there's no magic number.
You know, seven looks like thegolden mean to me, but can it go
as high as 10 and not be wacky?
Yes, can it go as low as fiveor four and still be functional?
Yes, you know.
So it's situational andjudgmental.
But back to an earlier questionyou asked and I didn't answer.
(42:57):
When we come in on these issues,we try to take a strategic
approach.
Assembling a board is like anexercise in portfolio management
.
What we do is we get thecompany to look at itself and
look at its current board.
What are the key skills youwant around the board?
Do you want regulatoryexperience?
(43:18):
Do you want clinicaldevelopment experience?
Do you want disease-statingspecific experience?
Do you want technology-specificexperience?
Do you want businessdevelopment expertise?
Do you want financial expertise?
Do you want a serial CEO,somebody who has been through an
operating cycle to bringgeneral wisdom?
So what we try to do is createa portfolio of desired skills
(43:40):
and then do a gap analysis andthen try to recruit, in an
ordered fashion, people to fillthose gaps, whether it's R&D,
whether it's businessdevelopment and strategy,
whether it's general management,whether it's R&D.
Does that make sense to you?
It does.
Ben Comer (43:58):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And I guess the, you know, theareas of expertise will be sort
of probably adjusted based onthe stage that the company's in
right.
Bill Holodnak (44:11):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Ben Comer (44:17):
You may not need, like you know, a commercial
commercial, someone who'scommercialized you know five
successful products on yourboard when you're in
pre-clinical studies, forexample that's, that's, that's
totally true.
Bill Holodnak (44:30):
Um, uh, I mean uh , we, we, we.
I guess I can mention the namewe work with with Mammoth on a
board search recently and theywere a company that Jennifer
Dowd and the company Gene Ed,and they were focused on
(44:52):
diagnostics at the beginning andthen they were pivoting.
Then they were involved in apivot toward therapeutics for a
variety of you know economic andorganizational reasons or
strategic reasons, and so wehelped them add some of the key
and translate executivetranslation at the executive
level, and we helped them add avery experienced board member,
(45:14):
bob Brown, who was a founder ofDyserna and who was an R&D
expert, and Bob Brown, who was afounder of Dyserna and who was
an R&D expert, and helping themadd to the board real-world
expertise in terms of drugdevelopment, drug discovery and
development as opposed todiagnostics.
Ben Comer (45:30):
Right.
Bill Holodnak (45:31):
So I hope that example was helpful to you and I
can talk about other examplesif you'd like.
I can talk about other examplesif you'd like.
The important thing is we tryto engage clients in a I hate
this word, but I'll use itanyhow holistic way to get them
to think about how they can best, through organizational
(45:52):
gestures, how they can bestposition themselves for success.
You asked me earlier why Ifound biotech so enticing, and I
talked about the people and themission.
I think it's a wildly riskybusiness.
You know I often refer to it asslow motion roulette.
You know the drama goes onforever and then you're either
(46:28):
on black or red and you or youlose.
You know, and and I think thepeople who have us have the
self-possession and strategicengagement are really amazing.
Ben Comer (46:31):
It transmutes into interesting personality
qualities, I think yeah, it musttake a lot of fortitude to live
with that risk, you know, dayin and day out as a trial
progresses.
Bill Holodnak (46:41):
Indeed, indeed.
Ben Comer (46:45):
The current funding environment for early stage life
sciences no surprise ischallenging, to put it lightly.
Right now the public marketsare kind of closed for the
moment.
I wonder what kind of impactthat's had on the talent pool
for maybe a biotech that's justgetting started.
(47:08):
Bill, along with the fundingenvironment, there's been a
number of layoffs.
You know there's, so maybe thetalent pool is is expanding.
What?
What would you say about the,the size and shape of the talent
pool and and good people outthere that you know, that you
(47:29):
can put you know in front ofyour clients?
Bill Holodnak (47:34):
I've been doing this through a number of
economic cycles and peoplealways ask this question.
In down markets you knowwhether the company turmoil
created by the fundingenvironment makes my job easier
because there are more peopleavailable or there's more
opportunity to recruit people.
That's true in one sense, butif you remember why people come
(47:58):
to me or come to a search room,it's to find somebody special,
and the special people areinfrequently unemployed.
If you know what I mean, it canhappen to anyone.
So what I think to you is thatin the cycle of the market
there's either too many jobs fortoo few people or too few
(48:21):
people for too many jobs.
Why did I get into thisprofession?
Sometimes I scratch my headbecause it never gets any easier
based on economic cycle.
Sometimes they're just morebusiness.
But solving the human riddle toget the right person in the
right executive role, which iskey to the company's success,
(48:43):
always requires liberal elbowgrease, if you know what I mean.
Ben Comer (48:48):
Absolutely.
It reminds me I wanted to askyou about skills in terms of
company leaders, and maybe youhear this from your investor
clients.
Maybe you know it's individualfounders who are looking for
this, but have you, you know,noticed, you know, a desire for
any kinds of new skills when itcomes to company leaders,
(49:12):
whether it's and I guess I haveAI and technology kind of in
mind, and maybe it's acase-by-case type of thing that
you can't generalize across theentire industry, but are there
any specific skills that seem tobe more in demand now than, say
, a few years ago?
Bill Holodnak (49:31):
Well, you could argue that right now.
I'm going to give you at leasttwo answers to that question.
Right now, clinical developmentexpertise is really in demand
because the investors andcorporations are buying
developed assets.
So I would say that there's ahigh demand at both the board
(49:53):
level and at the executive levelfor very talented drug
developers, people who cancultivate the asset value of
these discoveries that are beingmade.
So you know, and you know,sometimes pure scientific talent
is more desired or there's morean effort rather on clinical
(50:15):
development, there's an efforton business development.
If the capital markets arerobust and there's lots of
public offerings happening, thenscientific, the functional
desires or the priorities changewith the market.
So I've just given you theexample on the current market.
Clinical experience is reallyimportant In terms of new skills
(50:37):
and I've kind of written onthis a little bit.
Getting people with artificialintelligence, machine learning
capability, is really keybecause for many of these
companies this is a very newlyevolved discipline and there's
(50:58):
not a whole lot of people whoare broadly experienced in it
and there's even fewer peoplewho are experienced managers.
So it's very hard to get peoplewith AIDD experience or AI
experience into the drugdevelopment space and it's very
competitive because of theprices that are being bid up.
Competitive because of theprices that are being bid up.
(51:22):
But what you really need is toget somebody who has real
sympathy for the mission of drugdevelopment and the complexity
of biology.
So you're looking for a hybrid.
You're looking for, and thathybrid match can come with
alternative composition.
By that I mean you can eitherfind an AI person who really is
(51:43):
mesmerized by the possibilitiesof transforming drug discovery
and development or somebody whohas a personal issue.
And I mean there's one guy thatI know very well who became
early on.
He was from Toronto and he wasvery highly developed in neural
networks and he worked for majorindustrial corporations as an
(52:05):
AI scientist.
Then his mother died of cancerand he thought couldn't we find
a cure for cancer more readilywith AI in place?
And he moved his career.
So the people can come fromcomputers, computer science and
(52:30):
AI.
Or they can come from biologyand become our self-taught as AI
people, or they have aconviction as an AI person that
this is where they want to work.
So finding really talented AIpeople to come into drug
discovery and development andthe big pharma clients are eager
(52:52):
for these people.
The biotech companies are eagerfor them, so there's a big
market for them, for them, sothere's a big market for them.
Ben Comer (53:07):
And it's very interesting evolution of a new
species and a high demand one,excellent.
I want to shift gears here alittle bit and ask you about
Life Science Cares New York.
I noted on your LinkedInprofile that you are on the
board of advisory there, I think, board of advisors at Life
Science Cares New York.
I wonder if you could just givea kind of quick overview of
(53:31):
that organization and maybe whyyou joined.
Bill Holodnak (53:34):
Well.
Ben Comer (53:35):
I mean.
Bill Holodnak (53:35):
This was started by a group of thoughtful,
big-hearted life scienceexecutives, most notably Rob
Perez, his old friend, and Robis a wonderfully talented and
successful commercialexecutive-cum-CEO in biotech and
(54:10):
I think he, whether because ofhis upbringing or because of the
exigencies in his own soul,thought that he had such a
wonderful career in biotech thathe ought to give back, and he
thought that there were otherlife sciences executives that
ought to find ways to improvethe communities in which the
industry grew up.
So job creation is one of thebig objectives, so it's like a
wonderful sense of socialmission and giving back and you
know so what's not to like aboutthat.
(54:32):
I've been very successful as aresult of my involvement in the
life sciences world.
I've talked to you earlierabout my huge respect for that
industry and the people in it.
So I'm not trying to proclaimnobility for my own soul, but
that's the logic of it, right,and that's why it was founded
(54:54):
and I'm wholeheartedlysupporting it over that.
And I think it's great to donot-for-profit service.
I sit on another jazznot-for-profit service.
I sit on another jazz, uh innot-for-profit in New York and I
I've been on the board of theBerkeley college of music, uh,
and the San Francisco jazz.
So I I think like, whether it'sbiology or it's jazz, uh, it's
(55:14):
given, it's made my life rich inthe world, a richer place, so
why not give back, Right?
Ben Comer (55:20):
Absolutely, absolutely Well.
Thank you for that.
We are coming up to the end ofour time, bill, but before I,
before I get into my my exitlittle speech here, I wonder if
there is any final advice thatyou would give to, you know, a
(55:41):
potential founder scientist whomight be listening to this show.
Aside from give you a call,we'll take that one as a granted
.
But anything you know, forsomeone who is thinking about,
perhaps you know, taking theplunge, stepping out of academia
attempting to translate adiscovery into a medical product
(56:01):
that could help people, whatwould you tell them?
Bill Holodnak (56:04):
Well, I run into a lot of people who get in, who
start in academics and have gotany either pharma or biotech or
both because they wanted to see.
They wanted to see patientsbenefit and they also wanted
where in academia.
It's pursuing knowledge for itsown sake.
(56:24):
Industry offers the opportunityto make social impact, to
assume a pragmatic focus, and Ithink that that's great.
And I just think that theadvice would be understand.
It's a business and if you wantyour science to be realized,
(56:46):
understand it'll take commercialexpertise to do that and
commercial understanding.
So be prepared for somethingnew and something difficult in
ways that are different thanscientific achievement.
So it's a wonderful thing to do, but understand you're entering
into a different realm withdifferent exigencies.
(57:07):
And back to calling me call meor call somebody.
Get great investors, get agreat board and listen to advice
.
Be your own person, butunderstand you're in for an
adventure of a totally differentsort.
Ben Comer (57:23):
Bill, thanks so much for joining me today.
Bill Holodnak (57:26):
It was great, Ben .
I always enjoy ourconversations.
I hope I was helpful to you andto whomever is listening in.
Ben Comer (57:34):
We've been speaking with Bill Holodnak, founder and
CEO at Occam Global.
I'm Ben Comer and you've justlistened to the Business of
Biotech.
Find us and subscribe anywhereyou listen to podcasts and be
sure to check out our new weeklyvideocasts of these
conversations every Monday underthe Business of Biotech tab at
Life Science Leader.
(57:54):
We'll see you next week andthanks, as always, for listening
.
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