Business Development Director to Executive Director (Bay Area)

Position Profiles

Position Grade:

The position level may range from Director to Executive Director, depending on the candidate's qualifications and background.

Locations: (within approximately a 2-hour driving radius)

Boston area: 1 HC

San Francisco Bay Area: 1 HC

Industry Background & Technical Expertise

• 5–10 years of Business Development experience in the small molecule API CDMO/CRO industry, with a proven ability to access customers, understand customer needs, and drive business opportunities.
• Strong understanding of the CMC process from Discovery → IND → Clinical → Commercial, including API process development, technology transfer, scale-up manufacturing, and commercial manufacturing business development.
• Preferred: PhD in Organic Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chemistry, or a related field. Minimum: Bachelor's or Master's degree. Candidates with prior R&D experience and the ability to communicate effectively with R&D and CMC teams are highly preferred.
• Experience working with Chinese customers or CDMO companies is a plus.

Customer Relationships & Business Development

• Established network within Biotech/Biopharma companies, particularly with CMC decision-makers. Relationships should be verifiable (e.g., alumni connections, long term project collaborations) and enable private networking/social engagement.
• Ability to understand customers' pipelines, clinical stages, and procurement strategies in advance, anticipate future CMC needs, engage during supplier evaluation before IND, and drive both early and late stage business opportunities with Porton.
• Demonstrated hunter mentality with a proven track record of winning new customers and new projects.

Commercial Mindset

• Growth-oriented mindset focused on proactively creating opportunities rather than simply managing existing accounts.
• Able to withstand long sales cycles, take ownership of results, and remain highly revenue-driven.
• Capable of expanding single project engagements into long term strategic partnerships by translating customer pain points into effective BD strategies.

Resilience & Learning Agility

• Demonstrated perseverance in long cycle, highly uncertain business environments, with clear explanations of career continuity, employment status, and reasons for leaving previous employers.
• Actively tracks changes in the U.S. biotech ecosystem, including emerging therapeutic areas, customer financing, outsourcing trends, and evolving CDMO selection criteria. Able to learn from both successes and failures to continuously improve sales capabilities and business development strategies.