Biotech Has Enough Risk Already. The Right Leaders Matter More Than Ever.
Blog Posts
Posted by Bowdoin on September 10, 2026
By Mary McGinn | The Bowdoin Group
I have spent more than two decades in executive search, much of it helping emerging biotech companies find Chief Medical Officers, clinical development leaders, and regulatory and quality executives.
After that long in the business, you develop confidence in what you know.
You know the market. You know many of the executives in it. And you know the difference between someone who interviews well and someone who can navigate a clinical setback, sit across from the FDA, build credibility with a Board, or make a difficult decision when the data is limited and the clock is ticking.
You also know the client call: We need a CMO. Our Head of Regulatory is leaving. We need someone who has taken a program through Phase III. And, ideally, the Board would like this person in place yesterday.
For much of my career, that urgency set the search in motion. Understand the role. Build the specification. Align on compensation. Engage the market.
When I joined The Bowdoin Group a year ago, I expected to bring my experience and network to a firm with an excellent reputation and deep roots in life sciences.
What I did not expect was for Bowdoin to change how I think about a profession I already knew so well.
The Search Starts Before the Job Description
One of the first things I noticed at Bowdoin was that when a CEO said, “We need a Chief Medical Officer,” the conversation did not immediately move to qualifications, reporting structure, compensation, and target companies.
It went further upstream: What problem are we actually hiring this executive to solve?
That may sound obvious, but it is easy to lose sight of when a company is under pressure to hire.
Urgency has a way of turning a job description into the answer. It is not. A job description identifies the open seat. It does not necessarily identify the business problem.
That distinction matters more today because the leadership challenge itself has changed.
The Definition of Experience Has Changed
Biotech has always been difficult. Science is uncertain. Clinical trials fail. Regulators ask unexpected questions. Capital markets shift. A company can execute well and still encounter something outside its control.
But today’s leaders are operating in an ecosystem that is moving faster and demanding more of them.
Capital is harder won. Teams are leaner. Clinical and regulatory pathways are increasingly complex. Companies have less room for delay, indecision, or a leader who needs too much time to grow into the role.
At the same time, China’s rapidly advancing biotech ecosystem is changing the pace and economics of drug development. The speed at which programs are being built and advanced is forcing companies everywhere to think differently about how quickly they make decisions, generate evidence, allocate capital, and move promising therapies forward.
The competitive clock has changed.
That does not mean moving recklessly. It means leaders must know what good looks like, recognize what matters, and help an organization act with both urgency and discipline.
They need to build trust with a Board, challenge a development strategy when necessary, work constructively with regulators, bring investors along, and keep a lean team aligned when the answer is not obvious.
Increasingly, they need to do all of that at a speed few leaders have faced before.
Battle Scars Matter
Experience cannot only mean having worked on a successful program.
Some of the best leaders I know have battle scars. They have seen data disappoint, had difficult conversations with regulators, and watched a carefully built plan stop working.
They know resilience is not a talking point. It is the ability to absorb what happened, bring clarity to the organization, and keep people moving forward.
But battle scars alone are not enough. Leaders also need to know what good looks like. They need the pattern recognition that comes from building a credible clinical pathway, navigating a regulatory strategy, and understanding which decisions separate progress from activity.
The strongest leaders bring both.
They know where the risks are because they have lived through them. They know what excellence requires because they have seen it. And they can turn that experience into action across a Board, an executive team, and an organization.
One Year In
When I joined The Bowdoin Group, I knew I was bringing more than 20 years of executive search experience and a network I had spent my career building.
What I did not know was that, one year later, I would be questioning and refining how I approach work I have done for most of my career.
There is a lesson in that for me, too.
Experience should give us confidence, but it should never make us complacent. The best leaders draw on what they have seen while remaining curious enough to recognize when the environment has changed.
I believe the same is true of search.
Great search begins before the search. It starts by understanding where the company is going, what could get in its way, and what kind of leadership the next chapter will require. Only then can we understand who should be in the role.
Behind every search is a company trying to move important science forward. Behind that science are patients and families waiting for better options. Between the two are the people making difficult decisions every day.
The science will always carry risk. The market will always change. Global competition will continue to reshape how quickly companies must learn and act.
The people around the table determine how a company responds.
After a year at Bowdoin, I believe more strongly than ever that experienced, resilient, and influential leadership is one of the most powerful ways a biotech company can prepare for what comes next.
Connect with Mary: mmcginn@bowdoingroup.com