Stephen Williams has 25 years of experience in recruiting executives and board members for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and not-for-profit entities in the US and Europe. Steve believes that recruiting is about getting the right people to the table by gaining deep insight into what drives them, what they have done, how they did it, and how they lead, collaborate, and think strategically.
Steve started his recruiting career in 1998 as President and CBO of Bench International, an established life sciences recruiting firm. He executed hundreds of recruiting projects in the US and Europe with major companies, including Novartis, Pfizer, Schering-Plough, Merck, Amgen, BMS, and others. He also developed close working relationships with development-stage biopharma companies recruiting for board, CEO, research leaders, and other executive roles.
In 2012, Steve became a partner at Catalyst Advisors, which is also fully dedicated to recruiting in the life sciences. There, he built substantive relationships with a range of bio-pharma companies and VCs. Notably, he established a partnership with Vertex, during which he recruited the current CEO, CMO, and CTO, as well as the successor to the CSO, among others.
Steve received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Duke University. He started his career as a toxicologist at DuPont, then was internally recruited and transferred to their New England Nuclear facility. There, he led a team of 30 people in discovery biology and pre-clinical development for radiopharmaceuticals. Under his leadership, the team discovered and validated two radiopharmaceuticals that became commercial products, Cardioliteâand Neuroliteâ. He was later transferred to DuPont Merck Pharmaceuticals, where he led Strategic Product Planning for CNS diseases. BMS then recruited him for a similar, but more senior, role. After BMS, he served as head of business development for Progenitor, a biotechnology company. There, he executed several strategic collaborations and wrote the business section of an S-1 filing, resulting in a successful IPO.