Executive Search Success Story: Building the Executive Team for a Private-Equity-Backed CDMO Platform Formed From Three Acquisitions

How JRG Partners executed a confidential, multi-role North American executive search strategy that equipped a private equity sponsor and its newly formed CDMO platform combining small molecule, biologics, and fill-finish businesses with the chief executive, financial, commercial, scientific, and quality leadership required to integrate three companies, build an end-to-end service offering, and win integrated programs from pharmaceutical and biotech customers.

The Challenge

A private equity sponsor had combined three CDMOs with a thesis that customers increasingly preferred integrated partners able to take molecules from development through commercial supply, including drug substance and sterile drug product. The three companies had founders or legacy leaders not suited to run an integrated platform, separate quality systems that customers audited independently, no shared scientific or technical leadership to design integrated programs, fragmented commercial teams selling single services, and finance functions unable to report as one company. Executive leadership and the sponsor identified several critical vulnerabilities threatening the thesis:

• Three legacy leadership teams with no platform chief executive
• Separate quality systems preventing customers from qualifying the platform as one supplier
• No scientific or technical leadership to design and sell end-to-end programs
• Commercial teams selling single services with no integrated offering or key account model
• Three finance organizations with no consolidated reporting or sponsor-grade forecasting
• A value-creation plan built on cross-selling the platform did not yet deliver

Recognizing that the thesis required a professional executive team, the sponsor engaged JRG Partners to recruit a Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Commercial Officer, Chief Scientific Officer, and Chief Quality Officer. The sponsor required an executive search partner with deep CDMO expertise and experience building executive teams for newly formed life sciences platforms.

Why They Chose JRG Partners

CDMO Industry Focus

JRG Partners maintains a dedicated practice serving contract development and manufacturing organizations across modalities, with a clear understanding of integrated service models, customer qualification, and the scientific, quality, and commercial leadership that differentiates platforms.

Private Equity Platform Experience

Our firm has extensive experience recruiting executive teams for newly formed private equity platforms in life sciences, with a clear understanding of integration, cross-selling, and value-creation plan delivery.

Multi-Role C-Suite Execution

Our team specializes in running multiple C-suite searches in parallel with deliberate sequencing, placing the chief executive first so that subsequent hires are made with the new leader’s input.

Our Executive Search Strategy

Phase 1 — Platform Thesis Alignment

Our consultants partnered directly with the sponsor’s deal team, operating partner, and legacy leaders to review the value-creation plan, integration priorities, customer feedback, and quality harmonization requirements, defining five executive profiles sequenced around the chief executive placement.

Phase 2 — Talent Identification & Mapping

Our research team performed an extensive talent mapping initiative targeting chief executives, finance, commercial, scientific, and quality leaders at CDMOs, pharmaceutical and biologics manufacturers, and life sciences services companies who had led documented platform integrations and integrated offering launches. Over 450 executives were systematically assessed across these sectors.

Phase 3 — Candidate Engagement

Priority during outreach was given to leaders with a documented history of integrating acquired CDMOs, harmonizing quality systems to a single customer-auditable standard, designing end-to-end development and manufacturing programs, building key account commercial models, and consolidating finance under private equity ownership. Only candidates meeting these strict performance baselines advanced.

Phase 4 — Selection Process

Finalists presented integration and growth plans to the sponsor, completed structured leadership assessments, and underwent reference verification focused on quantified integration, commercial, and quality outcomes, with later hires interviewed by the newly placed chief executive.

Key Outcomes

• 450+ CDMO and life sciences executive profiles mapped across North America.
• Successfully placed a synchronized C-suite spanning chief executive, finance, commercial, scientific, and quality within eight months.
• Harmonized three quality systems into one customer-auditable standard within fourteen months.
• Won fourteen integrated programs in eighteen months and grew revenue 30%.
• Consolidated finance onto one ERP within two quarters.
• Improved EBITDA margin by 450 basis points and completed a fourth acquisition.