Executive Search Success Story: Building the Site Leadership Team for a Biologics CDMO’s Greenfield Large-Scale Manufacturing Facility

How JRG Partners executed a confidential, multi-role North American executive search strategy that equipped a growing biologics contract development and manufacturing organization with the site, process development, manufacturing, engineering, and business development leadership required to build, validate, and fill a new $800M mammalian cell culture facility ahead of customer commitments.

The Challenge

A biologics CDMO had secured anchor customer commitments and financing for a new large-scale manufacturing facility, its first greenfield site and its first with stainless steel capacity above 2,000 liters. The company’s existing leadership was fully committed to running its clinical and mid-scale sites, the new facility needed a leadership team in place well before mechanical completion to drive design, commissioning, qualification, validation, tech transfer, and workforce build, and anchor customers had tied commitments to milestones. Executive leadership identified several critical vulnerabilities threatening the program:

• No internal leadership available or experienced in greenfield large-scale biologics start-up
• Anchor customer commitments tied to facility and tech transfer milestones
• Commissioning, qualification, and validation requiring leadership during design, not after construction
• Process development and tech transfer capability needed for scale-up to 15,000 liters
• A 600-person site workforce to be hired and trained before first GMP batches
• Remaining facility capacity to be sold to new customers before the facility opened

Recognizing that the facility’s success depended on a site leadership team seated early, the CEO and board engaged JRG Partners to recruit a Site Head & Vice President of Operations, Vice President of Process Development & Technology Transfer, Vice President of Manufacturing, Vice President of Engineering, CQV & Facilities, and Vice President of Business Development. The company required an executive search partner with deep biologics CDMO expertise and access to leaders who had started up large-scale facilities.

Why They Chose JRG Partners

CDMO Industry Focus

JRG Partners maintains a dedicated practice serving contract development and manufacturing organizations, with deep recruiting expertise in biologics process development, manufacturing, engineering, and commercial leadership. This focus ensured an immediate understanding of facility start-up sequencing, tech transfer, and the leadership profiles that deliver new capacity on schedule.

Greenfield Start-Up Experience

Our firm has extensive experience recruiting site leadership teams for new biologics and pharmaceutical facilities, with a clear understanding of CQV, workforce build, and first-batch readiness.

Multi-Role Execution

Our team specializes in running coordinated site, technical, manufacturing, engineering, and commercial searches in parallel, ensuring leaders are selected as a complementary unit aligned to a single start-up plan.

Our Executive Search Strategy

Phase 1 — Start-Up Plan Alignment

Our consultants partnered directly with the CEO, chief operating officer, and board to review the facility design, construction schedule, anchor customer milestones, tech transfer plans, and workforce requirements, defining five executive profiles sequenced to the start-up timeline.

Phase 2 — Talent Identification & Mapping

Our research team performed an extensive talent mapping initiative targeting site, process development, manufacturing, engineering, and business development executives at biologics CDMOs and biopharmaceutical manufacturers who had led documented greenfield start-ups and large-scale operations. Over 410 executives were systematically assessed across these sectors.

Phase 3 — Candidate Engagement

Priority during outreach was given to leaders with a documented history of starting up large-scale biologics facilities, leading CQV during design and construction, transferring and scaling processes to 15,000 liters, building site workforces from zero, and selling CDMO capacity ahead of facility completion. Only candidates meeting these strict performance baselines advanced.

Phase 4 — Selection Process

Finalists presented start-up plans to the CEO and board, completed structured leadership assessments, and underwent reference verification focused on quantified facility start-up, tech transfer, and commercial outcomes.

Key Outcomes

• 410+ biologics manufacturing and CDMO executive profiles mapped across North America.
• Successfully placed a synchronized site leadership tier spanning operations, process development, manufacturing, engineering, and business development within eight months.
• Achieved mechanical completion and qualification on schedule.
• Completed three anchor customer tech transfers with first-attempt success at 15,000 liters.
• Hired and trained a 600-person site workforce before first GMP batch.
• Sold 85% of facility capacity before opening and passed the first pre-approval inspection.