Most Important Skills for a CEO at a Startup Biotech Company
A day for a startup biotech CEO like Jon is "quite different" than a larger company's CEO, involving a varied mix of activities such as investor relations, engineering team collaboration, data analysis, experimental planning, and budget review; flexibility is key, as the daily focus shifts based on needs, from "heavy lab days" to intense investment periods.
Executive/Leadership, Investment, Data Analysis, Project Management, Communication
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Jon Ellis
CEO
Start-up Biotech Company
University of Leeds (UK) 2002
N/A
Biology & Related Sciences
Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical
Business Strategy
Immigrant
Video Highlights
1. A CEO's day is highly varied and depends on the demands of the business.
2. There is a significant amount of time spent interacting with investors and working on securing funding.
3. A CEO in a start-up biotech company needs a strong science background, as they spend time working with the engineering and lab teams on experiments and data analysis.
Transcript
What does a day in the life of a CEO look like?
A startup CEO's life is quite different from that of a big company CEO, or what one might call a "real" CEO. This is because a startup CEO's role is so varied.
A typical day right now involves a lot of coffee, for sure, because it's a pretty nonstop active time. I follow up with potential investors and our investment bank to see where we're at and what we need to do to progress those conversations.
I also work with our engineering team to review our platform development schedule. I analyze recent lab data, plan future experiments, and look at budgets. It's a pretty varied day, and it will depend a lot from day to day.
Obviously, when I have heavy lab days, there's not much of the other stuff going on. Equally, there have been very heavy investment weeks where that's really the main focus.
But it is a pretty broad scope. I think flexibility is the key because every day does tend to be a bit different from the one before.
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