Vice President – BioGenerator Ventures
BioGenerator is hiring a Vice President, BioGenerator Ventures to join BioGenerator’s leadership team, help build and invest into promising new St. Louis Companies, and to help manage BioGenerator Ventures’ portfolio of over 50 active companies. BioGenerator is the investment and entrepreneur support arm of BioSTL, which has been a leader in the long-term development of St. Louis’ bioscience startup ecosystem. BioGenerator Ventures’ current portfolio is aligned with St. Louis’ strengths, including therapeutics, diagnostics, medical devices, agtech, food/nutrition, and healthcare. In 2021, BioGenerator Ventures invested in 18 startup companies and the BioGenerator Ventures portfolio raised over $1B in capital. In addition to a leadership role on the BioGenerator Ventures team, the role will help lead programs within the BioGenerator Labs, which bring together technology, talent, proof of concept grants, coaching, grant training, and innovative laboratory space in a suite of tools designed to accelerate new ventures.
This position will report to Charlie Bolten, Senior Vice President of BioGenerator and head of BioGenerator Ventures. The Vice President, BioGenerator Ventures will be a full-time, salaried position with BioGenerator.
Job Responsibility:
BioGenerator, the startup arm of BioSTL, creates and grows innovative companies through its two complementary approaches — investing through BioGenerator Ventures and comprehensive startup support through BioGenerator Labs.
As a member of the BioGenerator Ventures team, the Vice President, utilizing scientific, finance, and business experience, will actively participate in the following responsibilities:
- Working with Senior VP to manage overall Ventures and Labs portfolios
- Leadership role to help oversee growing Ventures and Labs staff
- Creating and building de novo St. Louis bioscience companies
- Investing in both seed-stage and venture-backed bioscience companies
- Supporting existing portfolio companies as they advance their products and business models
- Building and supporting investment syndicates
- Sitting on portfolio company boards of directors and helping drive portfolio company strategy
- Leading investment due diligence teams
- Recruiting and mentoring analysts and fellows
- Continuing to improve BioGenerator’s approaches through new ideas and problem solving
Desired Qualifications/Experience:
- PhD in biosciences or related discipline from major research institution; postdoctoral fellowship preferred
- 10 years of professional work experience with a demonstrated commitment to diversity and inclusion
- Venture capital investing experience
- Founding and building startup technology companies
- Raising venture capital and private equity including investment syndicates; negotiating related terms
- Conducting due diligence on investment and M&A opportunities; experience closing deals of both forms
- Authoring due diligence memos and presenting to investment committees
- Working in startups and industry
- Managing intellectual property portfolios
- Creating and launching products and services
- Managing scientific laboratory operations
- Recruiting and managing diverse teams
- Negotiating technology licenses
- Ability to leverage professional network in the pharmaceutical industry
- Training recent PhDs and post-docs to work in startups and investment firms
Skills:
Excellent inquiry, persuasive, collaborative, and communication skills, both with internal and external audiences; ability to excel in both a team setting and independently; excellent listener; ability to see and focus on the big picture while simultaneously keeping attention on the key details; excellent judgment and critical thinking; prioritization and project planning skills; ability to balance risk with opportunity; must be able to take a non-biased approach to evaluations, keying on objective information rather than subjective; commitment to building an inclusive, diverse team and organizational culture.
Compensation:
Pay is commensurate with experience and is benchmarked against market rates. Benefit package for full-time employees includes excellent health coverage, generous retirement savings match, tuition assistance, and other benefits to support employees personally and professionally.
Application:
Please upload a detailed letter of interest and resume on the BioSTL.org website here. Confidential inquiries can be submitted to cbolten@biogenerator.org with this job posting title in the subject line.
For more information, visit Biogenerator.org, and biostl.org.
Full vaccination status against Covid is required for employment. Exemptions may be granted for medical contraindications and for sincerely held religious beliefs. Exemption requests will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
About BioGenerator:
BioGenerator, the startup arm of BioSTL creates and grows innovative companies through its two complementary approaches — investing through BioGenerator Ventures and comprehensive startup support through BioGenerator Labs. Visit BioGenerator.org for additional information and follow us on twitter @BioGeneratorSTL.
About BioSTL:
Since 2001, St. Louis nonprofit BioSTL has laid the foundation for the region’s innovation economy with a comprehensive set of transformational programs that advance St. Louis’ leadership in solving important world challenges in agriculture, medicine, healthcare, and other technology areas. BioSTL has introduced nationally acclaimed initiatives in startup creation and investment (BioGenerator), strategic business attraction (GlobalSTL), physical environment (including Cortex and BioGenerator Labs), entrepreneur support, seed and venture capital, a diverse and inclusive workforce, and public policy. Find us online at biostl.org and follow us on twitter at @BioSTL.
Jenny Zemel serves as Manager, Special Projects where she provides interdepartmental support on a variety of projects for both the NVCA team and Venture Forward team. She also helps support the administrative needs of NVCA’s President and CEO Bobby Franklin.
