Office: San Francisco, CA; must currently reside in the Greater San Francisco area or be willing to relocate there before starting; must have U.S. Citizenship or Green card.
Overview:
Locust Walk is a global life science transaction firm. Our integrated team-based approach across capabilities, geographies, and industry segments delivers the right products, the right partners, and the most attractive sources of capital to get the right deals done for biopharma and medtech companies. Locust Walk is the only firm to integrate strategy, market analytics, and transaction capabilities for life science companies on a global scale. We have offices in Boston, San Francisco, Tokyo and London with clients throughout the world. We are growing rapidly and to help us with this growth, we are adding an associate to our San Francisco or Boston office that will play a leading role in client engagements and materially support our practice development activities.
Why is this role right for you?
If you are looking to build your career with a fast-growing professional services firm with significant upside potential in position, responsibility and compensation, we’re looking for you. The role is like working as a business or corporate development professional in a biopharma company, but you get the opportunity to work with multiple clients simultaneously on both the strategy and execution of transaction assignments, providing a more dynamic environment, richer experience and opportunity to grow professionally.
A week in the life for this role?
The focus for the associate is to play a key role in leading firm’s engagements and to participate in the firm’s new business development activities. Our engagements range from strategic consulting and commercial assessments to business development, M&A transactions, and capital raises. Our associates work with those above and below them to drive high value projects and closing of transformational deals. The associate is responsible for leading execution and overseeing deliverables and analysis generated by analysts, identifying, and managing discussions with target partners, and supporting deal negotiations and closing. They conduct outreach to potential partners and play an active role in generating interest in and concluding a deal. The associate is often tasked with managing all aspects of the day-to-day execution of a client engagement, including leading update calls with the client, and overseeing all aspects of the analyst’s work. Practice development activities, including participation at conferences and networking events and building relationships with industry peers and prospective clients, are essential to furthering our growth. An associate will help with pitch materials and prepare thought pieces for our marketing materials. Our senior team deal is dedicated to the professional growth and development of our associates so they can rise up through the ranks. Each engagement provides a new learning opportunity.
What is our culture?
We look for entrepreneurial, growth-oriented individuals who are committed to the success of others. We have a high-performance culture that rewards creative solutions to daily challenges, as well as a strong work ethic while enjoying the ride. Locust Walk offers a mindful work-life balance within the context of a transaction-focused professional services firm. We eat lunch together as much as possible (when in the office), have weekly Locust Walk Café happy hours as a team and enjoy company Team outings. We are open and honest with each other and transparent in our dealings including information about the health of the business.
Key career background and experience for this position?
This person needs to live the Locust Walk values. We’re looking first for people who fit our culture. Culture is very important to us and that fit is critical. A brief overview of our core values and who we’re looking for is below:
- Commitment to the success of others: Someone who is we before me and low ego but confident. Team players are a must, especially those who are committed to mentoring those below them so we can all rise up
- Open and courageous communications: We want people with opinions and who know how to communicate them internally and externally in the appropriate fashion. We share with each other our candid feedback so we can continue to learn and grow
- Growth mindset: Someone who has a thirst for knowledge and is constantly learning
- Entrepreneurial spirit: We want someone who isn’t afraid to push hard and make a few mistakes but only making them once. A small company person who appreciates speed and growth and who isn’t afraid to help shape and build the company they want to be a part of
- Enjoy the ride: Work hard, play hard isn’t our mantra. We work hard but try to integrate fun and interesting things into the core of what we do. We all have unique interests and find common ways of sharing that with each other
Required skillset. The candidate must be able to demonstrate the following set of skills from their prior roles:
- Strong understanding of the strategy underlying decisions that biotech companies face in advancing their products to market
- Solid understanding of financial modelling, including at least revenue modeling. Full P&L and DCF modeling a plus but can be learned on the job
- Strong communication skills and comfort presenting in front of company management, Board, and speaking directly with physicians and other key opinion leaders
- Proven track record of working with and managing small project teams
Passion for life sciences and transactions. At our core, we strive to pave help each of our clients achieve success through strategic insights and dealmaking. While we don’ expect someone to have prior transaction experience, a strong interest and desire to “do deals” is important for this role where everything we do from a strategy and execution perspective revolves around transactions. We don’t just handoff strategy projects and wish our clients luck; we help them execute against our recommendations, which means we need to believe our recommendation and want to do the follow-up work
Prior positions of responsibility that might be good experience for this role?
Since half of our work is on the strategy and analytics side (consulting) and half on the deal execution side, it is critical that someone at the Associate level come with formal training at a life science consulting firm and they can learn the deal side on the job. If someone started their career at a life science consulting firm for at least 2 years and now works either at a biopharma company or investment bank that works as well as someone who rose through the ranks of the consulting firm. If you do not have prior biopharma consulting experience, unfortunately this job isn’t the right fit. We accept analyst applicants without the relevant consulting experience. An MBA from a top institution is a plus but not a requirement with the right work experience.
How much could someone earn in this role?
Our firm has a multi-part compensation and benefits structure:
- We pay a competitive base with other transaction focused professional services firms
- Every person at Locust Walk has goals and will be eligible to earn a bonus based on exceptional individual and firm performance that encourages both accountability as well as teamwork and helping to grow the overall business. The bonus is typically a much larger portion of the total compensation package than a typical consulting firm or operating company
- We offer a great competitive Total Rewards package which includes health, dental, and vision, as well as other great competitive benefits
- We have an unlimited vacation policy on top of 9 official company holidays
- We offer a 401k match
IF interested, please apply here.
