Executive Director, Translational Biology - Recursion : Job Details

New York, New York

Your work will change lives. Including your own.

The Impact You'll Make

Recursion is looking for a highly collaborative, strategic, and experienced translational biology leader to guide a future-driven, technology-oriented approach to robust preclinical data packages. We're focused on identifying and validating innovative drugs with definitive response rates in the clinic. To achieve this goal, we must quickly understand which molecules will be effective for specific patient populations. Preclinically, this can be achieved by using biological model systems and endpoints with high clinical predictive power. Clinically, we'll develop high-fidelity biomarkers (patient enrichment, PD, tox, surrogate endpoints, etc.) to enable optimal, early decision-making, minimize development timelines, and maximize the success of clinical assets.

You will establish and manage translational strategies for preclinical data generation and clinical biomarker programs. This requires close collaboration with development, regulatory, and business teams. You will also seek out and leverage external opportunities to enhance internal approaches, ensuring the organization maintains a high-performance culture and shares learnings across R&D.

In this role, you will:

• Enable Recursion to be a leader in precision medicine by delivering excellence in translational research through value generation by developing the preclinical data package to generate impactful clinical development programs
• Partner with AI and machine learning experts to develop and leverage state-of-the-art predictive and computational tools to expedite translational models and data sets. Foster a deep partnership with data science teams to align real-world evidence, big data/-Omics and advanced analytics into preclinical decision-making and program development
• Collaborate with project teams and the clinical biomarker team to identify and generate a robust biomarker strategy to support programs entering the clinic.
• Shape and implement the Recursion preclinical translational strategy, comprising model system development and validation, and translational research for key internal and partnered assets.
• Provide senior scientific, strategic, and people leadership to a team of high-potential scientists. Build a culture of scientific excellence and innovation, strategic focus, and collaboration. Develop and enable talent to attain their full potential.
• Oversee the development of clinically relevant translational models, while managing multiple projects and workstreams, and assessing workload, timelines, and budgets to ensure delivery

The Team You'll Join

This role will operate in collaboration with Development, Regulatory and BD&L establish translational strategies comprising preclinical data generation and clinical biomarker programs at the pipeline and project level.

The Experience You'll Need

• Ph.D. is required. An M.Sc. is also acceptable with 15+ years of relevant experience.
• A degree in biological sciences or a related biomedical discipline is necessary.
• At least 10 years of pharmaceutical experience is required (15+ with an M.Sc.).
• Oncology experience is a must, with a deep understanding of cancer biology and early clinical development.
• Proven track record of advancing programs from preclinical discovery into clinical development, specifically supporting translational research for small molecule drugs.
• Leadership: Demonstrated ability to lead interdisciplinary, cross-functional teams in a complex organization. Must be able to manage and prioritize multiple projects to ensure they are high-quality, on time, and on budget.
• Strategic Thinking: Strong working knowledge of preclinical drug discovery models and the ability to synthesize scientific content and strategy for senior management. Must be able to manage complex variables and uncertainty to align drug development with preclinical research.
• Communication: Excellent communication, presentation, and high-level negotiation skills. Ability to resolve conflict and effectively interact with diverse stakeholders, including clinical, regulatory, and operations teams.
• Detail-Oriented: Exceptional attention to detail, with strong planning, time management, and organizational skills.
• Translational Knowledge: Deep understanding of drug discovery and development, with a focus on discovery and early development. Experience in clinical biomarker discovery and analysis of single-cell data is a plus.

Working Location:

This is an office-based, hybrid role in our Salt Lake City / New York City office. Employees are expected to work in the office at least 50% of the time. This role requires interaction with teams in Salt Lake City, New York, Oxford, and London, and will require some travel.

At Recursion, we believe that every employee should be compensated fairly. Based on the skill and level of experience required for this role, the estimated current annual base range for this role is $190,300 - $246,400 (USD). You will also be eligible for an annual bonus and equity compensation, as well as a comprehensive benefits package.

• We act boldly with integrity. We are unconstrained in our thinking, take calculated risks, and push boundaries, but never at the expense of ethics, science, or trust.
• We care deeply and engage directly. Caring means holding a deep sense of responsibility and respect - showing up, speaking honestly, and taking action.
• We learn actively and adapt rapidly. Progress comes from doing. We experiment, test, and refine, embracing iteration over perfection.
• We move with urgency because patients are waiting. Speed isn't about rushing but about moving the needle every day.
• We take ownership and accountability. Through ownership and accountability, we enable trust and autonomy—leaders take accountability for decisive action, and teams own outcomes together.
• We are One Recursion. True cross-functional collaboration is about trust, clarity, humility, and impact. Through sharing, we can be greater than the sum of our individual capabilities.

Our values underpin the employee experience at Recursion. They are the character and personality of the company demonstrated through how we communicate, support one another, spend our time, make decisions, and celebrate collectively.

More About Recursion

Recursion (NASDAQ: RXRX) is a clinical stage TechBio company leading the space by decoding biology to radically improve lives. Enabling its mission is the Recursion OS, a platform built across diverse technologies that continuously generate one of the world's largest proprietary biological and chemical datasets. Recursion leverages sophisticated machine-learning algorithms to distill from its dataset a collection of trillions of searchable relationships across biology and chemistry unconstrained by human bias. By commanding massive experimental scale — up to millions of wet lab experiments weekly — and massive computational scale — owning and operating one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, Recursion is uniting technology, biology and chemistry to advance the future of medicine.

Recursion is headquartered in Salt Lake City, where it is a founding member of BioHive, the Utah life sciences industry collective. Recursion also has offices in Toronto, Montréal, New York, London, Oxford area, and the San Francisco Bay area. Learn more at www.Recursion.com, or connect on X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn.

Recursion is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, local, or provincial human rights legislation.

Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.

Equal Opportunity Employment Information (Recursion)

We are committed to a high-performing workplace where everyone feels like they belong and can do the best work of their careers. We reward merit and contribution as we strive for a workplace that reflects the communities in which we operate and the patients we intend to serve. To this end, we invite you to self-identify your race/ethnicity and gender. This information will be kept confidential and will not be used to favor or discriminate against any candidate. It will not be shared with the hiring managers or otherwise considered as part of your application. Submission of this information is voluntary and refusal to provide any or all of the information requested will not subject you to any adverse treatment.

Recruitment & Staffing Agencies: Recursion Pharmaceuticals and its affiliate companies do not accept resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to Recursion or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Recursion's internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of Recursion, and Recursion will not owe any referral or other fees. Our team will communicate directly with candidates who are not represented by an agent or intermediary unless otherwise agreed to prior to interviewing for the job.