A Career in Alliance Management (re-relase)

We get a ton of career changers in the community and we love career changers because it sparks really interesting conversations about transferable skills, career paths, and things that people just don't consider in their canonical biotech journey. Some of these career chats have sparked conversation that has led to other members in the community realizing they're not even in the right career. They really want something more for themselves. So I think these discussions are so important and that is why we are starting them up again in the community. Now that we've moved and we're all settled in at school, we are going to start a new career series with a couple of career speakers a month coming into the community and telling us about their career, what's great about it, what was hard about it, how did they get where they are and some of the things to think about if you are considering following in their footsteps. These are great opportunities to be able to meet actual people doing the actual job, network with them on LinkedIn, have that warm introduction if you ever need it, and it really gives people a nice little peek behind the curtain for something maybe you've never even thought about or considered. So to that end, I am calling for speakers. If you are willing to share your career with our community, please reach out to me. I would love to hear from you. Hello collaboratorycareerhub.com or jump into our school community and just DM me. I'm looking for speakers who are willing to be open, a little bit vulnerable and really honest about how their career journey has both been great and at times not so great because we know that is the reality. To that end, today I am replaying our most downloaded episode to date which was a Career Chat with Nicole Gamp. So please enjoy this career chat and we will look forward to bringing you new career chats over the next few months. I'm Karina Klingman, scientist turned CEO of a talent strategy consulting firm. I've helped over 85 biotechs hire and develop thousands of amazing employees so I know what works and what doesn't work when it comes to landing a job and then excelling in it. I created the Biotech Career Coach Podcast to give you simple, actionable, step by step strategies to help you land your dream biotech job, then move up the career ladder. If you are exploring career paths, looking to learn about biotech, or simply striving to be the type of person who makes an impact and gets promoted, you're in the right place. Today we are talking to Nicole Gamp and she is the senior alliance manager at Compass Therapeutics. And she has a really interesting career path. It's not linear. I think that that's really something to emphasize is that we sort of sometimes aspire to a certain career and think there's one way to get there, and that's definitely not the case. And so I just want to make it really clear that everybody's career paths are winding and we'll hear about Nicole's, and then we're also going to talk about what an alliance manager does and what's next in her career. So with that, I'm going to invite Nicole up onto the stage. Hey, Nicole, thank you so much for joining us.

Hi, Kari and everyone online. Pleasure to be here. Thank you for the invite.

I would love you to walk us through your career path. To start out, how did you end up where you are and kind of what were some of those twists and turns along the way?

Yeah, thank you for the question. Definitely didn't think I'd be here when I graduated from college, so maybe backing up even a little further. Cause I think that gives some context. I grew up 5050 in Switzerland and in the US so I did my elementary school and middle school education in the US and then transitioned over to Switzerland for high school and university. So lots of kind of different perspectives that I grew up very culturally diverse as well, which was great and kind of also led me to different opportunities that I've been able to partake in in my actual career. So I did my master's, bachelor's, and master's in Switzerland in biology, had the opportunity to then do my master thesis. So a eight month research opportunity here in Boston at Harvard University. And then following that, I didn't really know what to do. It was kind of. I'd been prepping so much for my, you know, final exam, final presentation. I remember I woke up the following morning and I was just like, oh my gosh, nothing's given to me anymore. There's like no direction. You know, you have your courses given to, you know, when exams are going to be. But now you really kind of have the whole world you can, you know, dip into. So I had to kind of reflect on what did I want to do. I knew I didn't want to do a PhD at the time, which I think was a. A large question for me. I think also coming, you know, from a master's in a science field. The route typically was to do a Ph.D. at least the university I went to. So I needed to reflect. And I was like, oh, I. I can't do research at the moment, but I still want to be somehow related to the science. So thinking kind of what do I want to do, what do I still want to learn really helped me decide what to apply to. It wasn't just kind of a free for all, and for me it was really always being able to learn. I'd grown a lot of technical skills during my university time, but the soft skills were lacking just a little and, you know, you can always improve upon them. So I wanted something that would, you know, give me more of that as well as, of course, work for a company that really stood behind their mission of helping people. It's always been kind of one of my big factors when choosing anything, what to do. And of course, being in Switzerland, you have two of the largest pharma companies there. So I was obviously drawn automatically to Novartis and Roche. So I applied for a few different positions there, mainly in HR and communications because they were still connected to the science, but very much again focused on those soft skills that I really wanted to pick up on. So luckily I did an internship there, was at Roche for two years in their talent acquisition department, and then realized as I was recruiting for various managers in various departments, I was like, oh, I actually do want to be maybe on a different team, a different side of the business. And so I had fortunately seen an online ad for a company that Roche had acquired a couple years prior in Medical Affairs. It was their operations team. They were doing molecular tumor board. So very much involved with the science, but again, from a different perspective. And I remember one of my colleagues actually kind of made me apply for it. He was the one who kind of pushed the apply button for me because I was too scared to make the jump. One, it was a position in the U.S. i was based in Europe, so I thought I didn't have a chance anyway, again, another completely different field. So really thankful to him that he, he made me kind of go and take that leap of faith. And I was there at the company, was Foundation Medicine there for roughly two and a half, three years, where I again found out, oh, I might actually like a different department, which was then Alliance Management and Business Development and was able to do a rotation within that team for roughly a year where I figured, oh, actually I think this is where my strengths might lie and what I want to pursue moving forward. And then ultimately landed here at Compass Therapeutics in my current role.

That's such a cool career path. How did you enjoy working in Switzerland as opposed to the us? What was different?

Very different lifestyle I would say. I remember the first day on the job it was like five zero five and everyone was standing up and leaving and I had just finished my research thesis and you know there I was working 22 hour days in the lab or what have you. So I was like where's everyone going? They're like oh it's, it's five o', clock, you know, we have to go home and spend time with family and friends. So I think mindset's very different there in terms of really prioritizing work life balance but still very much driven and very mission focused for the patient.

That's really interesting. I've heard that before as well. And yeah, Novartis and Roche are huge and so we see people who do even secondments, you know they, they work in the US for a little while into Switzerland so it's interesting to see the differences. What advice would you give to someone who's really early career and thinking maybe they like alliance management or maybe that's something that they would like to pursue because you sort of came to it from a bit of a roundabout way. But if you're graduating now and you know you want to do that, how could somebody get into.

For me it's always been user, network. It's sometimes hard to get in or like understand what alliance management also is. I know when I tell my friends and family like they're like what do you do? What is an alliance manager? So I think one like understanding really what the role is. I like to say it's kind of an ambassador for the company externally facing and that could either be to corporate, you know, other corporate partners, even patient advocacy groups or as well other research collaborations. Right. So kind of understanding even within alliance management there's a big various focuses within it and then really just network ask people, you know what they think. There's also groups you can go attend. They have like free webinars, free courses as well. One's the ASAP group, the association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. They're a huge help. They kind of give the framework of what an alliance manager is and also kind of the career path you can envision with that.

That's interesting. I'll make sure that I'm going to take a note of that. We'll link that in the notes after this. Asap. I love the acronym.

We actually have a conference coming up in November just so shout out for that too in case anyone's interested.

Yeah, where is that? Is that a virtual conference or is it in person?

That will be in Boston.

Oh, great.

Yes.

I'm sure it's not a free event, but for somebody who's interested in getting in there, that's probably a great place to invest in your network.

Yes, definitely that. Or even just seeing who's on the panel, giving spe, you know, giving the talks and then Colt emailing them or reach out on LinkedIn. Really? Yeah, definitely recommend that.

So let's double click a little bit on what you do day to day. So I know that there are different flavors of alliance management, but what do you do? What's a typical day in your life?

Very diverse. We are a small company, so we're roughly 35 people now, I think. So alliance management isn't the only role I have, but if we just focus on that for a second, it's really ensuring everything that we do with our external industry partners. Everything there is going smoothly. So whether that be, you know, standard or weekly calls or, you know, whatever the cadence is, ensuring things on our clinical side are running smoothly. You know, they have all the information they're requesting, information we're requesting. We also have kind of the bigger joint steering committee meetings that happen every, you know, once every six months or once every year, depending on how that partnership is set up. So really just making sure everything that was initially contractualized is also being delivered upon from our end as well as we're receiving everything that we need as well from our partners.

And what's the difference between like program management and alliance management? Because we sometimes hear those two things kind of said in the same breath.

True. And I it. There's a lot of overlap. That's true. I think program management is very much internally facing, so you are, you know, you're responsible for one or however many programs, whereas the alliance manager, you do obviously need to understand what those programs entail and where you are on deliverables and timelines, but you're also needing to communicate that externally and making sure everyone is aligned on the same page. So not just an internal perspective, but the external perspective as well.

That makes sense. And I hear you say the word communicate a lot. Other than that, what are some of the really key skills that you have either picked up in the job or that were transferable from some of your other jobs that you use every day?

Definitely organizational focus is key. You're kind of, you know, you're liaising with a bunch of different departments internally, externally, sometimes as well. You obviously need to stay on top of deliverables. So definitely the organizational skills. What else? I think the cultural aspect too. So Again, it depends who your partners are, but we have international partners. And so understanding their culture, you know, the way their company is set up, if they're more hierarchical than the one you're at, kind of diplomacy as well, that's sometimes a big key thing. Yeah. And empathy, I think, you know, you're, you're trying to find a solution that impacts and is, is best for both parties as well as hopefully then whoever you are trying to support and help. Right. Whether in our case, that those are patients. So you really kind of need to gain understanding of all the various perspectives but still keep everyone on the same kind of, you know, mission and end result.

When you switched into alliance management, I imagine that was a pretty big shift because it really, you were doing it to completely different function. How did you create that possibility?

Yes, thank you for the question. I think you really need to advocate for yourself. And I know I used to feel very uncertain about doing that, just, you know, you know, in terms of seniority or internal politics even sometimes. But I advocated. And I also had a manager who supported me, which is, you know, you can't always take that for granted. Supported a rotation that I set up within the same company, but it was a rotation within the Biopharma team where they did alliance management and business development. So I reached out to a few different managers. One manager was like, oh, yeah, it's, we would love to have you kind of shadow and, and start something here. So I did that, you know, I think 20, 30% initially, and then it ramped up to 80%, a hundred percent at the end. And really was lucky to have that opportunity to kind of see if I even liked that field. And that's kind of what got me rolling in the alliance management department.

Yeah, that's amazing. And remind me how, how many people were at the company at that point.

This was my previous company, so we were, I think 1500 across various systems.

Yeah, yeah. So that I want to underscore that because we've spoken with a few people who have forced a change in a smaller organization where they don't have the systems in place. So if you are at an organization like foundation, which that was. Foundation, Am I correct in saying correct? Yes. So, you know, luckily there was a sort of mechanism in place to be able to go shadow and do a rotation in other departments. And if that is available to you, that's amazing. But how do you initiate that conversation with your manager? Because it's maybe a little uncomfortable to say, hey, I really want to go try something new.

Yes, it so it was definitely an option that we had at Foundation. I think in the way I did it, it was a little new and different from maybe how the standard process was. So I definitely force something there at times as well. But I think, you know, hopefully you have a healthy relationship with your manager where there's. They can see as well that you're trying to grow. You know, hopefully you have those constant feedback sessions with them as well. And so hopefully you're already having those discussions as, hey, you know, this might not be exactly what I'm looking for, but this other department might fulfill some of that yearning you are in terms of what you want to learn. So luckily my manager was super supportive. I think I broached it in a way of it was at our mid year. Mid year or something like that, kind of more of more standard process. But I think we both came to the conclusion I could take on more and I wanted to see more. So she was thinking of ideas that I could do. She advocated for various projects for me within the organization, but then was also open to me doing a rotation. Of course you have to align. You know, your current workload cannot, you know, reduce and be sacrificed for your rotation as well. But if everything's in place, definitely, you know, have that conversation with your manager.

Yeah, that's a really good point. So other folks that I've spoken with that have forced a transition of some type, often there's that little bit of a hustle time where you're like, okay, I'm going to do my job and I'm going to do at least part of another job because I need to. Right. And so you're still sort of full time in your role and you're trying out something else. So that's maybe one of the seasons that work life balance kind of goes out the window. If you're really trying to force a change before it kind of comes back into balance. Is that accurate?

Definitely. You obviously want to impress the new people, right. In whatever department you're. You're shadowing or rotating in, they have all their obligations, their meetings. So you need to definitely be mindful of not exerting yourself too much. You're obviously going to be working more than 100%, but you don't want it to affect the quality of your work on either end.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a really important discussion point. Okay. And so let's talk a little bit about some of the transferable skills from your other role. Besides just the soft skills. Like were there any specific hard skills that you learn, that you find yourself glad that, you know, or are able to reference in this job.

Yeah. So from my time at an HR talent acquisition, definitely dealing with all seasoned people. So I, you know, had managers who had been at the company for 50 years. They definitely knew what they were talking about and trying to, you know, come up to their level in terms of being able to recruit for them. So I think I learned a lot of valuable kind of people skills there and then from my time being in medical affairs, really obviously operationally focused. That was our kind of main task, coordinating different meetings across various time zones, dealing also with, you know, physicians who had a very busy schedule. And in that role as well, we did a lot of program management. We were managing, you know, various kind of country programs for the, for the molecular tumor board. So a lot of project management skills there as well, even though it was never very formal, as well as seeing things from a more strategic perspective and understanding kind of how communication from the science world really then influences and impacts kind of perception of the science. Right. To the physicians or to patients.

Yeah, I really like that. So let's chat about that just a little bit because one common theme here in this community is making a career transition. And I have people who come and they say, I have not done X, Y, Z. And in reality, when you really think about it, often you have done that. It's just not been called that. So I like your example of the project management skills. Yeah, you weren't calling it project management, but you were managing projects. Therefore, if you were to interview for this, that's something you could, you could talk about.

Definitely. I think I had a lot of conversations when I was looking at to, you know, what would I like to transition to next or what am I interested in? And just. In just the job title. Right. Somebody's job titles are super catchy. And you're like, I have no idea what this person actually does or what this role is. So you go and have a conversation with the hiring manager and they kind of say, oh, you know, you seem great, but your background really isn't kind of the typical person we'd look for. So you really have to come or understand that it's not always going to be a yes, it's not always going to be easy, but you need to take those kind of rejections, so to speak, and kind of just redirect. And if you know that's what you want, there are definitely ways to get there. You just sometimes need to be a bit more creative or maybe a bit More patient to get there in the end.

Yeah, I, I love that. I think sometimes a rejection is seen as a negative thing. But if you are an eternal optimist, like I tend to be, it's actually a learning opportunity. Right? You learn how you need to communicate that better in the future. So that's how I always, you know, when people talk about getting, oh, I was rejected because I didn't have X, Y, Z. Well, now you've learned that that's something that they're going to be looking for and you're going to be armed with, actually, I do have these transferable skills. Next time, definitely.

I think so. When I was looking for, I was in Switzerland working at Roche, right. And I'd seen this job, it was in the US In Boston for foundation. And I was like, no way are they going to ever even look at my application. Right. It was, it wasn't a role or at a level where, you know, my expertise would be really required. It was more of an entry level position. So why would they choose somebody from Europe, you know, have the hassle of bringing me over one Cultural shock. Logistics at the time, too. Covid had just started. So, you know, my start date kept getting pushed back as well. So I was always afraid, you know, it would. It would ultimately result in a, no, we're not going to hire you. But I think looking at also the job, the job that I applied for, it was in the US but it had an international focus. So if you can find somehow the skills or the experiences you've been through and translate that into the new role, even if it's, you know, a minimal portion of it, I think that already helps the hiring manager see, you know, you've given it a lot of thought and how you can grow and how they can also grow and benefit from your skills that you have.

Yeah, that's really good insight. All right, let's talk a little bit about your degree. So you have an mba, is that correct?

I'm thinking of doing. I'm thinking of doing one. Thinking of doing one.

That's right. Okay. So we are curious how that may or may not impact this career path, because that's often seen when I see like, or like project managers have a pmp, right. Or business development folks have an mba. How important have you seen that with the folks that you've worked with in the past? And how are you weighing that as you decide?

Yeah, really good questions, ones that I'm going through myself too. I don't think it's necessary to be fully Honest. I think, you know, experience also speaks for itself. You know, the amount of projects you've already taken on. It's, it's obviously nice to kind of have those initials after name to kind of justify, you know, I can do this job. But I don't think, I think if you, you know, you've shown you can do a skill and a job you already have or you know, those skills that you have can be transferable really just networking a lot too, I think. Yeah, I think an MBA is definitely nice to have, but most of the people in alliance management who I know do not have an MBA. They might have a Ph.D. for example, especially if they're the ones doing the research partnerships. That's definitely very helpful.

Yeah. And we're going to be speaking, I don't know if it's later this month or early next month with somebody who is a research focused PhD alliance manager because it's so interesting to compare and contrast that as well as people are thinking about career paths and what can I do. And I think in your, you know, with your business development and your talent acquisition background, which I can tell you, there's a lot of sales in that I can tell you firsthand. So are there any other things that you would pursue to make yourself more marketable in the future or to advance your learning?

Yes. There again I'm gonna reference the ASAP community they have. This is again specifically for Alliance Management. So they have two different certificates you can get. So I'm actually studying for the first. First certificate and then there's another one I can take in a couple years after you have, you know, some more, more experience. But definitely looking at that. And then of course just online Coursera or you know, things. Not even that I need a certificate per se, but more just to open my, my mindset and, and self growth.

Yeah, never stop learning for those certifications. What are the differences there and why do you need to wait a couple years for the second one?

They want you just to I think have kind of implemented the, the learnings that you have in your first couple years and what you also then show in your exam. The first exam, they really kind of want you to take that to the next level before you then take that the second part. So I think they're just looking for years of experience and kind of how many different partnerships you've had and the kind of different variety of partnerships as well.

What's the next step in your career? How does this career ladder work for you?

Alliance Management isn't my only role Per se here. I also do patient advocacy. I've taken on more of like competitive intelligence, business development. So I'm, I have like a slew of things that I get to work on which is great and keeps things interesting. So I'm still trying to figure out kind of which path I want to move forward, which is also why I'm thinking of doing the mba. But you know, in terms of really just the alliance management, it's working maybe with more partners, with larger corporate partners since that's kind of what I'm focused on here in terms of alliance management and then really kind of being able to single handedly lead a partnership maybe from A to Z through that whole life cycle.

That's neat. What does the titling look like there as you. If you were to stay in the alliance management lane is there at your company or other companies does it go to head of alliance management? Like what's the latter look like? And if you wanted to go to C suite, what would that look like?

Yes, it does vary within each company. So I think for, for me the next step would be you know, associate director, director. And then some people end up going within operations. Sometimes there is like a pure strategy team where people founder there I've even seen sometimes within like the clinical or research department. Sometimes they also have their own alliance managers. So it really varies within company to company. But you can definitely make your way up as a pure alliance manager for sure.

Excellent. And if you went the more business route, let's say you wanted to go into business development, what does that look like? I obviously the chief business officer is kind of your, your aspiration there. But what in between there and what flavor does that take on?

That would I think depend on kind of again what flavor of business development I'd want to go into. Right now I'm doing a lot of competitive intelligence. So that's going to a variety of different conferences which has been really cool and kind of scouring the landscape and you know, how obviously our company and our molecules place within the larger context. And I think if you continue that you can definitely go that route. There's also the business development of more of you know, contracting and kind of that would almost be like the step prior to alliance management. Right. You have a business development person who makes sure everything they one find the partnership, they set up everything contractually and then they hand it over to the alliance manager to really ensure that everything in the contract also is executed.

Can you tell us just a little bit more about competitive intelligence? Because we haven't talked to anybody who's done that. What is cool about that? And I think for a scientist, that's probably pretty particularly interesting. It's.

I've learned it within the last year and by learning, I'm definitely very new to it, but it's been great. You really get to, you know, you have access to a variety of different resources. Like Bloomberg, for example, is one. You get to read a lot of analyst reports again, attend conferences, see what other companies are doing, what their pipeline looks like. It is a lot of reading. And I would also say here a PhD is definitely helpful to kind of understand and be able to digest some of the science behind the various clinical pipelines. But it's very interesting if you love to read, if you love kind of the analytical mindset, definitely something you could, you could look into and pursue.

Yeah, it sounds like a really fun career. In another life I could, I could see myself doing that if only a little time. You know, I think about all the hundred careers I actually want to do. So compass, how is the culture there compared to foundation and then compared to like a really big company?

Yeah, I went from a hundred, over a hundred thousand employees to over a thousand and now we're at. And when I joined it was like roughly 30 or we just reached 30. So very different. I would say the culture here is very open, very helpful. We all come into the office, so if you have a question, you know, you can just walk right over, ask. We do a lot of like team building events as well. So I know my work colleagues on a much more personal level on the whole than compared to my previous other companies where there you, you know, there's so many of you, but you. And so you tend to have kind of maybe your own little group and you know those people very well, but you kind of don't know the rest of the organization.

Which do you prefer? Have you enjoyed the smaller group?

I definitely have liked that you again, you get to know everyone better. You really also build and strengthen your teammaking skills or bonding skills just because, you know, you only have one person sometimes in each department, so you kind of have to get along. So that's been, it's, it's really been fun. And we all, you know, we're all super open and I think when we interview here too kind of, you know, they do a good job at also making sure the person would fit into the culture here. So no, it's been, it's been a great experience. Definitely a learning though, coming from a large corporation, a large, also European Corporation at the beginning and now to a smaller team.

Yeah, definitely. Have you found that you touch more things in a smaller company or do you feel like you still have the same reach that you did at other companies?

Oh, definitely. You never know what you're going to do that day. Sometimes again, you know, it's more of a patient advocacy focus or, you know, a day we have a big meeting with one of our partners. So you really do get to, to put on multiple hats, as you said. And also I think if you're in a smaller company, you really do have the opportunity to kind of ask, oh, hey, I want to do this project. Is there some way we can make it happen? Whereas I feel like in the larger companies, obviously there's a lot more bureaucracy you need to, to go through, and that opportunity might not be, might not present itself as easily as in a smaller company.

What is some advice that you would give yourself, particularly if you had it all to do over again?

I would maybe probably be a little more mindful of planning my career. And I know again, it's very nonlinear and I'm, I'm super thankful that that was the case, but I think sometimes in moments you just doubt yourself. So maybe just always making sure, like you do have an end goal in mind or an end skill you do want to learn.

Is there somebody in your life and your career who you found to be a really good mentor or someone you bounce things off of now?

Yes, luckily I have a few of those. Some are back in Europe, so we'll tend to send voice messages to each other on WhatsApp, which has been been great. But no, I have a lot of mentors, you know, people also who aren't officially mentors, but I think you need that network and support especially also, you know, people who are, who are in your kind of field as well as people who aren't. I think you need a good balance of both.

That's a really good point. So people who aren't in your field, give me an example of somebody like that for you who has been an outside perspective.

Yeah, still people within the research realm, I think, you know, that that was once a part of my life, but they're able to kind of see how I progress in more of a corporate setting instead of kind of following the traditional academic route as well as in people in other departments. So, for example, commercial or finance or legal, again, they have each such unique perspectives that sometimes after talking to them, you're like, oh, how come I didn't see this? Or this is actually yes. What I'm good at, so.

Oh, that's a really nice breath.

Yeah.

I think that perspective, it's hard to step back and to understand in. In the moment, we're too close to some of these things. But people who are not us and then also in a slightly different career, I think they offer so much wisdom. So that's a great networking tip. Anything else that you want to tell us about your career or anything that you can impart to our little community here?

Yeah, I would say don't limit yourself. Have big dreams and then just see how you can act on it. And I would really encourage networking and just reaching out to people on LinkedIn. I've done that a bunch of times. And also what I've found out is, you know, make sure the work that you do, you do it wholeheartedly and really, you know, put your hundred percent in. Because there have been people that I find out months after I've started something, they're like, oh, yeah, this person thought you'd be really good for this and they advocated for you. And I had no idea, you know, that they'd done that. So I think really, you know, giving your heart into what you do reflects, and people will pick up on that.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. That's really good advice. Thank you so much for being here today. This was great.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks so much for listening to the Biotech Career Coach podcast by the collaboratory Career Hub. Join our school community to get access to support resources and materials, and be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn. Pro tip. When you connect with me on LinkedIn, you get instant access to my entire network of biotech folks, which is powerful for your career. If you found this podcast valuable, please subscribe or follow us on YouTube so that you never miss an episode. Have an amazing week and we'll see you back here next Friday.