Applying the Flagship “What If” Approach to Talent Acquisition With Leslie Martin, VP of Talent Acquisition at Flagship Pioneering

Welcome to Building Biotechs, a podcast by recrudomics Consulting. We're your hosts, Alison and Carina. Today we have the privilege of hosting someone whose fingerprints can be found on some of the most exciting new companies within the biotech industry. From shaping global talent strategies at tech giants like LinkedIn and TripAdvisor to now orchestrating talent acquisition for the expansive portfolio at flagship, Pioneering Leslie Martin has redefined what it means to bring together world class teams at Flagship. She not only manages hiring across an impressive array of portfolio portfolio companies, but she also pioneers methods that are transforming the biotech hiring landscape. Welcome, Leslie.

Welcome to building biotechs by Recredomics Consulting. We've helped over 90 biotech, life sciences and venture capital firms strategize and hire thousands of employees to scale companies that impact human health. We speak with those at the forefront of growing biotechs to learn their tactics on building these companies from the ground up. I'm Karina Klingman, founder and principal at recredomics Consulting. Enjoy the show.

Thank you.

We're so happy to have you here. So we always start out with the same question for all of our guests, and it is because our audience is a little bit diverse. We've got folks that are building biotechs and we have folks who aspire to be in biotechs. And so we love to think about people's career paths because there isn't a linear way that any of us got to where we are. I think that's so important to let people know. So what did you want to be when you were 7? What are you now? And how did you get there?

Right.

Well, when I was seven, I wanted to be a golf pro, something I still aspire to. But I've learned I don't have the skill set to actually make happen. So that's become a hobby. But, you know, it's interesting. I think, like most people in talent acquisition, I really started out thinking I would do something else. I got a degree in marketing, then I got a master's in communications, and I really expected to be in that field. And I ended up getting into talent acquisition, specifically executive search, initially through a connection, you know, which I, I don't know if others have this experience, but my experience is that my personal connections and my relationships are what have driven my career. And my initial sort of foray into executive search was through a former classmate at Boston College where I went to undergrad, who had gotten into retained search. He, you know, just had an excellent experience at Christian and Timbers. It's called Something else now, but. And you know, he really just sold the whole concept of really getting to understand a business, being able to really be consultative, you know, the, the satisfaction of bringing together a really strong, capable person with an excellent opportunity and being able to work at sort of a senior level in business at a young age. You know, I was like 24 or something and it was just sort of as random as that. And, and, you know, that's how I ended up first on the agency side in retained search and then moving relatively quickly in house leading talent acquisition teams over the, you know, last 20 something years or so.

That's great. I also got a communications degree from Boston University, so I saw that. I was like, okay, yeah. And I agree that it's funny, you go in, I think especially with some of the, you know, communications degrees, marketing degrees, you really think that's going to be your path. But most people tend to diverge off of that. But having that ability to communicate, I think is, is so transferable into, I mean, every industry, every position, really.

Yep, absolutely. No, it's definitely helped me along the way, for sure.

Yeah.

That's awesome. You had been at TripAdvisor and then you made the jump over to flagship. That must have been quite the transition. Those are two very different industries, you.

Know, it was pretty daunting, honestly. I was in the tech world for 25 years, you know, and definitely felt really comfortable there and, and knew the market. But as I was looking sort of for my next challenge, I realized a couple things. One, living in the Boston area, tech is not a, is not a hub for tech.

Right.

So I was already at a pretty senior level at TripAdvisor, which is really the biggest tech employer headquartered in the Boston area. And unless I wanted to go into some of the big sort of software business, you know, kind of SaaS software, which is great, but, you know, it doesn't have the kind of personal mission maybe that a TripAdvisor does, where people tell you, oh my God, I love that company, you know, and there's something I think that you get beyond just your own satisfaction and doing good work when you work somewhere that people identify positively with. And I really realized about myself after working at TripAdvisor for five years that I really need that. You know, I get a lot of satisfaction out of working somewhere that has some sort of a positive impact. And so when I was looking for my next role, biotech kind of felt like a good move because you have the mission. It's so centered in the Boston area that There is just so much opportunity. And then the question is, how do you break into this new field? And if someone is interested in biotech, it's really hard to break into.

Right?

Because there's so much of a thought that if you aren't from a scientific background that you just can't understand it.

Right.

And so I was very lucky. I was actually recruited by Flagship and one of the reasons was they were looking for someone with a strong background in machine learning and other sort of types of technical recruiting, which they really didn't have in house. And Karina, I know we worked very closely with recruitnomics at that point especially. And I mean, it was just something that it was really impossible to find that skill set. And so I was given an opportunity to come into a field I knew absolutely nothing about. And it was very scary after 25 years of really knowing what I was talking about, to really not have any idea, literally not understanding the words that were coming out of people's mouths. It's a pretty challenging thing to do as someone who's later in their career, and it was just a chance I decided to take and I'm so glad I did. It's been a really challenging in a great way. It's made me so much smarter and it's used every corner of my brain, which probably you don't do after you do the same thing for a long time. And I think you don't realize how much you're not really, you know, fully engaging every part of your brain when you do the same job for a long time. So it was really hard. I got a lot of great support at flagship. I did MassBio. They do a couple of great trainings for laymen on how to understand biotech. I would definitely recommend a couple of their programs. And just learning as you go has been a great opportunity.

That answer is a great segue into our next question, which is really about the ethos at Flagship and sort of specifically, yes, biotech is so mission driven and I think that's what attracts a lot of us to the industry as a whole. But then specifically within each company or organization, Flagship's obviously a large organization. You know, what's the ethos? What's the mission that really keeps you going every day?

Well, the thing that I really enjoy about Flagship specifically is sort of the focus on excellence. It is beyond anywhere I've ever worked. It is a place where everyone is truly exceptional at their work and it brings out the best in you. So even someone who maybe has been not always the Top performer. There is just something about the, you know, what's in the water at Flagship that it sort of makes you bring your best self to it. And I think a lot of that is really driven by just sort of the whole environment and the process of company building. You know, the whole thought process is let's come up with these ideas that no one has ever thought of before. Not an adjacency to some other pharma or biotech company, but something that is truly blue sky. I think that that whole concept really feeds to the culture too. So we do a lot of things in talent acquisition, in HR throughout the organization that I haven't been able to do in other places because there is an openness to creativity, to trying things, and if they fail, it's okay to piloting things, to doing experiments about all sorts of things. And, you know, I can give you some examples, but I think all of that sort of just drives an energy to the team and to the culture that is very unique. I think biotech in general, there's so much sort of churn. There's always things moving. We are dealing, unfortunately, in the last year or two with a lot of companies that maybe aren't moving forward. And being at flagship, there's such a great opportunity to keep those people in the ecosystem by finding them other opportunities. And we've built an entire program and process around making sure that if one company is not moving forward for whatever reason, that there are actually opportunities for those people to pretty seamlessly find other roles. And so I know I get a lot of satisfaction out of that because, you know, helping somebody who's been laid off find another role within a few days because you've been able to really match up great opportunities with great people is. It's something that, you know, you can feel really good about too.

So it has been a tough time. I'd say we started really feeling it last summer when a couple of our companies, you know, lost funding. And it's been so challenging because we do love, love our clients and we love the candidates, and then to see them set adrift is so hard. So you're very lucky to have such a large ecosystem to kind of help people out with.

And I mean, that must be so interesting as someone who's joining the flagship umbrella, to know that, you know, you can take that leap and you sort of have that. I wouldn't call it a safety net because obviously, you know, you can only do so much within that umbrella. But most organizations, you don't have any type of A safety net when that happens, maybe there's outplacement or people will help you, but there's. I think that's a really unique and pretty amazing selling point for flagship right there.

It really is. Because if you know anything about the flagship ecosystem, which I know both of you do, but some people listening may not, is, you know, these companies are founded with a concept and we hire three or four, sometimes five people to do some initial experimentation or research to figure out is this an idea that's viable. And they may stay with that small team for six or eight months until they come up with some results that determine whether or not we should go forward and maybe do some initial, you know, some additional funding. And so, you know, being able to join a four or five person startup, literally getting stock, that is founder level stock, but if it doesn't go forward, having an Entire team of 20 plus people on the talent side whose real main focus is to make sure that really strong performers go to other opportunities within flagship, it's such a huge differentiator for us right now because people, people still like startups, they love the challenge, they love to be in the ground floor. But there's a lot of fear about going to a small company now. And I think, I think it's really a key differentiator when we're trying to recruit strong talent right now.

That's a great point. Yeah, that really is. And I think, you know, to, to further plug flagship a little bit. A lot of what we talk about on this podcast is how to build biotechs really intentionally. And one thing I love about the flagship ecosystem that maybe you can speak to a little bit is the amount of support those small companies get from really experienced individuals. A lot of times we work with, you know, very small companies with founders that are not terribly experienced themselves. And what I love about the flagship ecosystem is they have that support from, you know, from your team, from the business development side, from the operator side. It's kind of an all encompassing support system.

Well, absolutely. I think, I think the concept really is if we can build all of these functions around these companies and let the companies focus solely on developing the science, then they will be able to accelerate their progress. So we have a full IP team, for example, intellectual property team, that will help them ensure that whatever they're developing isn't already being developed elsewhere, that they're mapping it properly to make sure that they're protecting their intellectual property. We have finance team, people who do payroll and benefits and talent acquisition, hr. All of these functions that in a small company you've got founders who are sort of scrambling to try and figure these things out, building systems around, you know, applicant tracking or an HRIS or whatever. That's all being sort of owned at sort of the ecosystem wide level. And so because of that, when a new person comes in, they just have all the support that they need to be able to focus on what they're actually good at.

Right.

And that's sort of the secret of any kind of efficient environment is having yourselves organized in a way so that everyone's focusing on the thing that is their true talent and passion.

Right.

And having somebody who is a PhD right out of school coming in and worrying about what phone system you're using is just not really the best way to build a company efficiently. So we found that this really works. It's been incredibly successful. Our track record I think speaks for itself. I say our, but obviously a lot of folks long before me are the ones who are responsible for that. But it also is really, I think just takes a lot of the pressure off of sort of the scientific members of the team and gives them really subject matter experts in all of these areas that they can work with in a consultative way. And so it's a really unique model. We have much more depth of resources than I think a lot of our counterparts who kind of do focus a little bit on the incubator concept. I think we have fully developed departments in all of these areas. And so it's really a unique, very big investment for Flagship to make. But Flagship's all in on it and has is really seeing it as a huge differentiator.

So I have to ask, I just think it's so fascinating, you know, you've got this big overarching organization and all these smaller companies underneath and I can't even fathom how communication functions within Flagship and then with all your smaller companies. And I would love to pick your brain about that and how you share big information that's, you know, maybe Flagship overarching central and then communicate with all these smaller companies and how your inbox isn't just imploding all the time.

You know, it's interesting the way that we're organized and this has not always been the case. I've just come up on my three year anniversary at Flagship. When I joined, we had a team of seven in Talent Acquisition and now we have a team of over 30, including executive search and Operations and Analytics, Talent Intelligence. So it has grown quite a bit. And so we've had to sort of build Those communication structures in, I'd say they're certainly not perfect, not fully baked. But the way we approach it is that we have origination partners at Flagship who are basically sort of presidents of divisions almost in a way. Like they sort of have a portfolio of companies that they and their teams have developed. And so we have a talent lead for each of those, we call them pioneering business units or PBUs. So we have a talent lead for each of those business units and that person is sort of the point of contact for everything related to talent across their business unit portfolio. And so there's sort of a, you know, a structure that makes it a little easier to sort of cascade information down. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. And then we do have, you know, me as the person who sort of manages, I manage the talent acquisition team up through SVP level hiring. And then we have a, a bespoke group that does all of the executive search. So that's like a whole big, you can imagine there's so much C level work being done at Flagship. So they have a, there's a huge group or a large group that does that. My counterpart runs that. But I'll reach out across all of the companies with information around our process or how should we, you know, getting feedback across all of the business units about, or all the companies on their experience with recruiters and that sort of thing. So it's one of those things that is just constant outreach, constant checking in because it'd be easier for someone to be unhappy and me not know it. And so one of the things that's. I, one of my main focuses is trying to make sure I'm always proactively seeking feedback from the teams and from companies because it is very easy for the squeaky whale to get the grease and then for somebody who maybe is, is not as vocal to not have what they need.

Right.

So it's a constant struggle. But I think our structure within the business units makes it a little easier for us to stay on top of things.

Yeah, that's fascinating. That's a really clever way of setting it up with getting the pulse point on all these different stakeholders and employees and everyone. Do you do a lot of surveys? Do you do a lot of. How do you get the information? Is it just sort of one on ones or a lot of pulse check ins?

Right.

Well, we do, for candidate experience, we do have a candidate experience survey and that's something that we monitor closely every week we get those in and we kind of look and see if There are any issues that come up that we, you know, if I see something that seems to indicate there's something that's happened with a process or an experience, then I'll talk to the recruiter. I can, you know, kind of go directly, you know, for those issues. We are looking at doing some candidate, I mean some employee engagement surveys and that sort of thing. We're building out our learning and development team now that sort of maybe something that's partway through its process. So there'll be more of that. What I do in terms of really getting that pulse from each of the groups is really quarterly check ins with all of the PBE leadership. So you know, the origination partner, they have sort of a chief of staff which is, well, it's more like a VP of strategy that they work with and kind of who oversees their business units. So, you know, I will check in with them closely and we share dashboards and presentations on a quarterly basis around what their hiring metrics look like, how do they match to the ecosystem. You know, you guys have time to fill of X which is this long, more or less than the average. We're actually now, which is really exciting, being able to do dashboards around our diversity hiring. And so we're actually just presenting later today to one of the business units a whole development project that we've done that's kind of a pilot that we're going to do to other PBUs. But it's basically, let's look at our rates of. We're starting with gender diversity. So we're looking at at the beginning, how many at the applicant stage, what is the percentage of women versus men for each company in your portfolio?

Right.

And then at each stage, what is the dropout rate of men and women at each stage and what are the gender codings of your job descriptions for each company? And so we've done this huge evaluation of all of those things and now we can look and say for these seven companies we have this set of recommendations for how you can improve the diversity or the increase the number of women in your pipeline and hopefully the number of women you hire based on the data that we've been able to pull. And so it's really exciting to have really accurate data. Now we have an analyst who's great, we have a talent intelligence team that we've built out over the last three years or so. And so we can really dig into that and say, wow, you know, only we have some companies that have 20% women who apply. We have some that have 44%, what's the difference? You know what, why is one different than the other? And we're finding things like more women in leadership, not surprising, more sort of outreach from individuals on the team. The job descriptions might skew in a certain way. Certain science areas have more women in the market. Like so it's, it's like a never ending interesting puzzle to sort of work on. And that, that's the kind of thing I get really interested in and excited about. So we're able to do a lot of really cut in, you know, I think forward thinking things around that.

So thinking about those dashboards and the drill downs and where you lose candidates. So we know the top of funnel is certainly one thing. How do we track candidates into that funnel? That has a lot to do yet with the messaging and of course the science. And as you said, people do go look at the leadership team when they're thinking about applying, especially underrepresented candidates. They want to see that, you know, the company is putting leaders at the top that look like them. But beyond that, I really think it's interesting we're starting to do the same thing to drill into where are we losing candidates in the process. What are you thinking in terms of if you see candidate attrition at a certain place, you know, as your role as a consultative partner, how do you address that, that might be a problem within the interview structure or something like that?

Well, absolutely, and I'm very comfortable talking about that because I think it's important to be self reflective.

Right.

And if, if there's something in the process that is stopping us from this success, we do ourselves no service by pretending it's not true. And so we've been doing a lot of things. One, when we see a drop off rate that happens at the face to face, then we look at the rejection reason.

Right.

So did that person opt out and say I am a woman and a high percentage of women are not interested in this role in this company. That's a huge red flag.

Right.

And that's something that we, you know, I, I personally or whoever the recruiter is who's working on that role, you know, we connect with the HRBP and it's like we got to get to the bottom of that right now.

Right.

Because that's certainly not a culture we want to build. And, and when you've got five or six people and you're looking to grow to 10 people and you have an issue like that, you got to stop that immediately.

Right.

And, and there's a very strong understanding and drive within Flagship, not to allow something like that to go forward. So mostly I think that comes from a matter of, you know, just lack of knowledge of how to recruit, how to interview. In my experience, it's almost never that someone has a intent to have a less diverse team. It's just a matter of experience and knowledge around how to interact and how to recruit without bias. And so we've built out, actually, a recent project we've just completed is a sort of a train, the trainer for unconscious bias and interview planning. And we just presented that to all of the talent acquisition folks within Flagship, so that they basically have this really extensive deck that they can pull from and do trainings with each company and sort of tailor it depending on the data that they get about what's happening in that company. So, yeah, I mean, I think. I think you have to be really honest with yourself. There's absolutely no benefit to pretending that a problem doesn't exist.

Right.

And I do think that's. That fits Flagship's ethos.

Right.

You know, we take companies and we number them because we want to be able to not get emotionally attached to them. We want to, you know, close them out if they're not going to be scientifically viable as soon as possible. And so nipping things in the bud when they're not going. Right, is absolutely part of the Flagship ethos.

So we're such on the same wavelength. We've. We've just rolled out a new hiring manager training module that all of our hiring managers with our client companies need to take. And it's a refresher for some, but it has that implicit bias training in it. It's just so important. And sometimes it's right before a hiring process. Even that reminder can just, you know, it can just change the way you're looking at applications or you're interviewing candidates. That's so important.

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, and sort of the. The thing about Flagship, too, is a lot of times we'll have more junior people because we don't hire our executives right away into these companies. We tend to hire the scientific knowledge and capabilities and someone within Flagship sort of oversees them for a period of time. And so you're putting some relatively junior people into a position where they're making decisions around hiring and you need to give them the training and the support that they need to do that effectively.

Right.

And so we recognize that that's something that we have to kind of put a lot of energy into. Basically, what typically happens if a company does not go forward is not so much that it will close, although that has happened a few times in my experience. Mostly those companies will be merged into other companies. And so if you have especially, you know, you have a strong set of scientific capabilities within a team, then there'll be sort of an effort to see what other company might have a similar adjacent sort of scientific focus and be able to kind of combine those teams. So for the most part, in my experience, they've gone more in terms of a merger when a specific scientific idea is not going forward. I've seen a couple that have just sort of closed, but usually there's some sort of group that gets hired somewhere else or whatever, you know what I mean? There's a lot of effort to try and keep the people within teams and keep employees within the ecosystem in any way we can.

Hey there. Just a quick break. I wanted to let you know that if you're listening to this podcast because you are exploring careers in biotech, which is, it turns out quite a few of our listeners actually are, you might be interested in the Biotech Career Coach podcast. It is brought to you by our sister company, the Collaboratory Career Hub, which is our career development community. If you would like actionable tips on job seeking and career development, that is the place for you. It is a companion podcast to our Career Coach column that we write monthly in Biospace, but we go a little more in depth and sometimes we have special workshops and all of that good stuff. So if that sounds interesting, click the link in the show notes or search for the Biotech Career Coach on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Back to the show.

I know that we've been lucky to be working with Flagship. When a company moves from being a number to having a name, and we were excited, I have to imagine that it's really great for the culture of Flagship. Do you do something to celebrate that? Is there like a party, like a naming party? How does that work?

For some reason, Flagship is really into cupcakes. Cupcakes are a thing at Flagship, so they typically will do a cupcake party for things like that. So, you know, if you like cupcakes, that's great, you know. But yeah, that's typically how it's celebrated. But there's a lot of, you know, when they have launches of the company name, there's a lot that goes into that. You know, they're usually. That's when they're launching the website. That's typically when they're trying to launch another wave of hiring and a larger Wave of hiring as well, it usually tends to coincide with them receiving funding to to do some sort of a ramp. And so it's a big milestone.

All right, so you mentioned earlier analytics in ta, so this is sort of speaking to my scientist brain, but what are the analytics you're tracking? What are your KPIs and metrics? Like, what are you really measuring there?

Yep. Well, we measure the typical, right, you know, time to fill, acceptance rate, we measure rejection reasons and obviously typically you want it to be us who decides versus them.

Right.

You never want someone that you really want to hire to decide against. Against coming to Flagship. One of my favorite metrics is to measure the time to hire. So not so much the time to fill the search, but the time from when the person you ended up hiring enters your process to when you hire them. So to me, I feel like that's a metric that a recruiter should have control over to say, I have found the person, this is going to be our winner. How quickly do we accelerate that person through the process? So a search could take six months, but if your time to hire is 25 days, then you're paying attention and when you saw someone good, you move them through the process quickly. So that's a metric that I personally really focus on for my team and for myself when I do searches. And then the other kind of metrics we're able to evaluate now are around kind of time and stage whether or not people receive feedback within, when's the last time they were contacted, like all those kinds of things now we're able to really dig into. We've just rolled out Avature at Flagship, which is a huge sort of, you know, step forward for us in terms of our sourcing capabilities. And so, you know, all those things that sort of feed towards at least some quantitative way to evaluate candidate experience is something that I focus on.

Yeah, I heard great things about avature. I haven't tried it myself. It's more for the big organizations it is.

And for us it's really useful. I mean across the board it's great. But we've built out a sourcing team in the last year and a half. We now have five full time sourcers and they align to each. PBU has sort of a sourcer and then we actually have a GNA sourcer who's starting with us on Monday to focus on corporate hiring. And so them having the ability to build up pipelines and do more passive communication outside of an ats, which you have to sort of force fit into those Communications. It's really helping.

I would love to circle back just because you had mentioned your DEI efforts at TripAdvisor. You did quite a lot for the DEI efforts there, and I know that you've obviously translated that over into Flagship as well. So do you want to speak a little bit to the differences there and how you've been able to translate some of that work?

Sure. Well, I think, you know, I will say TripAdvisor was and continues to be one of the most progressive organizations I've certainly encountered around Edni. And so coming to Flagship, much smaller company, even though people think of us as big, you know, we only had at that time, like, 250 employees at Flagship, Right. And now we have something like 330 or something. So we are still a small company, even though the ecosystem broadens out to thousands of people with all the companies that we work with. So, you know, I think there's an expectation that a smaller. That a larger company is able to move the needle more and have more resources. And that's true.

Right.

So what we've done, I think, within Flagship is really. Or what we're trying to do is really focusing around hiring talent that is diverse.

Right.

And. And it's sort of one of the biggest things I learned in Ed and I at TripAdvisor from the woman who we. We hired as our diversity officer was it's not about hiring women. It's not about hiring diverse people. It's about building an environment where women and diverse people will feel welcome. And it's sort of, if you build it, they will come, you know, and that is the concept that is sort of the bedrock of truly successful EDI programs. And so that's something that we're trying to do. I think putting more people into the pipeline who are diverse is obviously important, but also just creating a structure and in an environment and an interview process where even if you don't have a huge number of candidates who are diverse, those who are going through the process are having a good experience. And that means having diverse people on those slates, but it also means sort of making it a respectful environment for everyone. And so that's something that I think we should all be doing, regardless of diversity goals or whatever. But we also really need to focus on those metrics of, you know, is there a woman on the panel? And if there isn't a woman working in the company, that's okay. We have five people in the company and there aren't any women yet, that's fine. But is there a woman within that business unit who could be a culture carrier, who could, you know, kind of maybe get involved in that interview process as part of a broader strategy to try and encourage more diversity in those small companies. And that's something that, you know, we just sort of are trying to do on a case by case basis. And it definitely shows. It comes out in the, in the final results. When you look at hiring, when you've tried and made those efforts and you've had more diverse panels, you do get more diverse hires. I mean, that's just how it works. Right? So, so that's something that I think we're doing and that's a little more tactical somewhere like TripAdvisor. You know, we were very deep into kind of the values and all that sort of thing. That's something that Flagship is doing now and has, I think a lot of, a lot of work has been done. It's not totally been rolled out yet, but, you know, it's definitely something that, I think there's a lot of recognition from Theo Proku, who's our chro, how important that is, and so he's driving that process with our lnod team.

Well, that's great. Yeah. The belonging piece is so, so key in this whole equation. You know, we speak with a lot of companies that say we want a really diverse talent pool and of course, but we have to also foster the belonging and that, that's through the interview process and that's after they're hired. And that's long after they're hired.

We did a really nice program or they did. I attended. It was Women of Flagship and I mean, it was a panel of, I think six CEOs or C level executive women in the flagship ecosystem talking about their experience, experience. And many of them had decades long careers, so they really have seen an evolution in the ability for women to, you know, really be able to run and own departments and, and companies. And it was really inspiring. I think a lot of the women, the younger women in the room, you know, young scientists, were just, I think that's just so energizing to see that success and, and to hear their stories and be able to learn from them. So programs like that I think are really valuable.

I think your point about if you build it, they will come is so critical because what we see sometimes is these companies are so far down the path before they stop and think about building their DEI campaigns and getting that diverse interest. And when we work with small companies, we try to tell them it's easier to build it. Build it in from the beginning. Build the culture you want to have at the start. Because once you try to go back, it's incredibly difficult to. Then, you know, you haven't built it so they won't come. And I think that it's such a critical component to have it from the beginning.

I think to me, the biggest thing is that you have to get people to a place where they're willing to feel some pain to get this to happen.

Right.

If you have what happens a lot at Flagship is we have a great candidate, we'll just hire them. And you do need to really make the case for, well, why don't we take a minute and see if we can show you a few more candidates so that we can get to a place where we're not hiring a fourth person who's got a very similar background. Background. And sometimes that, you know, I mean, on talent acquisition, sometimes it's, I don't want to hire another woman.

Right.

Because you know, they have the same background, they're from the same company. You know what I mean? Like, there's diversity is not necessarily, you know, someone of color or a woman. Diversity is building a team that come from different experiences. And whatever your team background is, you want there to be sort of additive things that you're finding in each person that you hire. So that's important. The other thing that just a random comment that's like, I think so important is making sure that your candidate experience is diverse, even for your non diverse candidates.

Right?

So you have someone coming in and they interview and it's a woman and you say, oh, we got to get a woman on this panel. It's like, no, there should be a diverse panel regardless of who the candidates are. Because you also need to hire candidates who are comfortable with diverse people, you.

Know what I mean?

And I know we've all experienced in this industry, you know, in our work lives, probably working with people who are not comfortable working with us.

Right.

And that comes out in an interview process and is really important to pinpoint because that I think is something that can really kill a culture and it's avoidable if you do take the time to make sure that everyone who interviews, whether they're diverse or not, is met with representation in their interview process as well.

We do that at our company when we hire. We're very intentional about who's on the panel. And our whole company culture is built around DEI for ourselves, for our client companies. And so we can't, yeah, we can't take that risk. They have to be so comfortable with the whole process. I love that. So let's talk a little bit about retention because retention in biotech is, it's a topic. So we've definitely seen a lot of turnover. Candidates are somewhat quick to jump, even in this market. What are, what are you and what are the flagship companies sort of doing to address retention? Do you have any secret weapons?

Well, you know, it's interesting, I. It's not as big of an issue for us at flagship than maybe some other companies. One, because when people join, they're joining so early that we probably have a couple years before people really typically jump ship unless there's some issue.

Right.

So I see much lower retention in our companies than I've seen in other places that I've worked.

Right.

Because. Or much lower attrition. I think I said retention attrition because, you know, they're getting this very early stage stock and there's a couple of years where people are like, well, I'm going to give a flyer on it and see how, see how it goes.

Right.

I do think that there's probably more opportunity around our HR side focusing on job ladders. That's something that we're building out. I know I saying we, but the HR organization and HR business partners are working on making sure people kind of have career paths within flagship specifically. And like the talent side, we have such a great opportunity to give people growth because the companies are always spinning out.

Right.

So since I've been at flagship, I've been here for five years or for three years and I have five people who joined my team, you know, developed a skill set within the team and then spun out with a company when they left ecosystem as a growth co owner. And each of them are now ahead of TA at some level within a company at flagship in the flagship ecosystem. And so it gives me so much opportunity to hire amazing people because people know they have somewhere to go within flagship and it's a little slower now because the market is a little slower. So we're not spinning out as many companies. That first year or two we spun out like five or six companies, which was pretty intense. But you know, being able to kind of, one of our goals is to be able to really know when someone in one company has hit their ceiling and identify them as someone who could potentially be hired into another company and flagship at a higher level.

Right.

So not just looking within their own company for a career path, but also looking for the ability for that person to stay within the ecosystem in a higher level role.

Right.

That's like the nirvana. That's where you want to get to, and it's something that's a goal of ours, but I'd say it's definitely not fully baked yet. There's a lot of work to do on that, but we have the ability to do that more than a lot of other people do. So it's kind of a cool thing for us to focus on going forward.

That's really cool. Yeah, I. I'm rooting for you on that one.

I know, I know. I'm. I'm such a big fan of that, and it's hard for people to sort of get their head around that. That's a very mature business approach and I think we have the ability to do that. So hopefully we'll be able to implement it a little bit more robustly as we go forward.

Where do you see yourself kind of going in the future? Where would you envision the next steps of your career and any thoughts you have around that?

Yeah, I mean, I. Gosh, who knows, right? I think the. There's so many opportunities, and I guess what I would say is I would love to go and move into one of the companies at some point, have an opportunity to have a, you know, kind of an HR leadership role in one of the companies. I think that would be exciting, or another opportunity or potential is to sort of move into, you know, more of a consultative role with some of the larger growth goes and, you know, sort of provide hopefully some solid expertise around hiring and hr. I think those things would be exciting. I see Flagship as a place that I could definitely continue my career pretty much as long as I would like to, just because there's so many places to go. And that's one of the huge positives to me is that you just aren't going to hit a brick wallet Flagship. There's. There's always something else you could do. And so that's one of the things that I find really exciting about what I'm doing now is just that, you know, I don't feel limited, which is great.

So for our listeners who are starting out on their biotech journey, do you have any words of wisdom for folks that are just getting started? How should they go about their search?

Well, I mean, I think a lot of times the way that we identify strong talent is actually through the labs where people work, work through the professors, through partnerships with universities, and we have a fellowship program that's actually a huge feeder for a lot of our associate roles. And so I would say for Flagship, if There's interest, especially going into an associate role or becoming a, you know, kind of a founding scientist in one of our companies. I think there's a lot of opportunity to look at the Fellows program, which that's a summer immersion where they're spending tons of time with our leaders, our associates, and actually doing the ideation of, you know, what are some new concepts that might become companies at flagship. It's, it's a really unique program. So that's probably a spot that I would point people to who are just finishing their PhD because it sort of an accelerator into flagship and then beyond that, I think really just kind of digging into what companies in the marketplace are focused in scientific areas that you are interested in. One of the biggest limiters I see for people getting hired is actually not having true lab experience, not having experience with sort of specific tools or tests or essays or whatever. And so anything people can do to get hands on lab experience that can translate into an RA role or a, you know, kind of a, a scientist role. I think those are probably areas that, you know, someone graduating with a master's degree in, in a scientific field without any lab experience, it's much harder for us to sort of see a way for them to join us as a research associate, for example, or a senior research associate. So hands on experience is probably the biggest thing. For the more junior people who are looking to really be scientists, you know, at the bench, and those who are interested in more sort of moving away from the bench and kind of into other roles, I'd say look at our flagship program, at our Fellows program.

That fellowship program sounds awesome.

I want to be in that. Really interesting. Yeah, they're just wrapped up last week and they, they definitely bring a lot of energy. There's like 30 of them in our office and they bring a lot of energy to the building, as you can imagine, because they're just, you know, full of ideas and it's really kind of fun to have them around.

Can you tell us what your favorite either fiction or nonfiction book that you've read recently is?

My favorite book is John Irving. That's it. Okay. John Irving and it's Cider House Rules is my favorite book from him. It's a great one. He's. John Irving is awesome. He's just like a totally screwed up guy who has written really also. It's an awesome book. It's been a really enjoyable conversation. I appreciate.

Oh, been wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on. All right, Leslie, where can people find you if they want to reach out to you. Learn anything more?

Sure.

Well, I'm on LinkedIn, you know, so that's a good place. Do you. What do you look like? Do you want contact information or what's.

No, that's fine. You know what we'll do is we'll link your LinkedIn in our show notes and then people can link in with you or reach out. But yeah, we just like to give folks an avenue to contact you if they have anything else to follow up with.

Absolutely.

No.

Sounds good. It's been a really enjoyable conversation. I appreciate you having it.

Oh, been wonderful. Thank you so much.

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