Experience and Professional Qualifications
The Chief Scientific Operations Officer will bring a distinguished record of leadership at the intersection of scientific innovation, advanced technology, and operational execution. They will possess deep familiarity with biological, chemical, or adjacent scientific research environments and an appreciation for how emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, automation, and advanced instrumentation are transforming the research enterprise. The CSOO must demonstrate a proven ability to translate an enterprise’s scientific vision into a scalable, sustainable, and highly effective operating model capable of serving a broad community of researchers and stakeholders.
The ideal candidate will have significant executive leadership experience building, transforming, or managing complex research, laboratory, technology, or scientific service organizations. They will bring a track record of establishing operational excellence across multidisciplinary environments, including responsibility for infrastructure, laboratory operations, scientific instrumentation, technology platforms, and associated personnel. Experience leading through periods of growth, organizational change, or platform development will be particularly valuable, as the successful candidate will be tasked with creating many of the foundational systems, processes, governance structures, and operating disciplines necessary for a first-of-its-kind scientific enterprise.
Given the highly collaborative nature of the AI Science Foundry and the Biological & Chemical Innovation Cloud Lab, the CSOO must possess exceptional relationship-building and stakeholder management capabilities. The individual should have experience working across organizational boundaries to align scientists, engineers, technologists, operations professionals, and institutional leaders around shared objectives. Experience developing and managing strategic partnerships with universities, government agencies, national laboratories, industry partners, nonprofit organizations, and funding entities will be highly desirable. The successful candidate will be able to navigate both scientific and administrative environments with equal effectiveness, serving as a trusted advisor to senior leadership while maintaining credibility with researchers and technical experts.
Importantly, this is fundamentally a builder and operator role. The successful candidate will demonstrate the ability to convert emerging scientific and technological capabilities into reliable, reproducible, secure, and customer-focused services. They will possess strong financial and business acumen, including experience managing budgets, capital investments, resource allocation, and long-term operational planning. In addition, they will bring a comprehensive understanding of quality systems, laboratory safety, risk management, compliance frameworks, and performance measurement. Experience developing shared-service, platform, cloud-based, or externally facing research environments that serve multiple user constituencies will be particularly attractive, as will experience leading organizations that combine physical laboratory infrastructure with sophisticated digital technologies.