Senior Operating Partner, Drug Design, London

Isomorphic Labs is applying frontier AI to help unlock deeper scientific insights, faster breakthroughs, and life‑changing medicines with an ambition to solve all disease. The future is coming. A future enabled and enriched by the incredible power of machine learning. A future in which diseases are curtailed or cured starting with better and faster drug discovery. Come and be part of an interdisciplinary team driving groundbreaking innovation and play a meaningful role in contributing towards us achieving our ambitious goals, while being a part of an inspiring and collaborative culture.

About Iso

Isomorphic Labs (IsoLabs) was launched in 2021 to advance human health by building on and beyond the Nobel‑winning AlphaFold system. Since then, our interdisciplinary team of drug discovery experts and machine learning specialists has built powerful new predictive and generative AI models that accelerate scientific discovery at digital speed. Our name comes from the belief that there is an underlying symmetry between biology and information science. By harnessing AI’s powerful capabilities, we can use it to model complex biological phenomena to help design novel molecules, anticipate how drugs will perform and develop innovative medicines to treat and cure some of the world’s most devastating diseases. We have built a world‑leading drug design engine comprising AI models that are capable of working across multiple therapeutic areas and drug modalities. We are continually innovating on model architecture and developing cutting‑edge capabilities to advance rational drug design. Every day, and with each new breakthrough, we’re getting closer to the promise of digital biology, and achieving our ambitious mission to one day solve all disease with the help of AI.

As an Operating Partner you'll be part of a small but high bandwidth, highly productive team specialising in catalysing business critical initiatives across Iso through partnership with cross‑functional organisational leaders. Together we crystallise the ‘what’ and ‘why’ to unlock the ‘how’ with clarity and at pace, with a commitment to operational excellence and what’s right for the organisation, facilitating maximum productivity and progress towards our mission. Agility, organisation and nimbleness are critical and this role will evolve alongside the leadership team’s role and needs as we advance towards our mission.

What you will do

• You’ll work shoulder‑to‑shoulder with the Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Research Officer (Drug Design) and their teams to deliver and operationalise the highest‑priority initiatives in their org areas, in particular where cross‑organisational influence and expertise is needed.
• Drive impact: You’ll enable leaders and their teams to scale effectively by advising and soundboarding on their ideas for how to maximise their impact, focus on the things only they can do and empower and enable those around them; you’ll do this by synthesising outputs, problem solving across functions and driving solutions forward.
• Deliver: While no task is too big or too small, you’ll focus your time and energy on maximising impact and output alongside the Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Research Officer (Drug Design) for the benefit of the organisation. You’ll be a doer as well as a thought partner: you’ll follow up, close loops in a timely fashion and drive initiatives to completion in alignment with leadership and organisational needs.
• Collaborate: You’ll identify what is important/needs to be done by leadership and what can be done by others to support, ensuring clear roles and responsibilities are in place. You’ll build relationships with key stakeholders across Iso to gain a holistic understanding of the organisation, instilling high levels of trust and providing hands‑on partnership, counsel and input on important projects, initiatives and decisions.
• Big picture view: You’ll anticipate and propose solutions to issues and risks and share critical information with key stakeholders and prepare, present and gain agreement on proposals among leadership and then lead and influence teams to execute - leveraging strong leadership, communication and influencing skills and problem solving with creativity and innovation.
• Drive efficiency: You’ll empower others to be maximally efficient by optimising for leanness and proactively spotting and breaking down blockers and inefficiencies, balancing what the organisation needs in the short and longer term with a keen eye for how to scale most efficiently and effectively.
• Prioritise: You’ll assess what’s most important vs doing everything by clearly disambiguating what’s ok to be ‘good enough’ from what will turbo‑charge the organisation; you’ll do this in partnership with leads and other partner roles e.g. StratOps partners, EAs, TPMs and product by connecting people, ideas and thinking to proactively drive a joined‑up approach.

Skills and qualifications

• Drug design domain expertise, for example an educational background in Chemistry or Biology and experience working in biotech and/or pharma.
• Experience partnering with leaders in fast‑paced and constantly changing environments, acting as a sounding board on important projects, initiatives and decisions and as individuals go through the change cycle.
• You’re confident engaging with technical topics and initiatives even when you don’t have a deep understanding, and you have the ability to probe, synthesise information and move conversations forward.
• You are comfortable with ambiguity and enjoy environments where you can implement creative and innovative ideas and solutions which drive organisational performance.
• You can adapt to the needs of the organisation and are highly resilient.
• You enjoy variety and have a ‘get stuck in’ mentality - no task is too big or too small.
• You are experienced in breaking complexity down to make tangible, positive progress across the organisation by prioritising, planning and executing with clarity and pace.
• You are able to act and communicate with confidence in a high performance culture, instilling trust in everyone you interact with, delivering well thought through solutions.
• You can turn your hand to most things and if you don’t know the answer you are tenacious in finding out.
• You demonstrate a curious attitude and role model commitment to learning and understanding more about work across the whole organisation to enhance the impact of you and others.
• You’re highly organised, resourceful and have proven experience managing your own work and projects.
• You enjoy operating independently but love being part of a highly supportive and collaborative team.
• You share information and understand that succeed or fail, we do so as a team.
• You are looking for a career defining role and are ready to commit to this long term mission. The chance to be a key part of something extraordinary; the opportunity to make a real difference.

Nice to have:

• Experience in a Chief of Staff or similar role.
• Knowledge and experience in utilising coaching techniques to support individuals from diverse backgrounds in a dynamic environment.
• Experience in performing a similar role in a start‑up or other high growth organisation.
• Knowledge of AI and/or Tech.

Culture and values

We are guided by our shared values. It's not about finding people who think and act in the same way. These values help to guide our work and will continue to strengthen it.

• Thoughtful: Thoughtful at Iso is about curiosity, creativity and care. It is about good people doing good, rigorous and future‑making science every single day.
• Brave: Brave at Iso is about fearlessness, but it’s also about initiative and integrity. The scale of the challenge demands nothing less.
• Determined: Determined at Iso is the way we pursue our goal. It’s a confidence in our hypothesis, as well as the urgency and agility needed to deliver on it. Because disease won’t wait, so neither should we.
• Together: Together at Iso is about connection, collaboration across fields and catalytic relationships. It’s knowing that transformation is a group project, and remembering that what we’re doing will have a real impact on real people everywhere.

Creating an extraordinary company: We believe that to be successful we need a team with a range of skills and talents. We're building an environment where collaboration is fundamental, learning is shared and every employee feels supported and able to thrive. We value unique experiences, knowledge, backgrounds, and perspectives, and harness these qualities to create extraordinary impact. We are committed to equal employment opportunities regardless of sex, race, religion or belief, ethnic or national origin, disability, age, citizenship, marital, domestic or civil partnership status, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy or related condition (including breastfeeding) or any other basis protected by applicable law.

If you have a disability or additional need that requires accommodation, please do not hesitate to let us know. It’s hugely important for us to share knowledge and build strong relationships with each other, and we find it easier to do this if we spend time together in person. This is why we follow a hybrid model, and would require you to be able to come into the office 3 days a week (currently Tuesday, Wednesday, and one other day depending on which team you’re in). If you have additional needs that would prevent you from following this hybrid approach, we’d be happy to talk through these if you’re selected for an initial screening call.

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