RECRUITING LEADERSHIP FOR THE WORLD'S MOST AMBITIOUS TECHNOLOGIES

Helping founders, boards, and investors build leadership architectures for companies operating at the intersection of AI, defense, life sciences, robotics, and deep technology.

Occam Recruits Commercial Leader for CytoReason

Occam Global Recruits Commercial Leader to Bexorg

Occam Recruits Head of Manufacturing for Edge Animal Health

Occam Places Julie O'Shaughnessy as President of Conceivable Life Sciences

Occam Recruits AIDD Pioneer Kim Branson to Cradle Advisory Board

Occam Places Glenn S. Vraniak as CFO of eGenesis

Occam Recruits Jeremy David Curuksu as CTO of eigenblue

Occam Recruits Mickey Atwal as CSO of eigenblue

Occam Recruits Laurent Fischer as Chair of NovalGen

Occam Places Natalie Holles as CEO of Aura Biosciences

Occam Recruits Board Director and SAB Member to In Vivo Cell Therapy Leader, Umoja Biopharma

Occam Recruits Former CSO of Novo Nordisk to Advisory Board of Cradle

Occam Places CMO and President of R&D at Variant Bio

Occam Places Business Development Leader at Chemify

Occam Recruits CEO for Weight Loss Biotech Prolynx

Occam Recruits Head of BD for Latent Labs

Occam Recruits Laurent Fischer as Chair of Shinobi Therapeutics

Occam Places CBO at A-Alpha Bio

Occam Recruits Kim Blackwell to Board of NVIDIA-Backed Charm Therapeutics

Occam Places Amgen CMO on Board of Moonwalk

A COMMITTED PARTNER FOR CRITICAL LEADERSHIP DECISIONS

Executive recruiting rooted in creativity, clarity, and principled judgment

NUANCED JUDGMENT

A sophisticated perspective

  • Decades of search experience behind every recommendation
  • The brief redefined, not just filled
  • Fit thoroughly assessed beyond the resume
  • Judgment captured in writing, not just a shortlist

ENDURING COMMITMENT

Relationships not transactions

  • Senior-led, start to finish
  • No handoffs, no volume model
  • Every search treated as a high-stakes leadership decision
  • Selective on searches taken, uncompromising once we do

A CREATIVE PROCESS

Beyond the usual suspects

  • Unmatched network, paired with diligent research
  • Thoughtful expansion into adjacent industries when it adds value
  • Passive talent surfaced alongside active candidates
  • Experimental mindset — multiple paths to a solution

TRANSPARENT DIALOGUE

Clear process. Clear progress.

  • Objective, comprehensive, and frequent updates
  • Candor over comfort
  • Sober opinions, milestone-driven structure
  • Long-term partnership built on mutual trust

WORDS FROM CLIENTS

Josh Wolfe

Occam has been a great and valued recruiting partner for Lux.

Occam has been a great and valued recruiting partner for Lux. They impress with business moxie, psychological acuity, ruthless objectivity and speed. A team and search firm apart.

Josh Wolfe

Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Lux Capital

Terry-Ann Burrell

They know the biotech world inside and out.

Occam approaches their difficult and delicate task with uncommon, if not unique, respect for the candidate and client alike. They know the biotech world inside and out. A firm of consummate professionals.

Terry-Ann Burrell

Vice Chairman, JP Morgan

Stef van Grieken

I’d used the word “human” to characterize John and his team.

I’d used the word “human” to characterize John and his team. That observation may sound cliché, but Occam brings rare candor and psychological insight to search.

Stef van Grieken

Co-Founder & CEO, Cradle

Clive Meanwell

We trust Bill and his talented team.

Occam stands out in my experience with the search industry in terms of its unrelenting thoughtfulness and commitment to results. At Population Health, we trust Bill and his talented team because of their consistently astute and ethical judgment on people and situations and their enduring commitment to produce mutually beneficial results. And their sense of humor is the icing on the cake.

Clive Meanwell

Chairman & Partner, Population Health Partners

Daphne Koller

We are consistently impressed by Occam's ability to deliver excellent results.

Building a company with a transformative mission requires having the very best people on your team from the very start. That requires a trusted partner who understands both the high-level strategic vision and the details of what it takes to succeed. Occam’s partnership in identifying and recruiting leaders for key positions at insitro has helped us close critical and hard-to-fill roles across scientific and corporate functions. We are consistently impressed by Occam's ability to deliver excellent results, which has enabled our continued growth and evolution.

Daphne Koller

Founder & CEO, insitro

Lee Cronin

The firm has been a true partner to Chemify.

My journey as an entrepreneur has begun with Chemify. I met Occam at an inflection point in realizing the dream. The firm has decisively helped me reify my vision and make it an organizational reality. John and Bill know what it takes to recognize and attract top flight talent with the requisite level of imagination. Their practice is unpretentiously cosmopolitan, uncompromisingly ethical, effortlessly generous and meaningfully strategic. The firm has been a true partner to Chemify.

Lee Cronin

Founder & CEO, Chemify

Chris Gibson

Occam has been a formidable recruiting partner for Recursion.

Occam has been a formidable recruiting partner for Recursion. Over the past three years, they have helped us make key additions to the senior executive team and board. The firm has consistently provided a unique blend of nuanced and ethical judgment, tireless and creative effort, and strategic insight in helping us develop a holistic organizational plan as Recursion has evolved.

Chris Gibson

Founder & CEO, Recursion Pharmaceuticals

Lisa Deschamps

Occam is an extraordinary recruiter.

Occam is an extraordinary recruiter. This special quality comes from their manifest empathy and emotional intelligence as well as procedural rigor. It was they who recruited me into my current role as a first-time CEO at Aviado. In that process, I always felt transparency and concern for me as a person as they assiduously cultivated my candidacy. Subsequently, I engaged Occam in adding a Chairman for my Board. They delivered a formidable result in a nuanced and differentiated fashion.

Lisa Deschamps

CEO, AviadoBio

Laksh Aithani

Occam played a pivotal role in the build of CHARM Therapeutics.

Occam played a pivotal role in the build of CHARM Therapeutics with the critical placement of our Executive Chairman, Gary Glick.

Laksh Aithani

Founder & CEO CHARM Therapeutics

Alex Dickinson

Occam stands apart for their rigorously applied intelligence.

I know Occam well, over time and from two different perspectives. The firm has placed me on two Boards, one small but rapidly growing private diagnostic company, the other a large diversified public CRO. I have also engaged them to recruit two key executives, a CEO and a CCO, for a cancer diagnostic company which I started. Occam stands apart for their rigorously applied intelligence, consistent work ethic and deeply useful understanding of human nature.

Alex Dickinson

Founder & Board Member, ChromaCode

Doug Melton

The search exercise that Occam developed and led was fluidly interactive.

I observed Bill’s work as the founder and a Board member of Semma. He helped us recruit a very effective Chief Executive Officer. Bastiano Sanna was able to reset the strategy, build the organization and ultimately sell the company to Vertex for almost $1 billion. The search exercise that Occam developed and led was fluidly interactive, intelligent, nuanced and thorough. Among Occam’s strengths, I would highlight the engaged nature and thoughtful listening the Occam team brings to the process.

Doug Melton

Founder, Semma Therapeutics, Xander University Professor

INDUSTRY EXPERTISE

LIFE SCIENCES

Partner with the premier life science executive search firm, placing transformative leaders across biotech, medtech, and advanced therapeutics

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DEFENSE TECH

Secure the mission by recruiting the elite executives translating innovation into national security capability across space, directed energy, and biodefense

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DEEP TECH

Appoint the executives capable of converting frontier tech into lasting enterprise value

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VENTURE CAPITAL

Build high-impact leadership teams across portfolio companies and investment platforms

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ROBOTICS

Identify transformative executives who lead breakthroughs in automation, mechatronics, autonomous technologies, and advanced manufacturing

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AI

Secure the strategic leaders ready to operationalize and scale your AI-driven transformation

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CASE STUDIES

WE HELP INNOVATIVE ORGANIZATIONS TACKLE THEIR BIGGEST EXECUTIVE RECRUITMENT CHALLENGES. DISCOVER HOW WE CAN HELP YOU SOLVE YOURS.

Recursion

How Occam Global Helped Shape the Leadership Powering Recursion’s AI Revolution

See how we helped assemble an executive team that propelled IPO success and long-term strategic growth.

Read

this case

Charm Therapeutics

Building Leadership Confidence by Recruiting a Chairman to Mentor a First-Time CEO and Signal Strength to Investors

Explore how we recruited a Chairman to pair with a first-time CEO to serve as a mentor and transmit powerful optics to investors.

Read

this case

Chemify

Finding Rare Executive Talent with the Ideal Mix of Entrepreneurial Drive, Operational Expertise, and Commercial Acumen

Discover how we found a rare executive with the perfect mix of entrepreneurial drive, operational chops, and commercial acumen.

Read

this case

insitro

Building a High-Performing Executive Team to Empower the CEO and Integrate Science & Technology

Learn how we built a high-performing executive team, freeing the CEO to orchestrate and merge science and technology teams.

Read

this case

Anagenex

Guiding a First-Time CEO with Strategic Insights to Accelerate Organizational and Business Growth

See how we guided a first-time CEO with strategic insights to shape organizational and business growth.

Read

this case

FAQ

LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR DISTINCTIVE APPROACH

Can a new graduate go into executive search directly, without consulting first?

There’s no single required path. Strong analytical training, clear writing, comfort with ambiguity, and genuine curiosity about people are the real common denominators. Having an MBA is frequently valued because the underlying skills transfer directly but the traits matter more than any one credential.

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How is executive search different from recruiting?

High-level executive search is strategic advisory work focused on leadership selection at pivotal moments, placing CEOs, executives, and board members, and advising founders and boards. It involves far more judgment, psychology, and strategic counsel than transactional recruiting, which centers on filling roles against a specification.

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Does AI threaten executive search careers?

Less than most professions. AI can assist with sourcing and data, but the core of the work — building trust, navigating conflicting stakeholders, and judging how a leader will perform in a specific context — depends on human capabilities AI does not have. This makes the work relatively resilient to automation.

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CUT TO

GROWTH

RESULTS

BREAKTHROUGHS

CAPABILITY

ENDURANCE

GROWTH

RESULTS

BREAKTHROUGHS

CAPABILITY

ENDURANCE