Director/Senior Director, People & Culture

What if… you could join an organization that creates, resources, and builds life sciences companies that invent breakthrough technologies in order to transform health care and sustainability?

A Flagship Pioneering Lab Company is looking for a passionate, self-motivated, and dynamic Director/Senior Director, People & Culture to join one of its rapidly growing biotech companies. As a key leader in the People function, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of our organization and cultivating a thriving, mission-driven culture. Our leadership team believes that people are the cornerstone of our success, and this role will be instrumental in driving that vision forward.  You will lead the development of the People organization, fostering a workplace that empowers employees to grow, innovate, and contribute to the company’s next phase of growth.

HR Operations & Transition Execution

• Design, implement, and maintain core HR infrastructure, including policies, systems, workflows, and governance required to operate as a standalone organization.
• Translate high-level people objectives into concrete operating plans, timelines, and deliverables; ensure consistent execution across all HR functions.
• Establish operational metrics, dashboards, and routines to monitor effectiveness, identify gaps, and drive continuous improvement across HR services.
• Serve as the primary operator responsible for day-to-day HR functionality, escalation management, and issue resolution.

Talent Training & Development (Build & Deliver)

• Design, launch, and manage practical, role-relevant training programs that directly support business priorities, near-term performance, and leadership effectiveness.
• Implement learning platforms, tools, and vendors (including AI-enabled solutions) to efficiently deliver training at scale and measure impact.
• Build and operationalize a structured employee development framework, including onboarding, core skill development, and leadership/manager enablement.
• Own the redesign and rollout of performance management processes, including goal setting, feedback cadences, reviews, and manager accountability mechanisms.
• Ensure performance processes are simple, consistently applied, and embedded into daily operating rhythms rather than treated as annual exercises.

Team Building & Recruitment Operations

• Take direct ownership of recruiting operations, partnering with Flagship Talent Acquisition to manage requisitions, pipelines, interview processes, and close timelines.
• Act as the internal point person for hiring managers, ensuring role clarity, interview discipline, and timely decision-making.
• Build and manage recruiting capacity as needed, including hiring and overseeing a junior recruiter or contract support.
• Establish standardized hiring processes, tools, and documentation to ensure consistency, compliance, and positive candidate experience.
• Track and report on recruiting metrics (time to fill, quality of hire, pipeline health) and adjust processes accordingly.

Employee Engagement, Culture & Employee Relations

• Operationalize company values by embedding them into onboarding, performance management, recognition, and day-to-day people processes.
• Own employee engagement programs, including surveys, feedback mechanisms, action planning, and follow-through.
• Partner closely with leaders to reinforce expectations for behavior, accountability, and people management standards.
• Proactively manage employee relations issues, ensuring timely, fair, and consistent resolution aligned with company values and legal requirements.
• Design and administer reward and recognition programs that reinforce desired behaviors and performance, integrating them into total rewards execution.

Key Competencies & Operating Style

• Strong operator with the ability to move seamlessly between hands-on execution and prioritization across competing demands.
• Demonstrated ability to build HR systems, processes, and teams from the ground up in fast-moving, resource-constrained environments.
• Decisive, action-oriented leader with a bias toward speed, clarity, and practical solutions over perfection.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity, setting structure where none exists, and adjusting quickly as business needs evolve.
• Clear, direct communicator who builds trust through transparency, follow-through, and consistency.
• High emotional intelligence with a low-ego, collaborative approach to problem-solving and leadership.
• Pragmatic innovator who tests new HR practices and technologies (including AI-enabled tools) with a focus on real operational impact rather than experimentation for its own sake.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required; additional HR certifications (SHRM-SCP, SPHR) are a plus.
• Extensive experience in start-up environments and scaling HR operations, ideally within the biotech or technology sectors.
• Proven expertise across the full range of HR functions, including talent acquisition, talent management, compliance, HR systems, compensation/benefits, employee relations, and leadership coaching.
• Ability to manage and execute HR responsibilities in a hands-on manner during the early growth phase.

More About Flagship Pioneering

Flagship Pioneering is a platform innovation company that invents and builds platform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health or sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated and fostered more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in more than $90 billion in aggregate value. Many of the companies founded by Flagship have addressed humanity’s most urgent challenges: vaccinating billions of people against COVID-19, curing intractable diseases, improving human health, preempting illness, and feeding the world by improving the resiliency and sustainability of agriculture.  Flagship has been recognized twice on FORTUNE’s “Change the World” list, an annual ranking of companies that have made a positive social and environmental impact through activities that are part of their core business strategies and has been twice named to Fast Company’s annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies. Learn more about Flagship at www.flagshippioneering.com.

Flagship Pioneering and our ecosystem companies are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.

Recruitment & Staffing Agencies: Flagship Pioneering and its affiliated Flagship Lab companies (collectively, “FSP”) do not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to FSP or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Flagship Pioneering’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of FSP, and FSP will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.

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The salary range for this role is $128,000 - $176,000. Compensation for the role will depend on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies, and experience. Flagship Pioneering currently offers healthcare coverage, annual incentive program, retirement benefits and a broad range of other benefits. Compensation and benefits information is based on Flagship Pioneering's good faith estimate as of the date of publication and may be modified in the future.