Manager​/Sr Manager, Strategic Finance

Pairwise is agriculture’s gene editing powerhouse, building a healthier world through partnership and plant innovation. Co-founded by CRISPR pioneers, the company’s Fulcrum® Platform accelerates the development of climate-resilient, nutritious, and sustainable crops that are easier to grow and better to eat.

Founded in 2017 and based in Durham, North Carolina, Pairwise partners with global leaders and nonprofit institutions to help breeders move faster and transform food and agriculture for farmers, consumers, and the planet. The company collaborates with partners and licenses its Fulcrum® CRISPR tools to diversify breeding programs and bring innovations to market faster—from developing the world’s first pitless cherry to improving staple crops such as corn, soy, cacao, yam, and rice.

Backed by leading investors including Deerfield, Aliment Capital, Leaps by Bayer, Temasek, and Corteva Catalyst, Pairwise has raised $155 million in total funding. In 2025, the company was recognized as one of MIT Technology Review's 10 Climate Tech Companies to Watch and named to Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies in Agriculture, while also earning "Best Ag-Bio Company" honors in the Triangle Business Journal's Life Sciences Awards.

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Pairwise is building a commercial engine to bring CRISPR-edited produce to market, and this role sits at the core of it. As a strategic finance subject matter expert, you’ll build the product-level forecasts and data-driven analyses that shape how we prioritize crops, size markets, and make go-to-market decisions.

You’ll also model the economics behind R&D portfolio decisions — which programs and crops get funded, at what pace, and with what expected return — and provide the finance support behind licensing deals and research collaborations. Partnering closely with the strategy, commercial, R&D, and finance teams, you’ll translate messy primary and secondary data into clear recommendations that leadership acts on.

This is a role for someone who built their foundation in a life sciences consulting or investment banking environment—rigorous Excel modeling, primary research design, and PowerPoint storytelling—and is ready to own analytical work streams end-to-end inside a company shaping the future of food and agriculture.

• Own product-level commercial forecasts in Excel end-to-end, from assumption architecture through scenario and sensitivity analysis
• Scope and lead discrete analytical work streams, managing them to deadline with limited oversight
• Design and execute primary research (interviews, surveys) with growers, buyers, and other market stakeholders to test key hypotheses
• Analyze secondary data sources to size markets, map competitive landscapes, and pressure-test commercial assumptions
• Synthesize quantitative and qualitative findings into clear, actionable insights and recommendations for strategy and commercial teams
• Support licensing deals and research collaborations with deal economics — valuation, milestone and royalty structures, scenario analysis, and diligence support
• Build polished, executive-ready PowerPoint and Excel deliverables that translate complex analysis into a clear narrative for senior leadership and external stakeholders
• Partner cross-functionally with finance, commercial, and R&D stakeholders to ground analysis in operational reality and act as a key connection point in synthesizing information for leadership
• Build and maintain R&D and portfolio-level financial models that support program prioritization, resource allocation, and stage-gate investment decisions
• Produce portfolio reporting and analysis that gives leadership a clear view of program economics, risk-adjusted value, and trade-offs…