Senior Director, Alliance Management Emeryville, California Hybrid

Position: Senior Director, Alliance Management New Emeryville, California, United States; Hybrid (2-3 day[...]
Emeryville, California, United States;
Hybrid (2-3 days on-site)

Profluent is an AI‑first protein design company. Founded in 2022, we develop deep generative models to design and validate novel, functional proteins to revolutionize biomedicine. Based in Emeryville, CA, we are backed by leading investors including Altimeter Capital, Bezos Expeditions, Spark Capital, Insight Partners, Air Street Capital, AIX Ventures, and Convergent Ventures, and have raised over $150M to date.

Profluent Bio is seeking an experienced Senior Director, Alliance Management to serve as a critical bridge between our internal research teams and external strategic partners. This is a high‑impact, multifaceted role requiring exceptional breadth: alliance management experience, project management discipline, deep gene editing knowledge and startup operational velocity, with growth opportunity into program leadership. You’ll be the catalyst for our most important collaborations while ensuring internal cross‑functional alignment on strategy and execution.

Profluent currently has several active strategic partnerships with immediate plans to expand. This role will own operational execution across the existing portfolio from day one, with a clear path to building and leading the alliance management function as we scale. We need someone who can move quickly, and can hit the ground running, taking over crucial partnerships following a short (~4 week) onboarding and relationship‑building sprint.

Ideal Candidate Profile

You are an operator who can flex broadly across alliance management, project management, and strategic program leadership – equally comfortable thinking strategically about five‑year roadmaps and long‑term partnership goals as you are diving into specific contract terms and Gantt charts. You have the scientific background to speak credibly with PhDs about gene editing mechanisms, the business acumen to negotiate with Big Pharma partners, and the project management discipline to keep complex programs on track.

Ideally, you’ve done alliance management at a gene editing startup and managed pharma collaborations with meaningful upfront payments and biobucks, with experience in or passion for gene therapy (delivery and/or cargo). You’ll need to be equal parts diplomat, strategist, and operator – someone who can jump between a board deck and relationship management, present appropriately to any audience, and put out fires before they start while rallying teams around ambitious goals.

You bring

• Gene editing startup experience with exposure to major pharma alliances

• High emotional intelligence with ability to build deep trust with pharma alliance counterparts, sense and defuse issues before they escalate, and bring ‘cheerleader’ energy that rallies cross‑functional teams while maintaining rigorous attention to detail

• Proven ability to manage 4+ concurrent alliances without sacrificing quality or partner relationships

• Experience in discovery and preclinical stages (clinical development experience is a plus)

• Startup velocity: you thrive on moving fast and making things happen

• Leadership potential: ability to build and lead a team of Alliance Managers as we scale

• Navigating the complexities of both external partnership dynamics and internal cross‑functional collaboration

• Balancing strategic thinking with hands‑on execution

• Building trust and credibility with scientists, business leaders, and external partners alike

• Knowing when to drive decisions independently and when to bring in senior leadership

• Creating order from chaos and implementing scalable processes

• Operating with autonomy while keeping stakeholders appropriately informed

• Exercising sound judgment about information sensitivity, confidentiality, and when to elevate vs. handle independently – critical for managing proprietary research with multiple pharma partners

Key Responsibilities

This role serves as the critical bridge between external alliance partners and internal cross‑functional teams executing on the alliance programs, and key responsibilities are split between those focused externally (Alliance Management) and internally (program leadership).

Alli…