Head of Solution Consulting R&D / Field CSO

Benchling; Zürich; Hybrid; CHF 260,000 - 380,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

On-site 3 days per week

Equal opportunity employer

Job summary

Benchling, Inc. seeks a Senior R&D Field CSO for EMEA to lead the R&D Solution Consulting team and align with the GM EMEA and Field CTO. You will translate the 10x science vision into practical plans for R&D leaders across the region.

You’ll drive strategy, manage two first-line leaders and a 10-person team, and travel to major pharma/biotech sites across EMEA and occasionally the US. Fluency in English is required; German or French is a plus.

Qualifications

• Substantial hands-on R&D experience in biotech/pharma with a PhD or equivalent scientific depth.
• Experience leading through other managers and engaging C-level leaders.
• Readiness for frequent field work across EMEA with US travel several times yearly.
• Fluency in English; German or French is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Lead the EMEA R&D Solution Consulting organization (12 staff) and two first-line leaders.
• Turn Benchling's AI/Science Foundries vision into actionable plans for R&D leaders.
• Partner with GM EMEA and Field CTO; shape regional strategy and roadmap.
• Sponsor large EMEA opportunities and expand R&D relationships.

Skills

PhD

R&D leadership

Strategic alignment

AI in R&D

Executive presence

Education

PhD in Biotech

Tools

Benchling

Job description

We are rebuilding biotech for the AI era.

When a breakthrough is delayed, the world waits. Getting a molecule from discovery to patients, or a crop from lab to field, involves thousands of slow, manual, disconnected steps. AI has the potential to change this, compressing decades of R&D work into years. But that only happens when clean, structured scientific data and AI are built into how science gets done.

Benchling is the AI platform for biotech R&D. Scientists use Benchling to design experiments, capture structured data, and run AI agents and models directly in their workflows. Over 200,000 scientists around the world trust Benchling to power their most important work, from academic labs to Sanofi, Moderna, and more than half of the world's top 50 biopharma.

We're building an AI scientist for our customers. We can't do that if we haven't built the muscle ourselves. AI fluency is the foundation we build on; it's core to how we work, and we're committed to helping every new hire integrate it into their day-to-day. As part of our interview process, you'll complete a brief AI-focused exercise or discussion so we can understand how you think about and use AI to drive impact in your role. Feel free to reference any tools, platforms, or workflows you use today.

WHY THIS ROLE, WHY NOW

R&D leaders trust people who have done the science. More than half of the world's top 50 biopharma companies already use Benchling, and many of the most important are in Europe. Our ambition is 10x faster science, from idea to first dose. With Science Foundries, launched at Benchtalk 2026, agents and scientists run entire R&D workflows together, so a three-person team can have the productive capacity of thirty.

In a senior R&D role, you can change how one organisation does science. As our Field CSO, you'll take one question to R&D organisations across EMEA: how do we get from idea to first dose 10x faster?

Role Overview

You'll lead our EMEA R&D Solution Consulting organisation: a team of 12, with two first-line leaders covering our Enterprise and Strategic segments, plus occasional support for APAC deals. You'll be the scientific counterpart to our General Manager, EMEA, and work alongside our Field CTO. They lead on IT, data science and architecture; you lead on the scientists and how their work changes.

Responsibilities

• Be the scientific voice in the room. Brief the GM and account teams before key meetings, then join them as a peer to the CSOs and Heads of R&D across the table. Act as senior sponsor on our largest EMEA opportunities, and use account-team introductions to open new R&D relationships.
• Lead the 10x conversation. Turn Benchling's vision, from AI agents to Science Foundries, into a credible plan R&D leaders can act on, including how their scientists move onto Benchling and what changes in the lab.
• Lead and develop two first-line leaders and their team of 10. Provide in-region leadership continuity, set the scientific bar for every customer engagement, and build a succession plan as the team grows.
• Shape EMEA strategy and the roadmap. Decide with sales leadership where to focus the team's expertise, and bring patterns from the field back to Product, Marketing and global Solution Consulting.

How We Measure Success

This is a commercial role with a scientific core. We'll look at EMEA revenue growth and influenced pipeline, technical win rate, forecast accuracy on the technical side of deals, regional ownership of our largest R&D relationships, and the strength of your leadership bench.

Qualifications

• Substantial hands-on R&D experience in biotech or pharma, with a PhD or equivalent scientific depth. You've run experiments, led programmes and know how large R&D organisations make decisions and adopt change.
• A record of driving change, from adopting new technologies to rethinking how your teams work, and clear views on how AI will change R&D.
• Experience leading through other managers, and executive presence with VPs, Heads of R&D and C-level leaders.
• Commercial ambition and a growth mindset. We'll teach you how software is sold. We can't teach how a large R&D organisation works from the inside, and that's what you bring.
• Readiness for a field role: frequent on-site time with the largest pharma and biotech companies across EMEA, plus US travel three to four times a year for team offsites and our global sales kickoff.
• Fluency in English; German or French is a plus.

NICE TO HAVE

• Experience with Benchling or a comparable R&D platform (ELN, LIMS or R&D data platform), including leading its evaluation or rollout
• Customer-facing scientific, internal consulting, or CRO/CDMO programme leadership roles
• Presales or solution consulting experience

How We Work

We offer a flexible hybrid work arrangement that prioritizes in-office collaboration. Employees are expected to be on-site 3 days per week (Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday).

#BI-Hybrid

Benchling welcomes everyone.

We believe diversity enriches our team so we hire people with a wide range of identities, backgrounds, and experiences.

We are an equal opportunity employer. That means we don't discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law, including but not limited to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.