Want better management? Hire a better board, says recruitment guru

Australian biotech companies can learn a lot by including external and independent non-executive directors with relevant commercial experience on the board of directors, according to David Collingham, founder of European life sciences recruitment firm Ruston Poole.

"It's a good way of improving the management of the company, and the skills base. The board members are not there as hangers-on, they are there to contribute," said Collingham in an interview with Australian Biotechnology News.

Ruston Poole is said to be one of Europe's leading executive search firms and has local ties with Brooker Consulting. The two groups work closely together in sourcing and recruiting executive level personnel for biotech and life sciences organisations in Australia, Europe and North America.

Collingham said Australian companies were starting to realise the benefit of having well-qualified board members with industry experience, and were even appointing international board members or returning expatriate Australians.

He said Australian biotech companies faced many of the same issues in recruiting senior executives as companies in Europe and the US. But Australia had additional challenges, particularly its smaller biotech clusters and salary and taxation issues.

People were more likely to move to major biotech centres such as Cambridge or San Francisco, as the opportunities were better, he said. A feature of big clusters was "serial entrepreneurs" -- executives who moved from company to company, specialising in particular phases in a company's life cycle. And there was a growing need for "interim managers" who could come into a company for short-term roles. "Australia doesn't have that yet," Collingham said.

According to Collingham, Australia's relatively low salaries and high taxation compared with many other countries also made it difficult to recruit suitable candidates from overseas for positions based in Australia. He said that providing tax incentives to foreign executives to encourage them to join Australian companies was one way the government could assist the development of the industry.

The emphasis on stock option packages was declining internationally as well, said Collingham, resulting in higher salaries.

"The competition for good quality candidates is extremely hot... to attract the right person for a particular job can be challenging," he said. Most candidates for top jobs like CEO positions could pick and choose from more than one offer.

Australian companies often found suitable executive personnel in the Australian expatriate community or among individuals who had previously worked in Australia, and had better luck in encouraging them to return to Australia, Collingham said.

"There are tens of thousands of Australians working around the world," he said. But the lack of good expatriate networks for Australians overseas made it more difficult to source potential candidates.