Optimapharm

Background

Optimapharm is a leading, mid-sized, full-service CRO working across Europe and North America to deliver new therapies to improve and save patients’ lives. Optimapharm’s key priorities are our people and consistently exceeding our client’s expectations. With 27 strategically located offices across Europe, Optimapharm operates in 41+ countries, giving unrivalled access to Patients and Investigators in all countries in Europe and North America.

The Rohatyn Group are experts in legal and compliance, global operations and custody, risk management, marketing, investor relations and information technology, and investment teams. TRG Management LP (“TRG” or the “Firm”), also known as The Rohatyn Group, was founded by Nicolas Rohatyn in 2002. After building JP Morgan’s emerging markets business, Mr Rohatyn and the Firm’s other founding partners saw an opportunity to leverage their combination of knowledge, skills, and contacts to provide specialized expertise in emerging markets (“EM”).

How were we engaged?

DRAX was introduced to Optimapharm through the fund The Rohatyn Group, and we were hired to conduct a CEO search. We introduced PACE to the fund, (a private equity behavioural evaluation assessment for individuals and teams in high-growth businesses). who were looking to assess Optimapharm's present SLT and appoint a new CEO who matched the incumbent CEO's expertise, fit, and behaviours. Both Optimapharm and The Rohatyn Group desired someone who could create a roadmap for leadership transformation and put in place the necessary team to manage challenging decisions to maximise business growth.

PACE was given to all our shortlisted candidates, allowing The Rohatyn Group and Optimapharm leaders to evaluate their applications' strengths and weaknesses. PACE enabled our clients to examine and build the leadership team's behavioural complementarity to maximise the influence of their experience and skills on company success. DRAX provided a solid candidate pool for the CEO post, and Ivana Waller was appointed as CEO at Optimapharm.

Candidate Voice

"I found it really valuable for me personally to receive the PACE profile," Ivana said of her experience as a candidate. "I've taken several different sorts of tests in various scenarios and settings, but I found PACE to be much deeper and more extensive in comparison. PACE allowed me to look at myself, reassess my strengths and limitations, and identify possibilities for growth. In addition. PACE enabled our PE investors, who were searching for certain characteristics, to identify a candidate that would fit the company".

Ivana Waller Candidate CEO

A view on PACE

“Instead of only examining CVs, screening prospects, and doing various levels of interviews, PACE offers another degree of depth that allows for a better decision-making process."

"I firmly believe in team diversity. We see a lot of women in 'staff level' roles in our business, but when you move into management level positions, you see fewer women, and it is still uncommon to have women on a company's management board. I believe our staff is well-balanced in that regard, as well as in terms of cultural diversity and other diversity factors. PACE is beneficial."

Ivana Waller Candidate CEO

Outcome

Following Ivana's successful placement, DRAX continued to collaborate with Optimapharm and successfully conducted a search for a Chief Operational Officer (COO), once again utilising PACE and comparing applicant PACE characteristics to those of Ivana.

Client Voice

"We continued working with DRAX while looking for team members for management board roles that would be working directly with me, and PACE became extremely beneficial for me," Ivana said of her customer experience. We conducted a COO search and used PACE for all the candidates who were shortlisted.” said Ivana Waller new CEO of Optimapharm

Following the successful placement of the COO, DRAX conducted an impact onboarding report, highlighting key styles, watch-outs, and takeaways, assisting both Ivana and the COO in understanding how their behaviours will complement each other and where there are synergies and differences, as well as how certain behaviours may play out situations.

“DRAX was able to overlay my PACE profile with the profiles of the prospects, allowing us to evaluate how the candidates' skillsets would complement mine and vice versa. PACE also revealed where we would have similar tendencies in terms of decision-making, strengths and weaknesses, and how they might manifest in a management position. When we decided to recruit our COO, PACE was really useful in understanding his decision-making processes as well as the strengths and shortcomings in comparison to mine."

"I am striving for diversity and am genuinely seeking for a variety of viewpoints on the board, not simply everyone who thinks and acts the same," Ivana said, commenting on why PACE has played such a critical role in the searches and why she believes PACE is such a vital instrument to foster diversity. When our COO and I have similar inclinations, I refer to those PACE profiles to better understand where each of us is coming from and how we might balance each other out. PACE focuses on the attributes that high-growth firms require, looking for people who are leaders, do not shy away from difficult decisions, and can work well with others. In this sense, I've found PACE to be quite valuable, and I'm putting the knowledge we gained from the PACE process to use in our daily collaboration. We often think alike, and we have to push ourselves to make a small difference in opinion or introduce a new way of thinking."

Ivana Weller CEO Optimapharm

Further developments

After the successful placement of the CEO and COO, DRAX has been retained to conduct an additional search for a member of the management board team. PACE will be used by Optimapharm as an indicator of the entire team dynamic and how the team will complement and fit into each other like a puzzle.

"What DRAX gives as a whole product is really powerful compared to other headhunting firms, I have had an extremely excellent experience with the team. Every meeting is well planned, well researched, and well organised, and I learn a lot throughout the presentation. The presentations are logical and systematic, and they effectively drive the choice towards picking the final candidate while also helping to speed up the process. To have the data from PACE and to work with professionals who are really putting 100 percent into their jobs is very helpful.” Said, Ivana.