Vice President, Senior Director / Director, R&D

The Fynder Group•Chicago, IL

About The Position

The Fynder Group is seeking an engaged, strategic, accomplished R&D leader at the Vice President, Senior Director, or Director level. The title and scope will be determined based on the candidate’s qualifications and organizational fit. The role requires expertise in strain engineering, bench-scale fermentation, protein chemistry, in-vitro assays, and analytical development, along with leadership capabilities. Experience in biotech platform development using engineered systems, drug discovery, and early development is a strong plus. Depending on seniority and technical focus, the role will either be an executive strategic lead responsible for organizational growth and multidisciplinary R&D roadmaps, or a scientific lead focused on technical execution, laboratory mentorship, and scientific discipline across technical workstreams. The position spans organizational leadership and talent development; fungal engineering and synthetic biology; fermentation, protein chemistry, and analytical pipelines; and high-throughput screening, automation, data analytics, multi-omics, and AI integration. The Fynder Group describes itself as a fast-paced startup working on complex, world-changing problems in food, pharmaceuticals, and materials, inspired by biology discovered through NASA-funded research on extremophiles in Yellowstone National Park.

Requirements

Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, Genetics, Microbiology, Biochemistry, Biochemical Engineering, or a related technical biological field.
Strong foundational knowledge of molecular biology, synthetic biology, and genetic manipulation techniques.
Demonstrated understanding of protein expression, purification, and characterization workflows.
Familiarity with data-driven scientific workflows, Design of Experiments, and standard computational biology toolkits.
Director-level: Ph.D. and 5–9 years of industrial biotechnology experience, including at least 2–3 years of direct people management, team building, and project leadership.
Senior Director-level: Ph.D. and 10 or more years of industrial R&D experience across fungal strain engineering, fermentation, and protein characterization, with a track record of building, scaling, and leading technical teams in a matrixed organization.
Vice President-level: Ph.D. and 15 or more years of industrial biotech R&D and executive leadership experience, including leading multidisciplinary units, driving strategic roadmaps, and translating scientific breakthroughs into commercial products.
Vice President candidates must have a track record developing an early-stage genetically engineered microbial or viral platform, solving problems creatively, and advancing the platform to a preclinical-stage drug development program through IND.
Vice President candidates must have experience building, scaling, and managing multidisciplinary organizational units in matrixed startup or growth-stage biotech environments.
Vice President candidates must be able to translate corporate OKRs into multi-year technology roadmaps and align R&D, Pilot Scale, Regulatory, and Business Development stakeholders.
Vice President candidates must have experience structuring teams, defining career pathways, and building sustainable R&D infrastructure.
Senior Director and Director candidates must be willing and able to mentor junior scientists and research associates directly in the lab, including coaching on daily execution and scientific thinking.
Senior Director and Director candidates must have a track record driving technical workstreams from concept through bench-scale validation under tight operational timelines.
Senior Director and Director candidates must be able to work across upstream and downstream groups and stakeholders, including fermentation, analytical, and process scale-up.

Nice To Haves

Direct experience with filamentous fungi such as Fusarium, Aspergillus, or Trichoderma, and advanced gene-editing platforms such as CRISPR/Cas systems.
Experience in pharmaceutical or biotech process development, quantitative assay development (including HPLC, LC-MS, and enzymatic assays), in-vitro biochemical, biophysical, and cellular characterization, and analytical method validation.
Hands-on experience scaling biofoundry or high-throughput liquid-handling automation, deploying LIMS/ELN, and integrating multi-omics data such as NGS, proteomics, and metabolomics into predictive pipelines.
Experience in biotech platform development using engineered systems, drug discovery, and early development.

Responsibilities

Set scientific direction and priorities for work on filamentous fungi engineering, bench fermentation optimization, and protein characterization, translating corporate OKRs into technical milestones.
Build, mentor, and scale a high-performing technical organization; establish career pathways, foster a collaborative lab culture, and develop talent across relevant scientific disciplines.
Lead across matrixed organizational boundaries, including Process/Pilot Engineering, Analytical, Regulatory, and Business Development, to establish shared accountability, reduce silos, and support technology transfer.
Design strain modification strategies to develop new products and realize the potential of the Fusarium strain as an expression host.
Develop and optimize molecular biology, synthetic biology, and gene-editing tools tailored to filamentous fungi, including CRISPR/Cas platforms and traditional transformation methods.
Lead discovery of genotype-to-phenotype relationships in Fusarium to engineer strains with improved yield, stability, and functional profiles.
Oversee bench-scale micro-fermentation and bioreactor evaluation to characterize strain performance, media requirements, and growth parameters early in strain development.
Direct purification, quantification, and characterization of recombinant protein folding and functional activity using biochemical, biophysical, and cellular assays.
Guide quantitative analytical assay deployment, including HPLC, LC-MS, SDS-PAGE, and enzyme activity assays, for screening, protein characterization, payload potency assays, and process optimization.
Modernize and scale micro-scale screening protocols, automation systems, and liquid-handling workflows that integrate strain engineering with fermentation and analytical screening.
Promote data-driven scientific work using advanced statistical methods, Design of Experiments, and computational and genomics frameworks.
Oversee integration of Next-Generation Sequencing, transcriptomics, metabolic flux analysis, and proteomics to support predictive strain and protein engineering.
Champion AI integration to streamline and automate workflows and support engineering of fungal strains, fermentation conditions, downstream processing, payload stability, and biological activity.
For Vice President candidates, develop an early-stage genetically engineered microbial or viral platform, advance it to a preclinical drug development program through IND, lead multidisciplinary units, own strategic roadmaps, align stakeholders, and build sustainable R&D infrastructure.
For Senior Director or Director candidates, provide hands-on lab training and mentorship, drive technical workstreams from concept through bench-scale validation, and coordinate with fermentation, analytical, and process scale-up stakeholders.