CASE STUDY

poms mes
CLIENT: POMS – Leading MES Provider to the Life Sciences Industry

The Challenge

Our client — a top-tier MES software provider to the Life Sciences sector — faced a high-stakes leadership gap.

Their long-standing executive, who had spent over a decade overseeing both technical development and product strategy, had stepped away. This individual wasn’t just a team leader — they had institutional knowledge, cross-functional trust, and had shaped the product vision across R&D, engineering, and commercial strategy.

Replacing them required more than credentials. It required someone with deep MES domain fluency, leadership presence, and the credibility to lead from day one — without disrupting momentum.

The Leadership Mandate

MITREC was engaged on a retained search to identify an executive who could:
  • Lead both product strategy and technical development for a highly complex MES platform
  • Operate with authority in GxP-regulated environments within Life Sciences
  • Bridge the leadership void left by a legacy figure and unify cross-functional teams
  • Align with the company’s pace, innovation roadmap, and cultural expectations
  • Deliver impact fast, minimising onboarding friction

This wasn’t a brief for a generalist. The client needed a rare hybrid — someone who could think strategically, lead technically, and integrate quickly at the executive level.

The Search Strategy

We treated this like the leadership search it was — balancing urgency with precision and cultural nuance.

Our Retained approach included:
  • Deep-dive alignment sessions to understand the outgoing leader’s legacy, team dynamics, and roadmap gaps
  • Mapping executive talent in MES, PharmaTech, and Digital Manufacturing with experience scaling technical product organisations
  • Dual-lens assessment: vetting for both deep technical leadership and high-stakes stakeholder navigation
  • Weekly iteration loops with the client to refine the profile based on live feedback
  • Delivering enriched candidate profiles with narrative insight — highlighting context, cultural fit, and hidden strengths beyond the CV

This wasn’t just a shortlist — it was a curated slate of leadership-ready operators capable of owning the mission from day one.

The Outcome

The client was presented with a shortlist of executive-calibre candidates who exceeded expectations.
poms mes

We chose MITREC because of their deep knowledge of manufacturing in the life sciences industry. They took a strategic, tailored approach — every candidate was well-vetted and introduced with insightful summaries that brought hidden strengths to the surface… That attention to detail gave us a pool of high-quality candidates in a short timeframe — and a tough final decision.

Daniel really dialed in on the key attributes we were looking for… That attention to detail and real-time responsiveness resulted in a pool of high-quality candidates in a very short period of time.

Patrick Nazzaro — President, POMS MES

MITREC Strategic Insight:

Replacing a legacy executive isn’t just a hiring decision — it’s a leadership risk. In highly specialised, regulated sectors like Life Sciences MES, continuity matters.

But so does vision.

The key to this Search was understanding not just the vacancy, but the vacuum — and designing a search that delivered a leader ready to fill it on day one.
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