Chief Business Officer (CBO) / Head of Business Development

CONFIDENTIAL RETAINED SEARCH

We are conducting a confidential, retained search for a chief business officer at a San Diego / CaliBaja life sciences company. The CBO will lead corporate development, licensing, and strategic partnerships, and will report to the CEO. We seek executives with 12+ years of business development or corporate development experience in life sciences.

Search Reference: TNF-LS-CBO-2026 | Corporate Development Leadership Mandate, Life Sciences

ABOUT THIS SEARCH

Top Notch Finders holds an exclusive, strictly confidential retained search for a client in the San Diego / CaliBaja life sciences corridor. To protect our client and every candidate, we disclose the company’s identity and the specifics of its location only to qualified candidates under a confidentiality agreement. In addition, Top Notch Finders receives and manages every inquiry and application directly.

THE CHIEF BUSINESS OFFICER OPPORTUNITY

The CBO leads corporate development, licensing, and strategic partnership activity for a biotech or medtech company that pursues licensing, partnerships, or M&A. In addition, the CBO partners with the CSO and CMO to position pipeline assets for partnering discussions. As a result, this executive shapes how the company grows through its partners.

MARKET CONTEXT

Capital markets remain selective. Because of this, life sciences companies rely more heavily on partnership-driven revenue, and the CBO increasingly pairs corporate development with commercial-growth responsibility.

For a deeper look at how we evaluate and hire senior leaders in this industry, read our The 2026 San Diego Life Sciences Executive Search Hiring Guide. It explains our approach to executive search for business development and corporate development leadership roles.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Lead deal sourcing, negotiation, and execution for licensing, partnership, and M&A transactions.
• Develop and maintain relationships with pharma and biotech business development counterparts.
• Oversee due diligence for inbound and outbound deals.
• Partner with the CSO and CMO to position pipeline assets for partnering discussions.
• Provide corporate strategy input on capital allocation and portfolio prioritization.
• Represent the company at partnering conferences such as BIO and the JPM Healthcare Conference.
• Help position AI-enabled platforms and data assets to pharma partners.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

• 12+ years of business development or corporate development experience in life sciences.
• A demonstrated track record of closing licensing or M&A transactions.
• Strong therapeutic-area credibility and a network within the pharma BD community.
• Excellent negotiation, financial modeling, and deal-structuring skills.
• An advanced degree (MBA, PhD, JD, or a combination), which we prefer.
• Familiarity with AI-enabled platform positioning, an emerging differentiator.

HOW TO APPLY IN CONFIDENCE

This is a discreet, retained engagement. We will never present your candidacy to any organization without your explicit prior authorization. In addition, the hiring company cannot see any application at this stage.

If you are an accomplished business development executive and want to be considered as our next chief business officer, please submit your resume in confidence through the Top Notch Finders website. Reference search code TNF-LS-CBO-2026 in your submission. However, do not include patient-identifiable, trial-blinded, or other confidential clinical information of any kind in your application materials. We will contact only the candidates whose backgrounds align closely with the mandate.