Cissy Young, Phd

Life Sciences Board at Executive Recruiter & Leadership Advisor

Speaker

Based in Boston, Cissy Young, Ph.D. specializes in board and executive recruitment for biotech/pharma companies. She is a trusted advisor to Boards and CEOs on executive talent, including assessment, executive development, inclusion & belonging, and succession. Trained as a scientist, she brings biotech operational experience to her advisory practice. Cissy currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Keck Graduate Institute which grants postgraduate degrees for students to become leaders within healthcare and the applied life sciences. She was most recently a Partner at Catalyst Advisors, a leadership advisory and executive recruitment firm. Prior to Catalyst Advisors, she was the Chief People Officer at Valo Health, where she led the talent strategy for assembling tech and pharma/biotech talent to build an AI-powered computational platform for drug discovery and development. Previously, she was a Managing Director at Russell Reynolds Associates, a top global leadership advisory firm, where she led the DE&I practice in North America and served as a senior member of the Global Biotech & Pharmaceuticals Practice. Earlier in her career, she led strategy and business development at several emerging-growth biotech companies. She received her B.A. in biology from Brown University, her Ph.D. in cancer biology from Columbia University, and her M.B.A. in entrepreneurship and strategic management from The Pennsylvania State University.