Karen Skillen has recently joined J. Robert Scott as Managing Director, Life Sciences and will focus her energies on building our business on the West Coast. Although based in San Francisco she is broadly experienced in global recruiting and business development.

Before joining J. Robert Scott, Karen most recently led the Biopharmaceutical and Biotechnology practices for BioQuest, providing executive recruitment and consulting services to companies across the broad spectrum of life sciences, including pharmaceutical products, nutraceuticals, biotechnology, diagnostics, devices and consumer medicines. Before joining BioQuest, Karen was a Senior Client Partner in Korn/Ferry International’s Life Sciences Practice, based in San Francisco. Karen joined Korn/Ferry in Prague, the Czech Republic, where she spent three years responsible for coordinating activity in the Central and Eastern European Life Sciences practice. She then transferred to the firm’s Princeton office, building a strong network across the East Coast Life Science industry during her four years prior to her move to the West Coast.

Prior to joining Korn/Ferry, Karen headed the Prague office of Antal International, a search firm focused on developing markets. Her early career was in management training and consulting, assessing cultural flexibility and suitability of executives for senior-level international assignments within multi-national organizations. Areas of expertise were the emerging markets of South East Asia and the Far East. Additionally, she has spent more than five years in South East Asia and the Far East and three years in Eastern Europe, working in countries as culturally diverse as China, Taiwan, Japan, Hungary, The Czech Republic, and Turkey, as well as her native United Kingdom. From this experience she has gained an appreciation of cultural values, which she utilizes on behalf of her North American and international clients.

Karen holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Chinese from the University of London and has completed postgraduate studies at universities in Beijing and Taipei.

International travel, particularly to developing countries, passion for understanding and facilitating cross cultural communication. Sports involving high speed including: downhill skiing, restarted after 20 year abstinence, I am now obsessed with making up for those lost years through conquering increasingly steeper verticals at ever higher speeds; driving my convertible the European way, stick shift and fast; learning to sail in the swift moving waters and rapidly changing winds of San Francisco bay. Attending live music performances, especially jazz or blues, where I marvel at the keyboard players and pretend to myself that if I practice just a little harder on my chords, I too could sound like that. Building the hottest, brightest and longest burning campfires while backpacking in wilderness areas of the high Sierras. Nicknamed the fire queen by all who camp with me!

1. What would you say was your most challenging placement and why?

Chief Scientific Officer for a start up therapeutics company based in California. We identified a superstar within major pharma on the East Coast who showed initial reluctance to relocate. The management team disclosed his identity to potential investors, who became so excited about the possibility of attracting him, they made their Series B funding round contingent upon his recruitment. Talk about pressure! By gaining the trust of the candidate, I too had moved from East to West, in similar circumstances, I managed to work through all his emotional concerns followed by negotiating through the practical challenges of a major relocation. The company received its funding and a year later, he has advanced the science beyond anyone’s expectations. And, he loves his new lifestyle in the Bay Area.

2. What would you say is the top attribute that makes J. Robert Scott more effective than other senior level search companies?

Intelligent creativity.

3. What international city do you find to be most interesting and why?

Prague, architecturally and historically fascinating. Even though located in heart of central Europe where wars raged for hundreds of years, the ancient heart center of the city remained undamaged, as though watched over and protected from harm. Consequently walking through the Old Town Square is truly an historic experience, one can almost feel the breaths of the people who have inhabited the city for over 600 years.

4. What do you consider to be the hardest challenge in finding the right candidate for your clients?

Managing client expectations, making sure from the outset that we are on a path to a solution, not a wild goose chase. Comes with experience in the business, learn the hard way, after 13 years now start out every search with reality checks.

5. What’s the last book you read and did you like it?

The Bone People by Keri Hulme.  Yes I long ago reached the point where I stopped reading books I don’t like. Loved the lyricism of the language, haunted by the unforgettably pained protagonists, touched by the raw emotion.