Founder & Partner
With the life sciences industry well into year five of a sustained downturn, one hot topic among leaders is how to survive difficult market conditions. It’s something I’ve thought a lot about as I launched Catalyst Advisors during the onset of the financial crisis in the spring of 2008.
The single most important thing I’ve learned about business resilience is the importance of perspective: learning quickly from mistakes, staying grounded in what matters, and viewing setbacks as opportunities. When things go south, you have to be ready to pivot to make it better: It sounds obvious, but it can be highly challenging to execute in the moment.
For me, over the past 17 years of running Catalyst Advisors, that perspective has been shaped (sometimes the hard way) in three main areas that I’ve found are so critical to the smooth functioning of a company: talent, culture, and strategic agility.
Talent
Our company is in the business of assessing and recruiting top talent for life sciences firms, and we know well that finding the right leader can define a company’s trajectory. But when it’s time to hire for our own firm, we have learned that expertise can be a double-edged sword. Like many in this industry, we grow close to the candidates, develop narratives about their fit, and risk falling prey to bias.
Early mistakes, where high IQ or strong commercial instincts blinded us to gaps in emotional intelligence or culture fit, led us to adopt an important practice: We now use a third-party to evaluate all key hires.
Relying on an external expert gives us honest feedback and makes us confront uncomfortable truths we might ignore if left to our own devices. The costs of mis-hiring are vast—lost productivity, diminished morale, and sometimes, unwanted turnover. The discipline of independent evaluation keeps us honest and ensures each addition is a genuine fit.
Culture
It’s a myth that a strong culture is built by the senior team, handed down for all to follow. The past 17 years have proven to me that cultural alignment is owned by the team. It happens when people at every level feel responsible for the firm’s mission and for one another. Our highest-performing years were those where collaboration, accountability, and support thrived at the most junior levels.
We have a matrixed structure where anyone at the firm can end up working with anyone else. There isn’t a hierarchy. Everyone on a particular project knows their responsibility and those of their project mates. This helps ensure that everyone is aligned, which, in turn, builds culture. Stated another way: There is no place to hide if you don’t believe in the company’s bigger mission.
On occasion, that has meant tough departures. But we learned that letting go sooner is better for everyone; holding on to an employee who doesn’t belong does more harm than good. In the long run, when corporate culture is authentic, people stay through downturns because they believe in the group, not just the paycheck.
Agility
Launching in a recession meant being nimble or being gone. We learned to routinely question every part of the business model and refused to fall in love with ideas just because we’d invested in them. Even in flusher times, we try to be ruthlessly pragmatic. When a new market expansion idea falls short, we pull the plug quickly.
For example, some lines of business, especially at the mid-level of executive recruitment, simply weren’t profitable, and we learned to say no even when cash flow was tight. At one point, we tried working with pharma service businesses, but quickly realized that wasn’t our area of expertise.
We also avoid being early adopters. We prefer a wait-and-see approach to emerging technology like AI rather than gambling the firm’s resources for the sake of appearing innovative. For us, agility isn’t about chasing the latest fad; it’s about following and learning fast.
Our company was born in a crisis, and the playbook for survival hasn’t changed much: watch costs and negotiate ruthlessly. But there’s more to surviving a protracted slump than thrift. During the most difficult years, I’ve seen that the willingness to “do tonight what could be done tomorrow” is what gets a business through.
The leaders also must protect stability for the team. That means, for example, cutting a few jobs instead of slashing everyone’s salary, and sacrificing partner income before staff. Some years, our partners took little pay so that employees wouldn’t have to bear the financial volatility. Above all, survival means getting everyone pulling in the same direction.
The most humbling lesson after 17 years? Everything you’ve built is fragile. Disruption can come from anywhere: markets, regulation, or competitors. The constants need to be adaptability, honest self-reflection, and the shared determination of a committed team. If you’re lucky, those foundational pillars can see you through. If you don’t have those constants—good luck!