The role
We are rebuilding biotech for the AI era.
When a breakthrough is delayed, the world waits. Getting a molecule from discovery to patients, or a crop from lab to field, involves thousands of slow, manual, disconnected steps. AI has the potential to change this, compressing decades of R&D work into years. But that only happens when clean, structured scientific data and AI are built into how science gets done.
Benchling is the AI platform for biotech R&D. Scientists use Benchling to design experiments, capture structured data, and run AI agents and models directly in their workflows. Over 200,000 scientists around the world trust Benchling to power their most important work, from academic labs to Sanofi, Moderna, and more than half of the world's top 50 biopharma.
We’re building an AI scientist for our customers. We can’t do that if we haven’t built the muscle ourselves. AI fluency is the foundation we build on; it's core to how we work, and we're committed to helping every new hire integrate it into their day-to-day. As part of our interview process, you'll complete a brief AI-focused exercise or discussion so we can understand how you think about and use AI to drive impact in your role. Feel free to reference any tools, platforms, or workflows you use today.
ROLE OVERVIEW
The Head of Professional Services, EMEA is responsible for the growth and excellence of the professional services team in Europe. This individual will oversee an organization responsible for driving successful Benchling deployments, ensuring customer satisfaction, and maximizing the value clients derive from the company’s products. The role combines strategic leadership with hands-on execution to align services with business objectives and client needs.
This role is instrumental in partnering across the entire Customer Experience organization as well as the broader Sales teams to further Benchling’s growth. This role needs to draw on an innovative vision based on best-in-class enterprise software implementation practices, with a focus on results and high standards. This is a demanding yet rewarding role that will allow the right individual to make a significant impact within our growing company and in the life sciences industry.
RESPONSIBILITIES
- Delivery Leadership
- Own end-to-end delivery quality, timeline, and performance across EMEA Professional Services engagements
- Partner globally to set and enforce delivery standards for complex, validated, and regulated environments
- Serve as an escalation point for at-risk engagements, partnering with Customer Success and Support to resolve cross-functional customer issues
- Team & Org Building
- Lead, grow, and retain a distributed team across Europe, with a focus in Zurich and London/Cambridge
- Ensure that the team structure and incentive models hit utilization targets but also long-term relationship investments
- Build a strong bench through hiring, onboarding, and career pathing for implementation consultants and specialists
- Lead and develop managers to excellence
- Partner & Ecosystem Management
- Manage relationships with systems integrator and delivery partners supporting EMEA capacity, including performance oversight and quality accountability
- Determine where partner delivery capacity should be used vs. built in-house, and manage the transition points between the two
- Commercial Ownership
- Own SOW scoping, staffing forecasts, and financial performance for the EMEA PS book of business
- Partner with Sales on deal structuring for new implementations, expansions, and renewals with a services component
- Provide accurate capacity and revenue forecasting to leadership
- Customer & Executive Engagement
- Represent Professional Services in executive business reviews with enterprise pharma and biotech clients
- Build trusted relationships with technical and scientific stakeholders at customer organizations
- Champion the adoption of AI delivery practices within the PS team and with customers
QUALIFICATIONS
- 8+ years in professional services, implementation, or delivery leadership roles within enterprise software; life sciences, pharma, biotech, or scientific software strongly preferred.
- Ability to develop fluency with Biotech R&D processes and scientific concepts. Must be able to confidently interface and build trust with VP and C-Level Scientific & Research IT leaders in top Biotech and Pharma companies.
- Background developing a team that has proven technical, business or scientific, and consulting skills for delivery success.
- Proven experience leading distributed teams across multiple European countries, including navigating differing labor environments and travel/delivery cadences.
- Experience leading and developing a strong set of managers that own delivery quality and execution, as a second line leader.
- Direct experience managing delivery through third-party systems integrator partners, including holding partners accountable for quality.
- Strong commercial acumen: comfort owning SOW economics, margin, and forecasting
- Executive presence with technical and scientific buyers; ability to run high-stakes EBRs and escalations.
- Fluency in English required; additional European languages (German, French) a strong plus given the DACH and French-speaking customer base.
- Genuine enthusiasm for AI-enabled delivery models.
HOW WE WORK
We offer a flexible hybrid work arrangement that prioritizes in-office collaboration. Employees are expected to be on-site 3 days per week (Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday).
#LI-Hybrid
#BI-Hybrid
Benchling welcomes everyone.
We believe diversity enriches our team so we hire people with a wide range of identities, backgrounds, and experiences.
We are an equal opportunity employer. That means we don’t discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law, including but not limited to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.