Talent spotlight: Paddy’s journey in life sciences recruitment

Patrick Forster – aka Paddy – is the Vice President of our EU contract division. Based in London, he joined the team in October last year with 18 years of life sciences recruitment experience under his belt.  

Below we’ve outlined what drew him towards a career in life sciences recruitment, how he supports the industry, his role as Vice President of our EU contract division and why he loves doing what he does.  

For all our junior recruiters or people earlier on in their careers, Paddy’s story may act as inspiration for what you aspire to achieve, too.  

Paddy’s background  

Paddy is based in the UK and has been working in life sciences for going on 18 years. Before joining Meet Life Sciences, he was running a business called Hobson Prior (part of the Acacium group) which ran both contract and permanent divisions.  

His focus has been on scaling life sciences teams internationally, which he has already proved in his six months at Meet. Outside of work, Paddy’s a family-oriented person who spends his free time with his two young children and doing competitive activities.  

His role at Meet 

Paddy is the Vice President of our EU contract business, and his role is to lead and grow our European contract footprint. Since joining, he’s launched a new route to market with a team called Beyond R&D.  

“Beyond R&D is something I’m particularly proud of because we support life sciences businesses with non-traditional research and development or drug development-related positions. It focuses more on finance, tech, procurement and operational aspects – which has been a great challenge.” 

Why life sciences 

Paddy was drawn to life sciences in particular because of the immense impact the industry has on people. While he’s involved with the talent and hiring side, he feels proud to drive forward life sciences businesses by growing the teams that create lifechanging drugs, treatments and technologies.  

Losing his beloved grandfather to Parkinson’s made him realize the importance of enhancing diagnostic tools and developing new drugs that help catch diseases sooner and make struggling with health conditions that little bit easier. 

Supporting teams in the industry  

For Paddy, supporting teams in the industry looks like connecting the right companies with the right people at the right time. Although he and his team aren’t directly involved in the scientific part – he can remove bottlenecks for companies by making timely introductions. 

“Ultimately, we can help companies bring their drug or device to market faster.” 

Favorite moment so far  

According to Paddy, his favorite moment at Meet (so far) was when “we were presented with a problem from a client in terms of how we delivered our offering for an upcoming project, which meant we had to very quickly create a new tailored solution.” 

It involved collaborating with various areas of the business (finance, marketing and some especially experienced recruiters) and turning around something in just one working day. It led to a successful outcome (and one happy client), which was really fun and empowering for him to have been a part of.  

Challenges 

A challenge Paddy has faced since joining us is trying to implement processes which are both scalable and repeatable. Meet, as a business, is growing really quickly – and because of this, his goals have become less about doing deals day to day and more about structures.  

“So, whether that’s a delivery model, customer success, or some sort of contract management function, getting those right so that we can repeat business has been part of this challenge that’s been fun to take on.”  

Advice for someone considering a career in life sciences recruitment  

According to Paddy, if you’re considering joining Meet, “you’ve got to be prepared to work hard and remain agile – and ultimately proud to take ownership of your work,” because our business has a strong focus on building high performance cultures.  

With life sciences being an incredibly innovative field, you’ll also get to enjoy learning and sharing stories about lifechanging drugs and devices, which will definitely keep you interested.  

Meet is also a place that fosters long-term growth, with many employees having decade-long tenures (Laith Al-Hashimi, Rebekah Hill, Mike Newman, Matt Lowe-Lauri, and Paul Banks to name a few).  

And while Paddy didn’t grow his career with us, he can now continue to develop his role while helping others learn the ropes.  

Stay tuned for the next installment of our Talent Spotlight series. We’ll be interviewing people from all across the company and we're looking forward to sharing their exciting stories and journeys!  

And if you’re interested in joining the Meet team, please do reach out if you’d like to apply for any job vacancies or upcoming academies.