March 1, 2022, Toronto, CANADA  — BenchSci, a global leader in machine learning applications for novel medicine development, today announced that former Netflix Chief of Talent Jessica Neal has joined its advisory board. She will counsel the company as it builds an inspiring, inclusive, and equitable work environment while in hypergrowth.

Jessica Neal is a Venture Partner with TCV,  working closely with the investment team and portfolio companies. TCV co-led BenchSci’s Series C $63 million funding round with Inovia Capital earlier this year.  An experienced operational leader who has built teams and cultures at scale, Neal was most recently the Chief Talent Officer at Netflix. She spent over 11 years there, helping to scale the team and culture to pivot from shipping physical DVDs to streaming content globally. Previously, Neal was the Chief People Officer for Scopely and the Head of People for Coursera.

“We are honored to have Jessica join our advisory board,” says Liran Belenzon, CEO, BenchSci. “In this year alone, we expect to grow from 200 to 400 people, and what made us a great place to work before needs to be adapted for our exponential growth. We value and believe in success beyond success, which means not just achieving financial success but building a company of which we’re proud. This means having the right culture and we are excited to leverage Jessica’s experience so we can achieve that at scale.”

Neal has been instrumental in building experiences where people are invested in and feel valued. This will be relevant as BenchSci doubles in size to focus on the expansion of its transformative AI-powered software platform that accelerates research in 16 top-20 pharmaceutical companies. 

“We have been impressed with BenchSci’s growth and the unique culture they have created,” says Neal. “BenchSci plays an important role in curating and contextualizing healthcare data to increase productivity in the preclinical research process, and I look forward to supporting Liran and his team as they scale the business and team while preserving that special culture. I’m excited to apply my experience helping companies at major inflection points accelerate their growth.”  

As BenchSci evolves its platform to help leading pharmaceutical companies solve their biggest R&D challenges, its advisory board provides strategic input and guidance on their respective areas of expertise. Neal joins science advisors Steve Hitchcock, Global Head of Research at Takeda Pharmaceuticals; Philip Larsen, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Research at Bayer Pharmaceuticals; and Philip Tagari, Vice President of Research (Therapeutic Discovery) at Amgen. BenchSci's advisory board also includes technology advisors Milind Kamkolkar, CDO at Cellarity, and Richard Zemel, Research Director at Vector Institute.

For more BenchSci updates, visit our News page. For more about our advisory board, visit our Advisors page

 

About BenchSci

BenchSci’s vision is to bring novel medicine to patients 50% faster by 2025. We’re achieving it by empowering scientists with the world’s most advanced biomedical artificial intelligence. Backed by top-tier investors including Inovia Capital, TCV, F-Prime, Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI fund), and Golden Ventures, our platform accelerates science at 16 top-20 pharmaceutical companies and over 4,500 leading research centers worldwide. We’re a remote-first Deloitte Tech Fast 50 and CIX Top 10 Growth company, certified Great Place to Work®, and top-ranked company on Glassdoor. Learn more at www.benchsci.com.