Senior Director / Vice President, Chemistry Experiment

Your Impact at LILA

The Head of Chemistry will lead Lila's chemistry organization, establishing the strategic direction and team leadership that enables Chemistry to drive impact across all of Lila's discovery and platform efforts. This leader will build an experimental chemistry function spanning organic and inorganic chemistry, molecules and nanoparticles, discovery and process chemistry, synthetic and analytical methods, and target technologies spanning medicines to industrial chemistry.

The Head of Chemistry will lead Lila’s experimental chemistry strategy in conjunction with senior advisors and will work closely with Lila's Product, AI, and Engineering leadership to establish AI-informing and AI-driven experimentation to address humankind’s greatest challenges. The successful candidate will cultivate the culture and scientific rigor that define excellence in chemistry at Lila and scale the Chemistry team to tackle the breadth of opportunities afforded by Lila’s development of scientific superintelligence.

The Head of Chemistry will report directly to the Chief Autonomous Science Officer, expanding Lila’s team of science, engineering, and business leaders.

Organization & Team Leadership

• Build and lead the growing chemistry organization to establish chemistry experimentation spanning organic and inorganic chemistries across molecular and nanoparticle modalities.
• Recruit, mentor, and develop high-performing chemists and leaders across all chemistry domains; establish and model a culture of scientific rigor, innovation, and collaboration.
• Define chemistry strategy, priorities, and organizational roadmap in partnership with Product, Autonomous Science, and AI leadership.
• Establish operational practices and standards that maintain scientific data quality and cross-functional collaboration.
• Own organizational development for Chemistry, including growth planning, capability roadmapping, and developing internal talent.
• Represent chemistry strategy, capabilities, and perspectives in executive stakeholder forums.

Chemistry Strategy & Innovation

• Lead the design of capabilities and execution of synthetic routes for automated high-throughput synthesis and characterization with deep AI integration
• Work with Product and AI to align the Chemistry autonomous science platform with the Commercial and Scientific Superintelligence roadmaps, respectively.
• Develop and implement efficient workflows for iterative design-make-test cycles in collaboration with AI and commercial teams.
• Partner closely with automation and platform teams to establish robotic and high-throughput chemistry capabilities that expand accessible chemical space and accelerate synthetic chemistry.

What You'll Need to Succeed

• PhD in Chemistry or a closely related discipline with 12+ years of experience in chemistry research
• Demonstrated excellence building and leading high-performing chemistry teams, including hiring, mentoring, and developing scientists across multiple levels.
• Deep expertise in molecular chemistry: synthetic organic/inorganic and nanochemistry, retrosynthesis, route design, and practical execution of complex multistep syntheses.
• Experience in process chemistry, formulation development, and analytical chemistry.
• Ability to evaluate synthetic feasibility alongside innovation potential to prioritize molecules and chemical series effectively.
• Experience defining chemistry strategy and priorities with a passion for cross-functional collaboration
• Experience working effectively in highly interdisciplinary environments spanning chemistry, materials science, biology, automation, and computational sciences.
• Track record of scientific leadership, program delivery, and translating discoveries to commercializable solutions.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; ability to translate chemistry depth into strategic clarity for diverse audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to build inclusive, high-trust team cultures that attract and retain top talent in competitive chemistry markets.

Bonus Points For

• Experience working in AI-enabled discovery environments or integrating computational design and machine learning insights into chemistry workflows.
• Experience building and scaling automated, robotics-enabled, or high-throughput chemistry platforms for molecular synthesis and optimization.
• Experience translating chemistry needs into platform requirements, including instrumentation selection, workflow design, and integration with automated systems.
• Broad understanding of molecular design principles across therapeutics and other small-molecule innovation areas.
• Experience operating in fast-paced, technology-driven environments where scientific creativity, speed, and cross-functional execution are critical.
• Prior leadership experience at a growth-stage chemistry, biotech, or other deep-tech company.