Finance & Accounting Consulting Solutions for Life Sciences | PPG Advisory Partners

By: Emma Morris

President, Executive Search

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PPG Advisory Partners (PPGAP), the Executive Search offering from Planet Pharma Group, recently announced consulting services focused on providing financial advisory and interim talent support to emerging life sciences organizations, from Accountant to CFO.

PPGAP welcomed Jesse Norton as Director of our Finance & Accounting Consulting Solutions in January 2022. Jesse holds a BS of Accounting from Graceland University and joins PPGAP with 15 years of Finance & Accounting Consulting experience.

Jesse Norton, Senior Director, F&A Consulting, PPG Advisory Partners

Jesse began his career as a Staff Accountant, and eventually moved into the resourcing solutions space. Over the span of 8 years, Jesse developed Robert Half’s regional accounting services in Southern California and helped launch their practice in Western Australia before accepting a role at K-force as Client Relationship Director for their Finance & Accounting division.

Over the last 4 years Jesse has been entrenched in the Life Sciences community, working for a publicly listed firm supporting quality, regulatory, and tech ops staffing.

Jesse brings a unique background and skillset to PPGAP’s offerings, and he is excited to partner with clients to support and advise their burgeoning finance groups.

With an industry expert network of talented interim CFOs and finance leaders, PPGAP and Planet Pharma work with pharma, biotech, and medical device/diagnostics organizations to provide interim Finance & Accounting resources and consulting experts with an unrivaled understanding of the industry.

 Our typical assignments:

• Fractional / Interim Chief Financial Officer
• Chief Accounting Officer (CAO)
• VP, Finance
• Controller
• Senior Accountant/Analyst
• Subject Matter Experts in SOX, Technical Accounting, and System Implementation/Improvements

What’s the need?

It is well publicized that capital investment into the Life Sciences and Healthcare space has seen unprecedent highs over the last 2-3 years. A new Bain & Co. report indicates that 2021 saw $151 billion invested in healthcare globally by private equity, more than two times higher than any previous year. Deal count was also up more than 35%.

Simply put, investment has reached highs never seen before with new company formations and “emergence from stealth mode” announcements seemingly every few days. With so many companies at early discovery stage and pre-revenue, they cannot afford to spend their backer’s money in the wrong areas. That includes hiring, arguably one of the biggest costs to a business, yet one of the most critical areas to get right. Hiring a costly CFO at such an early juncture should be a careful consideration, and a fractional CFO can be an efficient interim route to success. As a startup you get the benefit of veteran level leadership experience without the costly price-tag that comes with an executive level compensation package including sign-on bonuses and significant equity allocations.

Engaging a team like PPGAP will provide you with immediate access to a network of industry-seasoned finance leaders to provide maturity to your finance operations and help secure the next round of funding. Bringing expertise to your team in a cost and time efficient way can enormously impact your trajectory and enable favorable conditions to scale up to a permanent CFO when the time is right.

How can PPG Advisory can help you?

 Our on-demand leaders and staff can support entire FP&A activities, including:

• Audit prep and management
• Preparation for IPO
• Reverse mergers and divestitures
• Corporate restructures
• M&A transactions
• SOX compliance & implementations

We love networking and are always happy to give straight-forward advice on what we can do to support your business.

For more information, please reach out to me directly, or contact Jesse himself at jnorton@ppgadvisorypartners.com.

PPG Advisory Partners is the Executive Search and Consulting offering from Planet Pharma. We provide executive search, strategic consulting, and interim financial talent to life sciences companies across the globe. We combine the breadth of The Planet Group’s consulting and recruiting solutions with ProPharma Group’s life sciences expertise. Plus, our sister company, Planet Pharma, is also available for non-executive hiring needs.