The client seeks an accomplished senior leader to serve as Executive Director of the Animal Care & Use Program (ACUP). Reporting to executive research leadership, the Executive Director holds institution-wide responsibility for the strategy, performance, and integrity of the client’s animal research enterprise, which operates at significant scale across affiliated research environments. The ACUP is administered centrally by the client and encompasses animal care operations, veterinary clinical services, regulatory compliance and IACUC support, and comparative and translational pathology services.
The Executive Director serves as the single point of ownership for the ACUP’s operational stability, regulatory posture, veterinary leadership, and long-term readiness. This leader is expected to engage regularly with senior institutional officials, advising on animal research capacity, infrastructure needs, institutional risk, and strategic tradeoffs. The role also includes serving as, or overseeing, the Attending Veterinarian function, elevating veterinary authority and animal welfare decision-making into the client’s executive leadership framework.
This leadership role reflects the client’s view that leadership of animal research is central to its research enterprise and reputational responsibility. The successful candidate will bring judgment, credibility, and executive presence to steward a large, visible, mission-critical program, earning the confidence of faculty, researchers, staff, regulators, and senior leadership while enabling ethical, high-quality research at scale. The client may work with a national executive search firm to support recruitment and accept confidential inquiries, nominations, and applications through that process.