Theresa Smetona is Senior Vice President, Client Partnerships at The Higgins Group, where she advises founders, boards, and investors on R&D and clinical leadership across biotech and growth-stage companies. She works with clients across the US and abroad and recently spent nine months based in Berlin. She partners closely with leadership teams throughout a search, from defining the role to closing the right candidate.

Her route to search wound through a few other worlds first. She studied English and Spanish Literature, then spent several years abroad — including a stint with Spain’s Ministry of Education — before moving through operational management, an MBA at NYU, and strategy consulting on her way to executive search. Each stop sharpened a different instinct: an operator’s read on how teams actually function, consulting’s approach to structuring a hard problem, and an early grounding in language and culture that carries into the international reach of her network today.

Outside of work, Theresa sews and styles clothes — she’s a certified image consultant — and travels whenever she can. She’s also endlessly fascinated by psychology and what makes people feel fulfilled, and will happily go down that rabbit hole given the chance.