Talent Talkbox
Talent Talkbox
Podcast Description
Talent Talkbox is the podcast dedicated to exploring the evolving world of talent acquisition in the life sciences industry. In each episode, we connect with talent leaders, hiring experts, and industry innovators who are shaping future-ready workforces in biotech, pharma, CDMO, and CRO sectors.
We uncover transformative approaches, and innovative hiring practices that are redefining how life sciences organizations attract, retain, and develop top talent. Through insightful conversations and inspiring stories, you'll gain actionable takeaways to enhance your own hiring practices.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast focuses on topics related to talent acquisition, such as innovative hiring practices, talent intelligence, recruitment technology, and the impact of AI on hiring. Episodes include themes like the role of learning and development as an enabler of talent acquisition, and strategies for attracting Generation Z talent. Specific examples include discussions on how to use talent intelligence to enhance recruitment strategies and integrate AI in the hiring process.
Elevate is the podcast from Vector Talent bringing you honest conversations with women leading the way in pharma services.
Each episode goes beyond the CV. We talk to senior figures across CDMOs, CROs, Biotech and the wider pharma services sector about how they’ve built their careers, the challenges they’ve navigated, and what it really takes to lead in this industry.
No generic career advice. Just candid, experience-led conversations from women who are shaping one of the most complex sectors in the world.
In this episode of Elevate: Women Leading the Way in Pharma Outsourcing, host Marianne Gissane speaks with Susan D’Costa, Chief Technical and Commercial Officer at Genezen, about building a career through serendipity, learning to be comfortable with failure, and why representation matters at every level of seniority.
Susan traces her path from a self-described “medical school reject” studying microbiology in Mumbai, through a PhD in virology at Texas Tech and fourteen years in Rich Condit’s lab at the University of Florida, to a chance conversation that led her into gene therapy manufacturing at Florida Biologix. From there she moved through Brammer Bio and Thermo Fisher Scientific into technical sales, then to Alcyone Therapeutics, before joining Genezen as Chief Technical and Commercial Officer. She talks openly about the mentors who shaped her, the leap into quality control she nearly turned down, and the husband who kept asking her one question: what’s the worst that could happen?
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why treating a career as “serendipitous” doesn’t rule out being deliberate about which risks are worth taking
- How summarising a conversation back to the room helps you, and everyone else too nervous to ask, actually keep up
- Why having more than one woman in a leadership meeting changes what gets said and what gets heard
- What her husband’s constant question, “what’s the worst that can happen”, taught her about learning to fail
- Why she treats mentoring students and postdocs on LinkedIn as a genuine pay it forward rather than a favour
“You gotta say, ‘shut up, Bruno,’ and move forward a little bit stronger.”
Susan D’Costa
Susan D’Costa is Chief Technical and Commercial Officer at Genezen, a gene and cell therapy CDMO, where she leads AAV process development and manufacturing. She holds a PhD in virology from Texas Tech University and spent over a decade in academic research at the University of Florida before moving into CDMO leadership roles at Florida Biologix, Brammer Bio, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Alcyone Therapeutics.
She’s known for bringing technical rigour and a strong sense of mentorship to every role she’s held, treating support for other women and immigrants in the industry as central to how she leads rather than a side project.
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