Brian Wilson
Head of Human Resources Ventus Therapeutics
Brian Wilson is Head of Human Resources at Ventus Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing small molecule therapies for autoimmune, inflammatory, and neurological disorders. He joined Ventus in 2022 and has led the organization’s HR function through a period of significant scaling and strategic workforce realignment, guiding the company through the current market’s toughest financing conditions while maintaining strong employee engagement. Before Ventus, Brian spent over two years as Senior Director of Human Resources at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and held HR and organizational leadership roles at EMD Serono and Johnson & Johnson. He holds an MBA from Boston College’s Carroll School of Management.
Seminars
- How do you determine the right operating model for your discovery function, and know when the moment has arrived to shift resources from discovery to clinical development?
- Learn how Ventus Therapeutics reduced its organization from around 100 employees to 35 in 2025, scaling down its discovery function to protect the clinical trial budget as financing conditions tightened for a pre-catalyst biotech
- Discover how full transparency with employees about the organization’s likely trajectory, and a shift toward equipping people for their next opportunity rather than promising a long-term one, helped Ventus retain talent through the reduction with almost no attrition, even where discovery staff saw little value in their equity
This interactive Q&A explores how to protect engagement and critical talent through M&A integration and function wind-downs alike.
- Managing a deal’s full arc, from due diligence through post-merger integration, with employee experience as the deciding factor
- Knowing when to shift resources from one function to another as priorities change
- Using full transparency about an organization’s likely trajectory to retain talent through uncertainty
