In mid-2024, Outlook Therapeutics was a pre-commercial biotech at an inflection point. LYTENAVA™ had just received regulatory approval in the EU and U.K. as a treatment for wet age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of vision loss. The company needed a commercial team in Europe, fast.
Building a global hiring infrastructure
My background wasn’t in life sciences. I spent 15 years in nonprofit and education — environments where resources were tight, stakes were high, and you couldn’t buy your way out of a bad hiring process. You had to build something that actually worked. No agencies as a crutch. No throwing budget at the problem. Just lean, durable systems designed to make great hiring repeatable. That discipline is what I brought with me when I entered life sciences in 2022.
When I joined Outlook Therapeutics, the HR and talent acquisition (TA) infrastructure was mine to build from the ground up, including figuring out how to staff a commercial launch across three European markets simultaneously. Filling roles in the U.S. was one thing. Building a team across Germany, Switzerland, and the U.K. during an active product launch was another challenge entirely.
Working with an employer of record (EOR) over entity setup and agencies
My philosophy has always been simple: Don’t take the easy, expensive route when a smarter one exists.
Setting up legal entities in three European countries would have taken months and significant capital, neither of which we had during a launch window. Agencies would have cost a fortune and given us less control.
That same mindset is what led me to G-P. ADP had already referred G-P to Outlook Therapeutics before I joined. And once I got familiar with the platform, I quickly understood why.
G-P EOR let us hire compliantly in Germany, Switzerland, and the U.K. without entities, without agencies, and without slowing down.
Hiring in a new country that once took months is now done in days. We save 25–50% on entity setup alone. And today, all our international onboarding runs through G-P, so everything stays consistent without me as the compliance backstop across four markets.
Navigating global employment laws and compliance in Europe
I’ve built hiring infrastructure across very different industries and worked with a lot of tools. What I didn’t expect from G-P was the level of in-the-moment support.
When you’re hiring in Germany or Switzerland for the first time, questions about local employment law, payroll requirements, and compliance obligations come up often, and fast. G-P’s customer service isn’t a ticket queue. It’s real-time, knowledgeable, and exactly what you need when you’re moving quickly in an unfamiliar market.
The in-the-moment support within G-P is unmatched and exactly what you need when you're moving quickly in an unfamiliar market. I didn’t expect that level of support, and it made a real difference.
My advice for other TA leaders building a global team
If you’re at a pre-commercial or early-stage company preparing for international expansion, here’s what I know from doing it: You don’t need agencies. You don’t need entities in every market. You need a durable infrastructure and the right partner to make it work.
G-P became a core part of that infrastructure and a big piece of how I built a hiring function that could move fast, stay compliant, and deliver results without defaulting to the expensive, slow routes everyone assumes are necessary.
The best hiring functions aren’t built by people who only know one way. They’re built by leaders who’ve had to be creative and disciplined when the easy answers weren’t available.
G-P gave me one less thing to figure out the hard way.