Lesley is Regional Vice President, Early Innovation Partnering at Johnson & Johnson Innovation, California. In this role, she leads identification, incubation, due diligence, negotiation, execution and on-boarding for high-impact partnerships and collaborations in external innovation. Lesley also oversees the regions partnership portfolio and is responsible for a wide range of dealmaking solutions including research collaborations, licensing options, venture investments, new company formations, and incubation to establish value-creating partnerships with promising early-stage innovators. Lesley’s career includes over 25 years of corporate development and organizational leadership in small and large companies in the biopharma industry. She has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Rochester and did her post-doctoral research in biochemistry at Harvard Medical School.