Life Sciences Strategy Consulting: Advancy Interview

Key Insights:

Pure Strategy In Life Sciences: Advancy focuses on upstream decisions (where to play, how to allocate capital, build vs. buy) rather than operating model redesign, which matters in life sciences because the cost of being wrong runs into hundreds of millions of stranded assets.
Capital Allocation Questions Dominating Biopharma & PE: Life sciences strategy leaders are wrestling with modality positioning (monoclonal antibodies, cell and gene, GLP-1s), portfolio strategy across the value chain, and geography and supply chain resilience in a post-overcapacity market.
What It Takes To Thrive At Advancy: Curiosity and comfort with rigor are the traits that separate consultants who succeed at Advancy from those who don't, with progression driven by individual contribution rather than tenure.

From intern in Advancy's Paris office to Principal leading the firm's Life Sciences practice in New York, Kim Basri's trajectory is a case study in what sustained ownership looks like inside a pure-play strategy firm.

In this interview with Management Consulted, Kim breaks down what "pure strategy" actually means in life sciences, the capital allocation questions biopharma and private equity leaders are wrestling with right now. She speaks to why intellectual honesty with clients is the one cultural trait Advancy won't compromise on – along with what it takes to thrive as the firm's New York office continues to grow.

Interested in working with Advancy? Reach out. In addition, the firm is hiring – explore openings.

Kim's Journey to Advancy

From Paris Intern to New York Principal

MC: Japheth Mast
Kim, it's great to have you back. A lot has changed since we last spoke – you've been promoted to Principal and you're now leading the Life Sciences vertical at Advancy. Can you walk us through the key phases of your trajectory?

Advancy: Kim Basri
Thank you – it’s great to be back.
I started at Advancy in Paris as an intern at the end of my master’s at emlyon, and then returned full-time as a Consultant. I spent my first three years as a generalist across consumer, automotive, and chemicals, which gave me a strong foundation.

In 2021, I transferred to New York as a Senior Consultant, at a time when the office was still very small. I was promoted to Manager in 2022 and Principal in 2024. Today, I lead the effort on the Life Sciences tools practice in New York.

Each step has been a shift in scope. As a Consultant, the focus is on analysis and problem-solving. As a Manager, it moves to team leadership and client ownership. As a Principal, the role becomes more upstream: shaping the right questions, defining the engagement, and driving the direction of the practice.

The Moment Advancy Became Long-Term

MC: Japheth Mast
You joined as an intern in 2018, and now we're talking in 2026. That's a long run in this industry. Was there a moment after your first few years where you knew Advancy was a place you could keep growing in for the long term?

Advancy: Kim Basri
There wasn’t a single defining moment, but the inflection point was my transition from Senior Consultant to Manager in New York. That’s when I saw the real scope for ownership – both in building the office and shaping the Life Sciences practice.

What kept me wasn’t the title progression, but the trajectory of the work. The scope continued to expand – from execution to ownership to defining direction. That’s not always the case in consulting, where roles can become repetitive at the Manager level. I haven’t experienced that here.

What Makes Advancy Different

Advancy in 2026: A Quick Introduction

MC: Japheth Mast
For readers who aren't yet familiar with the firm, how do you describe Advancy in 2026 and what it does best?

Advancy: Kim Basri
Advancy is a global pure-play strategy consulting firm, founded in Paris over 25 years ago, with a presence today across key markets in Europe, Asia, and the United States. We operate across three core sectors: life sciences, specialty materials and chemicals, and consumer and ingredients.

Our focus is the upstream part of strategy – helping clients answer fundamental questions around where to play, how to grow, and where to allocate capital. That includes evaluating adjacencies, assessing investment opportunities, and testing the robustness of strategic bets.

We work with corporates on growth strategy and with private equity on commercial due diligence, typically in situations where the stakes are high and the answer is not obvious.

What "Pure Strategy" Really Means in Life Sciences

MC: Japheth Mast
Advancy is known for being deeply strategy-focused. But "strategy" is one of those words that means everything and nothing in consulting. What does "pure strategy" actually look like inside a Life Sciences project?

Advancy: Kim Basri
That’s a fair point – “strategy” is often used too broadly. For us, it’s about decisions that precede execution: where to play, how to allocate capital, and whether to build or buy. We're not only redesigning your operating model. We're the firm that helps you decide whether the transformation is even pointing in the right direction.

And why does that matter so much in Life Sciences? Because the cost of being wrong is extremely high. Investing hundreds of millions in a manufacturing footprint that doesn’t scale as expected can result in stranded assets. The timelines are very long, the regulatory bar is high, and strategic mistakes can compound quietly for years before they show up in the numbers.

Just as importantly, strategy in this sector cannot be separated from technical reality. You can’t assess entry into monoclonal antibody manufacturing without understanding the underlying economics and process complexity. That integration of strategic thinking and technical depth is where Advancy tend to differentiate.

How International Mobility Actually Works

MC: Japheth Mast
You've now worked across multiple continents yourself, and international mobility comes up a lot when people talk about Advancy. How does it actually work in practice?

Advancy: Kim Basri
International mobility is a real part of how the firm operates – not just a line on a recruiting page. There are two formats.

The first is long-term relocation. At the Senior Consultant or early Manager level, consultants can move across offices with partner support. My own move from Paris to New York followed that path.

The second is short-term exchange, typically a few weeks to several months in another office. These exchanges are frequent, with consultants regularly staffed across offices. If you walked into our New York office, you would find consultants visiting from London, Paris or Singapore at the moment!

The impact on the work is significant. It allows us to bring in relevant expertise quickly across geographies, with knowledge effectively moving with the people. That's hard to fake at our size, and it's one of the things I think we do better than firms many times larger than us.

The Cultural Difference That's Hardest to Copy

MC: Japheth Mast
From your perspective as a leader, what's one aspect of Advancy's culture that truly differentiates it from other consulting firms?

Advancy: Kim Basri
I would say it's our commitment to intellectual honesty with clients. And I know that sounds like the kind of thing every consulting firm says, so let me be specific.

In practice, that means being willing to challenge the expected answer or not giving the client the answer they were hoping for. If a private equity firm hires us to look at a deal and the data tells us the asset is overpriced, we will say that.

Clients who value rigorous strategy work recognize that quickly – and they come back..

That posture is hard to copy because it has to be reinforced from the top of the firm down to the most junior consultant. Every time a partner backs an analyst who says "the data doesn't support that conclusion," the culture gets a little stronger. Over years, it really compounds into something that's genuinely different.

Life Sciences Thought Leadership

The Questions Life Sciences Leaders Are Wrestling With Right Now

MC: Japheth Mast
You lead the Life Sciences vertical at Advancy, so you're in front of these leaders constantly. What are the most common strategic questions you're hearing right now?

Advancy: Kim Basri
Most conversations ultimately converge on the same question: how to allocate capital over the next five to ten years in a rapidly shifting landscape. It typically breaks down into three areas.

The first one is about modality positioning in Biopharma. That includes selecting the right therapeutic areas – monoclonal antibodies, advanced therapies such as cell and gene, GLP-1s – as well as the appropriate formats to focus on (e.g., sterile injectables, oral dosage forms, etc.). Each of those bets has very different economics, and the gap between the players who bet right and the ones who don’t is widening.

Second, portfolio strategy and specifically, where to invest across the value chain. The focus is on identifying which segments are becoming more critical versus commoditizing, from reagents and analytical instruments to manufacturing equipment.

After a period of overcapacity and demand normalization, the market is rebalancing, and players are reassessing positioning based on differentiation, pricing power, and long-term demand. Investors are asking which pockets of the workflow are still attractive and which have been overbuilt.

Third, geography and supply chain resilience. The geopolitical picture has made this a board-level issue in a way it just wasn't five years ago. Clients are reassessing sourcing strategies, footprint exposure, with a focus on dual-sourcing and the nearshore versus reshore trade-off. The right answer depends very heavily on the specific category and value chain – there is no one-size-fits-all playbook.

The Mistake Life Sciences Companies Make Over and Over

MC: Japheth Mast
When you advise biotech or life sciences clients, what's one mistake you see companies make repeatedly – and how does Advancy help them avoid it?

Advancy: Kim Basri
The most common mistake is investing based on a partial view of the value chain. Companies anchor on the segment they know and extrapolate, without fully assessing how upstream or downstream dynamics reshape the economics.

A typical example is bioprocessing consumables. A company may target a fast-growing therapeutic area and assume the supporting tools will scale accordingly. But shifts in manufacturing or changes in regulatory standards can materially alter demand for specific inputs.

The key is to assess where value is actually created and how that evolves over time. Companies that take a full value chain view make better capital allocation decisions. Those that don’t often realize the gap only once performance deteriorates.

Trends That Will Separate Winners From Losers

MC: Japheth Mast
As you look ahead, what life sciences trends are you most excited about advising clients on? And which of those do you think will actually separate winners from losers?

Advancy: Kim Basri
The first is a shift from scientific innovation to manufacturing reality across biopharma. That includes cell and gene therapy, which has recently faced real challenges on cost and scalability, but also biologics and high-volume products like GLP-1s. The question is no longer “does it work?” – it’s “can we produce it at scale, at a cost the healthcare system can support?”

The second is the next wave of bioprocessing technology, focused around automation and control of the process. Beyond continuous and single-use systems, you’re seeing a strong push toward high-throughput analytics, real-time monitoring, and more automated, data-driven manufacturing.

Across both, the differentiator is manufacturing economics. In a capital-intensive industry, incremental gains in yield and throughput translate into durable cost advantages. Ultimately, competitive positioning is determined by the ability to translate scientific innovation into scalable, cost-efficient manufacturing.

Who Thrives at Advancy

The Candidate Profile That Works

MC: Japheth Mast
You're now in a position where you're hiring and shaping who joins the New York office. What kind of candidate tends to thrive at Advancy, and just as importantly, who tends to find the firm isn't the right fit?

Advancy: Kim Basri
First is curiosity. The work we do throws you into a new industry, client, technical topics every few weeks. If you are not genuinely fascinated by digging into things you've never seen before, this is going to be a hard place to work. People who thrive are those who go beyond applying frameworks and take the time to truly understand how things work.

The second is comfort with rigor. We do not take shortcuts and we expect teams to be able to defend their conclusions end-to-end. The people who do well are often those who engage with that level of scrutiny.

Where there tends to be less fit is for those looking for a highly structured environment with predictable progression. The firm moves quickly, expectations are high, and progression is driven more by individual contribution than on what year you joined.

What Has Personally Kept Kim at Advancy

MC: Japheth Mast
You've now been at Advancy for the better part of a decade. What has personally kept you here as you've grown from intern to Principal?

Advancy: Kim Basri
Three things, really.
First, the nature of the work. It has consistently evolved as I’ve grown in the firm – from execution to team leadership to shaping direction at the practice level. That progression has kept the role both challenging and engaging over time.

Second, the people. I really work with people I genuinely like and respect, who I learn from every day, and who I would happily go grab dinner with on a Friday night after we just finished a project together. That sounds like a small thing, but if you spend as many hours at work as we do, the quality of the people around you ends up being one of the biggest variables in whether the job is sustainable.

And third, the level of responsibility at every stage. As soon as I was ready to take on more, the firm gave me more. That kind of trust is really what keeps high-performing people from leaving, and it's something I'm now very conscious of extending to the people I manage.

One Piece of Advice for Prospective Consultants

MC: Japheth Mast
If you could leave prospective consultants with one piece of advice as they evaluate firms like Advancy, what would it be?

Advancy: Kim Basri
When you interview, pay close attention to the people you meet. Ask yourself whether these are individuals you want to learn from for the next five years, and whether they challenge you in the right way.

Brands matters of course, but the day-to-day experience of being a consultant is shaped almost entirely by the partners, principals, and managers you actually work with. In the long run, that’s what will drive both your development and your satisfaction.

Getting to Know Kim

MC: Japheth Mast
Before we wrap, a quick personal question. You've lived in several countries – what's one place (country or city) that surprised you the most, in a good way?

Advancy: Kim Basri
I would say New York. It might sound obvious, but it has genuinely lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. There’s a constant energy to the city, and it’s hard to ever feel bored. It’s a place that keeps you engaged, both personally and professionally.

MC: Japheth Mast
Kim, thank you so much for the conversation. It's been great catching up.

Advancy: Kim Basri
Thank you – it's been a pleasure.

Conclusion

Kim's path from Paris intern to New York Principal illustrates what's possible at Advancy for consultants who combine curiosity with rigor and a genuine appetite for ownership. From life sciences strategy and commercial due diligence to biopharma capital allocation and private equity advisory, the work is high-stakes, technically demanding, and consistently evolving.

For candidates looking to build deep sector expertise, work on decisions that matter, and grow inside a firm that expands your scope as fast as you're ready – Advancy is worth a close look. Click here to explore current openings at the firm. Not sure how to navigate the consulting interview process? See how our team can help.