Described by colleagues as an original thinker and visionary leader, Pat Connelly is an entrepreneurial scientist and executive. Trained as a biophysical chemist, he created the 1st structural thermodynamics lab in the pharma industry, led it for 5 years, then co-founded and served as Chief Scientific Officer of a structure based drug design powered pharma company. Throughout his career, Pat continued to use biophysics to support drug discovery from his various R&D roles. Pat is well known as an enterprise-wide type of employee: from any position in the org chart, Pat works, by influence or assignment, to help companies create and execute innovative growth strategies and solve both complex transdisciplinary scientific problems and enterprise-wide organizational challenges. Versatility as a leader is one of his superpowers. He remains active in the broader biophysics community as a Scientific Advisor for biophysics-based companies, a university lecturer, and an editor for Biophysics Reviews.Pat served on the Global R&D Leadership Team responsible for management of Vertex’s research efforts for 12 years. He founded, built and for 10 years led the multidisciplinary 45-member global Materials Discovery & Characterization business unit where he and his staff co-invented three first-in-class medicines: INCIVEK® for hepatitis C and KALYDECO® and ORKAMBI® for cystic fibrosis, and co-authored the NDAs/CTDs leading to their regulatory approvals. His research and policy writings appear in Science, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Biophysics Reviews, Current Biotechnology, and Xconomy. In 2014, Connelly co-founded Vertex’s Corporate Innovation unit, VIER, and spearheaded the development of an innovation tournament called VOICE (Vertex Opportunities for Intrapreneurship & Corporation Evolution) that led to Vertex’s entry into Sickle Cell Disease and Beta Thalassemia. Pat helped manage the initial implementation of the SCD/beta-thal project as a member of the Vertex-CRISPR Therapeutics Joint Research Committee, a team that brought forth the first gene-editing medicine to be approved. Connelly also led the strategy team, reporting to the Executive Committee, that created the blueprint for Vertex’s expansion beyond its base of strength in small molecules into cell and gene therapies. Pat became a founding scientist at Vertex in 1990 following postdoctoral work in Chemistry at Yale University, graduate work in Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of Colorado, and undergraduate work at the University of Oxford and St. Michael’s College.