From Animal Nutrition to Regulatory Affairs - A Q&A with Guy Shipman, Team Lead

How long have you worked at i-Pharm Consulting and what are the main responsibilities of your role?

I have worked at i-Pharm since September 2019, so almost three years now. I’m basically an old-timer here now! I recruit into the Regulatory Affairs market within Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology, and Medical Devices and I used to do a bit of Medical Writing as well. I was recently promoted to Team Lead and have been managing a trainee for the past 3 months.

Tell us a bit about your Functional Specialism

Regulatory Affairs involves getting drugs approved and maintaining the licenses and the entire process. Of course, drugs must be licensed otherwise you would see all sorts of dangerous drugs being sold, so there must be regulations there and laws around that. We work with some of the biggest Biotechnology companies and Contract Research Organisations.

How did you get to where you are now?

I left university and went travelling and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a football agent but I couldn’t get into it. The next best thing was Sports Marketing and one day I submitted an application for a Sports Marketing role and the next day I got called in for an interview with a rec to rec. They then told me the role I applied for had nothing to do with Marketing, it was actually a recruitment role. I sat down with my first company and got along with them really well, so ended up recruiting into the Animal Nutrition industry for 14 months. I then left and tried to start my own recruitment business but it didn’t work out, so I met up with the guys here at i-Pharm back in 2019. I had a tough start here; I think it took me 4 months to make my first placement which was a long time when I had people in my team making crazy money. My first year was okay and then last year took off and I received my promotion to Senior Consultant in August and things have continued and here I am today.

What do you enjoy most about working at i-Pharm?

There’s quite a good personality about the group, everything just feels like it’s improving. Everything always seems very positive. We recently moved into a great new London office so it’s really nice going out for drinks with the team after work. It’s a really cool international company. When I first joined we had offices in Sydney, New York, London and Munich. Since then, we’ve opened offices in Frankfurt, Charlotte, Los Angeles and  San Diego very soon. Everything is an upward trend and everyone’s super cool.

What do you think makes your team a success?

My team is very young at the moment and we’re quite different to a lot of the other teams because we’re pretty newly formed. We had some new consultants join as well so everyone’s gelling and getting to know each other. Everyone’s very experienced in my team, we have a lot of 360 consultants and some people like myself have quite a lot of inbound business whereas a lot of people in my team rely on outbound business. Everyone is pretty well-rounded and hardworking, confident and knows the job well.

What have been your proudest achievements, individually and as a team?

Qualifying for the Big Billers Trip was something that meant a lot for me as all the senior people around me had previously qualified for it, so it was nice to be like I’m one of these guys now! My promotion to Team Lead was also a massive achievement.

What’s something about you (a fun fact) that not many people know?

I’m a twin. My parents split up when I was younger and my dad remarried and then had another set of twins, so I’m one of two sets of twins within my family. I’m not identical with my twin brother, I’m much better looking than him.

What would you do (for a career) if you weren’t in recruitment?

Football agent or a Sous-chef.

If you could meet anyone, living or dead, who would you meet?

Mac Miller as I thought he was quite a cool guy and he made great music.

What advice do you have for someone who wants to get into recruitment?

It depends on when you’re asking this question. If it was someone who was sat down with me in an interview for the very first conversation that they were having about recruitment, I’d say you have to have an interest, you have to have a passion to do it and you have to have the desire. Everyone that you will talk to in the sales team here speaks about work nonstop. Everyone’s super hungry, super switched on and you have to make yourself enjoy it. You have to have the desire to want to do well and join a good company where you are happy and you enjoy the good work.

Check out our Careers Site for more information on life at i-Pharm.