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An open letter from the CEO of RDI. September 2026.
I am writing this letter to attract people who want to join our company for the right reasons: they find our work meaningful and want to become good at solving our clients' problems.
Who we are
The market knows us as a CRO, or contract research organization for in vitro diagnostics (IVDs). The label is broad, though: it can refer to a staffing agency or an outsourced team that bills by the hour to manage clinical trials. Neither model necessarily rewards finishing a trial with fewer people or in less time. We understand why: finishing a trial quickly means having to find the next one quickly too.
We view it as our duty to run each trial efficiently. We also believe that if we run each trial as if it were our own, clients will come back to us.
So far, it is working. We grew revenue fivefold in the last eighteen months and have more client requests than we can fulfill.
We are hiring so we can accept more of these requests and execute them at the quality our clients expect. We know many of the people behind these requests; in some cases we have worked with them for years and helped launch their careers. Saying no to them is hard.
Our problem
Normally a job posting would work, but our industry is built around specialization. The secret to our success is that we do not let specialization define us.
No job posting could describe this role, because no one arrives already doing it. People become RDI operators by expanding beyond their expertise and learning our way. This letter explains what that means and whether you could become one.
Fig. 1. You enter through the discipline you know.
It takes someone who is excellent at solving root problems, not just the problem in their department. An RDI operator is resourceful and rigorous at the same time.
Resourceful means drawing on your intelligence and experience, then recognizing when those are not enough. You develop, create, or recruit the expertise you need. Often that means going to first principles: the FDA regulations, the protocol, the medical use of a test, and the underlying science that makes it work. When the protocol and the device labeling disagree, you read both, and the regulation, before you decide.
Rigorous means developing a robust answer, not just a surface solution. Your solution works for the doctor, patient, IRB, and sponsor, complies with regulations, and fits within our budget or the client’s. Before a change goes to every site, you try it at one and listen to the coordinator.
The first two RDI operators
This sounds like a lot. RDI has already developed two operators, from different backgrounds.
I am the first. I acquired RDI from its founder in 2017. He expected me to run it as CEO, but I spent years learning the business from him.
There was no shortcut, not even for the CEO. I learned by writing my own protocol, making collection kits on a kitchen table, and handling the IRB and sites myself. I handled parts of each study for years. Each time I learned something, I improved it and encoded it for the future. That led us to build our own software to run trials, our physician outreach engine and network, and our own CLIA high-complexity lab.
The second is Lara Flores, our Chief Operating Officer. When she joined as VP of Operations, she came with a background closer to our work than mine. She was an assay validation scientist and had led clinical trial labs. She still had a humbling first few months. She sat in a corner chair in my office for six months while we took apart and rebuilt her first drafts of protocols, case report forms, IRB submissions, kit designs, project updates, and more.
We still argue about who found it more painful.
But oh my god did it work.
Lara took over operations from me and built a team under her. She expanded our US office and lab team and built an office in the Philippines. Along the way, she helped define the “RDI way”: the operating standards behind how a small underdog company was fixing trials for some of the biggest companies in the world.
We want to develop the next RDI operators.
The RDI way
The RDI way is to take the study outcome personally. We stay close to the sites, kits, samples, instruments, and source records, because that is where problems become visible and where they can be solved.
It is why we go through the effort of managing our own software, network, and lab.
We believe the industry needs a CRO that works this way. It is not theoretical: we are helping bring diagnostics to physicians and patients sooner and more affordably.
Who we are looking for
We are looking for someone who could grow into leading a substantial part of operations in 12–18 months. The shape of that role will follow the work you prove you can own. We are also looking for individual contributors in project management, data management, software engineering, and clinical monitoring. As we grow, finance, HR, and administrative work will need the same kind of ownership.
This is full-time, in-person work at our lab in Van Nuys. Like a venture accelerator, we bring people together to learn by working through real problems. You will work beside Lara, me, the project team, and the lab, with the kits, samples, and records close at hand.
Ideally, you have a reason to care deeply about the problems we solve in diagnostic trials. My father was a physician running clinical trials, so I saw the friction firsthand. Lara saw the barrier between an assay working in a lab and reaching the physicians who needed it for their patients.
Your reason might come from diagnostics, clinical operations, a lab, a research site, or a biotech startup. Whatever your background, you take pride in your craft and have seen problems that your organization was unwilling or unable to solve.
The individual contributor roles start with a narrower field. You own meaningful outcomes in your discipline and learn how your work affects the rest of a study. The standard is the same: understand the problem, do the work, and take responsibility for the outcome.
Fig. 2. You start with a discipline. Your judgment grows as you learn to see and improve the whole study.
You will learn the way Lara and I did: by doing enough of the work yourself to understand how a study holds together. You will have the benefit of two coaches, so the learning curve should be slightly less steep.
The goal for a future operations leader is to run studies, then build a team that can uphold our standards without Lara or me in every decision.
We will pay you fairly, enough to be comfortable and focus on building with us. You may earn less in a given year than you could at a larger company, but we will share the value you create. Ownership is available for the right people.
It happened for Lara, who joined as VP of Operations and is now an owner and partner. We have hired college graduates and doubled their salaries within two years. We cannot know today what your stake could become. It is a bet we will make together.
Next steps
If this resonates with you, learn more about us. Watch our videos, read our blog, and explore our website. Do your homework on whether this is work you can care deeply about and become good at.
If you think there is a chance, reach out. Tell us about a problem you could not leave alone: what you saw, what you did, and what happened. We will start with a conversation, then a working session in Van Nuys with the people you would work beside.
Conall Arora
CEO, RDI
Research & Development Institute, LLC · 16760 Stagg Street, Unit 209, Van Nuys, CA 91406