Meet Julien Willard.

Willard is a corporate strategy and M&A advisor with expertise in deal diligence, financial analysis, and organizational transformation. He works directly with strategy, corporate development, and finance teams – and VC/PE investors – to drive decisive action on complex transactions and competitive challenges.

Julien Willard, M.D., M.P.H., is a corporate strategy and M&A advisor who works at the intersection of deal execution, competitive intelligence, and organizational transformation in biotech, pharma, and medical devices.

He currently leads research and investment diligence at BioPalace, overseeing commercial assessments and deal structuring for biotech royalty investments and advising international life sciences companies on U.S. market entry and business development strategy.

Previously, Willard was Partner and Head of Strategy at IBM Consulting’s life sciences group, where he led M&A transactions ranging from $500M to $10B+ – covering commercial due diligence, valuation modeling, and integration planning – and delivered $1B in gross cost savings through enterprise-wide restructuring for major pharma and medtech clients. Additionally, he led several programs at the intersection of corporate stategy and artificial intelligence transformation in R&D, clinical development and commercial.

Before IBM, he was Director in a Corporate and Technology Strategy at Accenture Strategy, where he advised five biopharma companies with $35 billion in capital deployment capacity on portfolio strategy and deal prioritization, and supported seven M&A transactions that generated above-market returns. Willard delivered three large scale programs at the intersection of business strategy and public cloud transformation.

Earlier in his career, Willard was a Senior Health Economist at the World Bank, where he helped structure over $1.2 billion in cross-border M&A and strategic partnerships and led pre-IPO advisory engagements across emerging markets.

His earlier government and international roles as a foreign intelligence professional across the US, UK, Europe, Africa, and Asia gave him hands-on experience in regulatory navigation, market access strategy, and cross-border deal dynamics in some of the world’s most complex markets.

Willard has published in the Harvard Business Review and the World Economic Forum, and is a recipient of the World Bank President’s Award for Excellence and the Melinda Gates Leadership Award. He is a Visiting Scholar at UCLA and serves on board of Southern California Fair Housing Association. In 2024, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to the World Business Angels’ forum on biotech investments.