CREO, a Durham, North Carolina-based management consulting firm deeply embedded in the life sciences ecosystem, has named Matthew Klein as its next Chief Executive Officer. The appointment marks a distinct operational shift for the firm, which partners with biotech, biopharma, medtech, and pharma services companies to manage growth, regulatory hurdles, and technological integration. After operating as a founder-led boutique since its inception in 2015, CREO is crossing the threshold into a scaled, institutionalized consulting platform. Klein steps into the chief executive role to drive this next phase of expansion, allowing co-founders Susan Acker-Walsh and Mike Townley to transition into senior executive consultant roles. This move allows the founders to focus directly on strategic client engagements and deepen the firm’s roots in the Research Triangle Park market, while handing the operational reins to an executive built for scale. For a region that relies heavily on specialized infrastructure to advance its biotech pipelines, CREO’s expansion signals a maturation of the local support ecosystem.
About Matthew Klein
When a founder-led boutique brings in outside executive leadership, it signals a specific type of inflection point in the company’s lifecycle. The firm has outgrown its original infrastructure and requires a leader whose expertise lies in scaling operations, productizing offerings, and building repeatable growth engines. That is exactly the mandate Matthew Klein assumes at CREO. Backed by Grant Avenue Capital, a healthcare-focused middle-market private equity firm, CREO is shifting its posture from a regional powerhouse to a broader institutional platform. Klein’s objective is to build the operational scaffolding necessary to support clients through every stage of their development, ensuring the firm can handle increased volume and complexity without losing the hands-on delivery model that built its reputation in the first place.
Klein arrives from North Highland, a global change and transformation consultancy, where he spent over a decade navigating the exact scaling challenges CREO now faces. Most recently serving as Senior Managing Director, Chief Customer Officer, and Global Head of Life Sciences, he was instrumental in repositioning the firm’s life sciences practice into one of its highest-growth business units. In the consulting world, life sciences is notoriously difficult to scale—it requires a delicate balance of deep therapeutic subject matter expertise and rigorous, standardized business processes. Klein proved adept at managing this tension, driving both client-facing strategy and internal operational maturity.
His tenure at North Highland was defined by enterprise-level operational shifts. Serving previously as Chief Marketing Officer and later as Chief Operating Officer, Klein built the firm’s demand generation capabilities, restructured commercial operations, and drove profitability improvements across a global footprint. This dual capacity to manage both the commercial front-end—how a firm wins business—and the operational back-end—how a firm profitably delivers that business—is what makes his transition to CREO a logical fit for an organization looking to institutionalize its growth following private equity investment.
“Matt is a proven business builder,” said Brian Berkin, Partner at Grant Avenue Capital and CREO Board Member. “Throughout our search, he stood out for his ability to move smoothly between strategy and execution, his deep experience scaling consulting businesses, and his vision and conviction for CREO’s future.”
Before his decade-long run at North Highland, Klein’s career trajectory spanned global marketing, strategy consulting, and executive search. He served as Senior Vice President and Head of Global Marketing and Communications for Aon Benfield, a multibillion-dollar division of Aon operating in more than 50 countries. Earlier roles included strategy consulting with Zyman Group and A.T. Kearney, following a start in executive search with DHR International. It is a career built on understanding how large organizations structure their talent, market their capabilities, and execute complex transformations. That breadth of experience is critical for a CEO who will be advising life sciences companies on how to manage their own rapid growth and organizational change.
For Klein, the move to Durham-based CREO represents an opportunity to take the helm of a highly specialized firm at the exact moment it is ready to scale. He noted his admiration for the firm’s unique position in the market, pointing to the caliber of its people and the trust it has earned from blue-chip clients. “Susan, Mike and this team have built something special,” Klein shared in the recent announcement. “I’m honored to join them and excited to help scale the firm’s platform for the companies and investors working to bring new therapies and technologies to patients.”
Meanwhile, the leadership transition allows Acker-Walsh and Townley to return to the work that defined the firm’s early days. By stepping into Senior Executive Consultant roles, they will focus entirely on client delivery and expanding CREO’s footprint within the Research Triangle Park ecosystem. “Bringing in a CEO of Matt’s caliber is the culmination of a plan we set in motion when we partnered with Grant Avenue,” the founders noted, emphasizing that the move allows them to devote themselves fully to client results while Klein builds the platform that will carry the firm forward.
About CREO
Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, CREO is a management consulting firm dedicated to catalyzing growth across the life sciences ecosystem. The firm partners with biotech, biopharma, medtech, contract research organizations, contract development and manufacturing organizations, and pharma services companies, alongside their investors. By focusing exclusively on the life sciences sector, CREO has developed a nuanced understanding of the regulatory, technological, and operational hurdles that companies face as they push therapies and devices toward the market.
CREO organizes its expertise across five core practice areas: Strategy, Growth and Transformation; Technology Strategy and Solutions; AI and Data Sciences; IT Managed Services; and Quality and Regulatory Consulting. This comprehensive suite of services allows the firm to act as a holistic partner. Whether a clinical-stage biotech needs to overhaul its IT infrastructure to support data-heavy AI applications, or a CDMO requires rigorous quality and regulatory consulting to prepare for commercial manufacturing, CREO provides the necessary strategic and operational support.
Recognized for a highly practical, roll-up-your-sleeves approach to client delivery, the firm has established itself as a critical infrastructure partner in the Research Triangle Park region and beyond. This sustained performance and commitment to tangible client outcomes have earned CREO a place on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies four times. As the firm enters its next chapter under new executive leadership, it remains anchored by its foundational mission of advancing the business of science.
