Patrick Retif
Fractional CIO
& Program Manager
Patrick Retif is the founder of Tailwinds Advisory and a Fractional CIO and Program Executive focused exclusively on biotech and life sciences. With 25+ years building and running commercial IT — from pre-commercial Phase 2/3 organizations to $15B global enterprises — he has personally led or overseen 15+ product launches and 20+ M&A IT integrations.
He builds the commercial IT stack companies need to get to market and scale: CRM, data warehouses, analytics, AI, compliance — and he stays in the trenches until it's done.
Career Highlights
Patrick served as Global Commercial CIO at Allergan, a $15B global pharmaceutical company, leading 150 IT professionals across 75 markets and championing 20+ product launches while reducing commercial IT operating costs by 50%. His scope spanned Allergan's predecessor companies Forest Laboratories and Actavis, where he led technology operations for 12,000+ users.
At IQVIA, he served as SVP & GM of US Technology Solutions, running a $750M P&L with 2,000+ FTEs and transforming the business unit.
Earlier in his career, Patrick held senior consulting roles at PwC and IBM, and served as a CRM Practice Director at CSC, advising companies including Pfizer, Biogen, and J&J. He founded SRCI, a CRM software firm that grew to lead the French market, and helped transform Highpoint Solutions into a $200M consulting firm.
What Patrick Delivers as Fractional CIO & Program Executive
Since founding Tailwinds Advisory, Patrick has delivered 12+ biotech product launches for companies including Scynexis, Hutchmed, Calliditas, Egetis, Syndax, and others. He specializes in late Phase 2 through commercial-stage biotech that needs executive IT leadership now — without waiting for a full-time hire.
As a Fractional CIO, Patrick takes full ownership of commercial IT — setting strategy, managing budgets, leading vendors, building teams, and making CIO-level decisions as an embedded member of the leadership team. As a Program Executive, he drives specific large-scale programs — CRM rollouts, commercial data platform builds, launch readiness — from strategy through delivery, often working alongside an existing Head of IT.
His work spans the full commercial IT landscape: CRM (Veeva and alternatives), Medical Affairs, MLR, Market Access, commercial data warehouses, Master Data Management, third-party data aggregator integrations, tokenization, BI/analytics dashboards, and AI frameworks. He also brings deep M&A IT integration experience, having led 20+ integrations across his career — harmonizing business processes, organizations, and technology platforms post-acquisition.