Robin Toft

Robin Toft is the Author of WE CAN™, the Executive Woman’s Guide to Career Advancement and founder and CEO of Toft Group Executive Search, where she combines a deep inside knowledge of the life science industry with a passion for building game-changing management teams.

In her 10-plus years in the executive search industry, Robin has placed more than 500 executives at innovation-led companies in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, medical devices, life science tools and digital health.

A champion of diverse executive teams, Robin has built a reputation for recruiting women and minorities into top roles, and helping the life science industry overcome unconscious bias in hiring.

Prior to founding Toft Group in 2010, Robin served as Managing Director of Sanford Rose Associates – San Francisco, an executive search firm also specialized in life sciences. In joining Sanford Rose in 2006, Robin essentially launched a second career, following more than two decades as a biotech executive; her prior roles include senior vice president of global commercial operations at Roche, vice president of virology at Roche, and executive vice president of marketing and sales at ViroLogic Inc. (now Monogram Biosciences), a San Francisco startup where she was instrumental in the company’s first product launches and IPO. Robin also served in a variety of senior management posts at LabCorp, one of the world’s largest clinical diagnostic companies, after beginning her career at SmithKline Beecham Clinical Laboratories.

Robin serves on the board of Scripps Mercy Hospital Foundation, The Clearity Foundation, supporting ovarian cancer patients, and LEAD San Diego, the only organization in greater San Diego dedicated to developing civically engaged leaders. Additionally, Robin has been active on American Heart Association’s “Go Red for Women” executive leadership team and has participated in the annual Susan G. Komen walk to support breast cancer research since 2010.

Robin’s leadership talents have not gone unnoticed: she was awarded Woman of the Year in San Diego in 2017, in 2018 she was a finalist in Ernst & Young’s prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year awards, and she’s been honored as a finalist for San Diego Business Journal’s “Women Who Mean Business” and “Most Admired CEO” awards in multiple years. Under Robin’s leadership, Toft Group was honored as a finalist in the Diversity and Inclusion awards, and received the prestigious Athena Pinnacle Top Company Award.

Robin holds a B.S. in Medical Technology (Clinical Laboratory Science) from Michigan State University and pursued her teaching credential at San Diego State University, later teaching at University of Hawaii.