Founding Associate, Hesta Labs

Founding Associate, Hesta Labs

Own the delivery of Hesta Labs' £1.4m R&D programme, moving between clinical, technical, regulatory and commercial workstreams to solve whatever's in the way. You'll work directly with our founders and clinicians, shaping the roadmap as we build the evidence base for women's health.

Good To Know

Location

Location London (hybrid) - 2 to 3 days in our office in Victoria

Contract type

Contract type Permanent

About Hesta Health

Hesta is creating a new benchmark in women's health, delivering exceptional care at every life stage. As we advance towards this goal, we are committed to closing the women's health gap, beginning with pregnancy and postnatal as our initial focus. 75 million years of women's lives are lost every year due to poor health or early death. This gap limits potential, drives inequality, and reflects a healthcare system that wasn't built for women. We are changing that. View all open positions

Hesta is setting a new benchmark in women's health, delivering exceptional, evidence-based clinical care at every life stage, starting with pregnancy and the two years after birth. We combine compassionate care with technology built at the forefront of AI-native healthcare.

75 million years of women's lives are lost every year to poor health or early death. Not because these conditions are rare, but because almost no one has been paid to look into them properly. We're changing that.

We raised our pre-seed round last year, alongside grant funding to launch Hesta Labs. Within months of founding we operationalised a CQC-registered multidisciplinary healthcare service, have already cared for hundreds of women, and been featured in The Times.

Cofounders:

Dr Sujitha Selvarajah: NHS OBGYN doctor with a global public health background. Has worked with the WHO and The Lancet, and is an ex-researcher at Oxford and UCL.

Amanda Cupples: ex-Managing Director, Airbnb UK, Northern Europe and MEA; ex-COO, Babylon; ex-McKinsey and Deluxe.

Supported by world-leading clinical, product and technology advisors, and backed by investors including Eka, Blue Lion, Ascension and others.

What women who've used Hesta are saying:

"Surpassed any expectations. Highly recommend."

"I have never felt this listened to or heard by a GP before. I felt very empowered and supported."

What clinicians, including GPs, are saying:

"This is so good. Women won't even need to see the GP with this. This is even better than most GPs."

We're early-stage: genuine ownership, genuine impact, and the chance to build something that doesn't exist yet, that changes millions of lives.

About Hesta Labs

Hesta Labs is Hesta's research and development arm, backed by £1.4m in grant funding.

In health, there are only two categories of things: what we know, and what we don't. The second category in women's health is a chasm. Women weren't required to be included in clinical trials until the early 1990s, and even now, only a sliver of health research funding goes towards conditions that affect women specifically

Hesta's core service proves that operationalising the known changes lives today. But we've come to believe something else just as firmly: you cannot operationalise your way out of a gap this size. If the evidence was never built, the data never captured, the solutions never tested, somebody has to go and build it. That's what Labs is for.

We tested that belief before we committed to it. Using an Innovate UK grant, we ran a feasibility study with Modality Partnership, delivering care to hundreds of women across East Surrey, Yorkshire and Birmingham, and asked three questions: is this clinically valuable, is this technically possible, and do women actually love it? We found yes, yes and yes.

Labs runs on three principles: invest in the unknown, play and experiment with rigour, and seek out the data that actually changes care. Today that means our current feasibility study under the 2025 Femtech & AI programme, and our newly awarded Innovate UK Biomedical Catalyst grant, over £1.4m, taking Hesta from a validated feasibility study to a scalable repeatable solution.

The role

We're hiring a Founding Associate for Hesta Labs.

You have to be hungry. Hungry for this role, hungry to make a difference, hungry to get things done and bring people with you.

We want a generalist who can move fluidly between clinical, technical, regulatory and commercial workstreams, who turns ambiguity into a plan without waiting to be told how.

You'll work directly with founders, clinicians and technical team members, and across a high-calibre network of partners: NHS Trusts, academic institutions, regulatory advisors and specialist clinicians. Your job is to turn the oxymoron of ambitiguity and clear vision into a delivered, regulator-ready product and evidence base, in the most time- and cost-efficient way possible.

What you'll do

Lead our Innovate UK Biomedical Catalyst programme (£1.4m, 18 months) end to end, owning milestones, dependencies and outputs.

Solve whatever's in the way: designing a communication sequence, onboarding a trial site, sorting a data flow, working out what a regulatory requirement means for us in practice.

Coordinate across multiple workstreams (clinical, technical, regulatory, commercial), managing interdependencies and critical paths.

Stay on top of the numbers: own financial planning and data-driven project metrics.

Steer the path from product and research findings to a regulated, Software as a Medical Device (SaMD).

Define the plan alongside our Co-Founders, flag risks early, and handle reporting and financial management, including formal change requests where scope or budget shifts.

Drive alignment and action across internal teams, NHS partners, academic collaborators and external suppliers.

Feed what we're learning back into product and go-to-market decisions.

Contribute to future strategy and shaping Hesta's R&D roadmap.

What you'll bring

A high-agency, "make it happen" mindset. You must be able to demonstrate the ability to use initiative.

Strong programme or project experience in complex, multi-stakeholder environments (health tech, research, consulting or innovation). You're equally comfortable with clinicians, academics, engineers and commercial teams, all in the same week.

Excellent quantitative skills. You're not put off by a spreadsheet and can build metrics to track progress.

A proven ability to manage complex dependencies and deliver outcomes, not just track tasks.

Exceptional organisation and documentation skills. You create clarity and structure in ambiguity.

The ability to operate in regulated, high-rigour environments, or a strong appetite to learn fast.

Bonus:

Experience with digital health, SaMD or clinical research.

Familiarity with NHS systems, data governance or regulatory frameworks.

Exposure to health economics or evaluation studies.

Before you apply

Tell us about a time you got something done that mattered, where nobody gave you permission to start it, and nobody had to push you to finish it. What was it, why did you do it, and what happened?

The practicalities

Contract: full time.

Location: London, hybrid. 2 to 3 days a week in person at our office in Victoria, SW1.

Start: November 2026

What you'll get

A front-row seat in an early-stage, mission-driven company building the backbone of a healthcare service designed specifically for women.

The chance to lead delivery of a major Innovate UK-funded R&D programme shaping the future of women's health.

A central role in building a regulated, category-defining health technology from the ground up.

Exposure to clinical, technical, regulatory and commercial strategy in a fast-moving startup.

A high-calibre, mission-driven team with deep expertise across healthcare and technology.

Flexible, hybrid working, built around the job that needs doing, not office face time.

Office facilities: spacious working space alongside other innovators in Victoria, bike storage, changing facilities, and a healthy supply of tea and coffee.

We strongly encourage applications from people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, neurodivergent people, parents, carers, and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

If there's anything we can do to support your application, let us know.