Biotech veteran Abbie Celniker, who has spent three decades in research and leadership roles at established and early-stage companies, last fall joined Third Rock Ventures in Boston as a partner. The firm, with more than 40 companies in its portfolio, is a leading creator and funder of life sciences startups in Massachusetts and beyond. Celniker, 57, who chairs the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, also took over last year as chief executive of Goldfinch Bio, a Third Rock company that’s developing medicines for chronic kidney disease. She spoke with Globe reporter Robert Weisman at Third Rock’s offices in the Back Bay.

1Celniker enjoys building companies. But after working at large biopharma companies like Genentech Inc., Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc., and Novartis AG, and running startups such as Taligen Therapeutics Inc., and Eleven Biotherapeutics Inc., she said she was drawn to Third Rock because she wanted to branch out beyond a single business.

“Third Rock was the perfect blend between what I wanted to do in the future and what I loved to do in the past. We have a discover, launch, build process, and we send partners in as the senior executive team to get the companies off the ground. So you get the best of both worlds. You get to look across a very diverse portfolio, very disruptive, very innovative ­science, and you also get the opportunity to build the companies from the ground up.’’

2In her MassBio role, Celniker has helped spearhead a campaign to increase gender diversity in the biotech industry. She joined a group of more than 100 industry leaders who signed an open letter in January laying out guiding principles for diversity and inclusion.

“One of the most ­important issues that we felt MassBio was ­prepared to address was workforce. When you think of all the ­companies formed in Cambridge, and you think of the executive teams and you think of the boards that need to be built, there is a very substantial need for ­talent. And when you think about how you’re going to fill all those ­positions, you’re making your job a lot harder when you’re only ­tapping half the talent pool.’’

3Celniker has ­developed a ­strategy for ­navigating the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San ­Francisco, where ­biotech ­executives gather every January to ­network, take the pulse of their colleagues, and engage in an endless round of meetings.

“This was my first time going to J.P. Morgan as a partner at Third Rock, so it was a little bit different than in the past. But because I was also going as the CEO of Goldfinch, I had my more familiar pattern of making sure all the interested pharma partners out there know who we are. That’s a big part of our ecosystem. The small companies cultivate relations with the big companies early on. So as the small companies make progress, the large companies can decide whether that’s a fit for them in terms of some kind of a partnership or collaboration.’’

4From the time she was a graduate student studying molecular biology at the University of Arizona, she was attracted to the world of business and entrepreneurship.

“Having my first exposure to [the] industry be Genentech in the ’80s, everybody there was an entrepreneur. Everybody went off and built their companies, and I always knew I wanted to facilitate the translation of science into amazing products.’’

5Celniker is a devoted jigsaw puzzle fan, but she doesn’t like to look at the picture on the box.

“There’s always a puzzle going in the house. It’s a low-tech hobby . . . [but] it’s seeing patterns. Someone told me a long time ago that when I look at data, I tend to look at it from a very high level. I look for a pattern, as opposed to the individual things, and then I come down. And that’s how I look at the puzzles, too. So I think there’s similarities to analyzing data when you look at how you’re going to construct these puzzles without looking at the box.’’

Robert Weisman can be reached at robert.weisman@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeRobW.