GENEXPERT - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Senior Vice President, Government Affairs & Market Access
- Senior Vice President, Government Affairs and Market Access ( GAMA )
- SVP of Government Affairs and Market
Ammar is the SVP of Government Affairs and Market Access (GAMA) at Cepheid. GAMA's work is focused on demonstrating the compelling value of Cepheid's testing portfolio to healthcare systems, governments, and payers supported by robust clinical and economic evidence to accelerate clinical adoption.
Before joining Cepheid, Ammar worked for Illumina, where he served as Vice President, Global Market Access, since late 2016. In that role, Ammar built Illumina's Market Access team into a global, strategic organization driving reimbursement in reproductive health, oncology, and genetic diseases to more than one billion lives globally. Before joining Illumina, Ammar was the Vice President and Global Product Team Lead at Halozyme Therapeutics, a biotech company focused on oncology. He was instrumental in revamping their lead biomarker-driven oncology program strategy, leading to new clinical development programs and a major partnership with Roche/Genentech. Prior to joining Halozyme, Ammar spent nearly 20 years at Bristol Myers Squibb in global, regional, and country-level roles of increasing responsibility including Country Management, Marketing, and Market Access where he worked and lived in six countries across North America, Europe, and the Middle East.
Ammar earned a Bachelor of Pharmacy from the University of Jordan, Amman, and completed the Columbia Business School Marketing Excellence Program for Executives.
Job Titles:
- Senior Vice President, Research & Development
- Senior Vice President, Strategy, Product Management & Marketing
Anette joined Cepheid in March 2022 and is responsible for driving the R&D strategy and execution for all of Cepheid's product portfolio, including Infectious Disease, Oncology, System Development, and Connectivity & Digital solutions. She has spent more than 25 years working in the infectious disease diagnostic field in a wide range of business and technical leadership roles. Prior to joining Cepheid, Anette was with bioMerieux for 13 years where she spent her time in various leadership positions mainly within the Microbiology Business. In her most recent role, Anette served as the SVP, New Technologies Franchise, building a cross-functional team to develop strategy and grow a business around emerging, disruptive technologies. Anette started her career at AB BIODISK in Solna, Sweden and in her final role there as CEO, she led the successful sale of the business to bioMerieux in 2009.
Anette earned a combined Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology Sweden.
Job Titles:
- Senior Vice President, Operations
In her 22-year career at Cepheid, Anu has held roles in Research and Development (R&D), Technical Operations, and Manufacturing Operations. During her 14-year tenure in the R&D organization she held several positions of increasing responsibility and successfully launched ten Xpert® tests from Cepheid's molecular diagnostic menu across Respiratory, HAI and other infectious diseases, and Women's Health portfolios. In her most recent role, Anu led North America Manufacturing Operations, Global Demand and Production Planning, and Instruments Operations. During her tenure in Operations, Anu advanced the Technical Operations group, scaled Sunnyvale Manufacturing during the COVID-19 pandemic and orchestrated the strategy for capacity transformation.
Job Titles:
- Chief Information & Transformation Officer
Ashish is accountable for the Information Technology organization and Transformation programs across the enterprise. Ashish joined Cepheid in January 2021 as VP, Business Transformation and interim SVP/GM, Emerging and Growth Opportunities (EGO) business unit.
Prior to joining Cepheid, Ashish was VP, Sales and Marketing Operations at Pall Corporation where he led multiple teams around low-touch automation, transformative marketing, funnel management, and digital transformation. Ashish started his career in the technology sector in the late 90's working in different functional domains like radio-diagnosis and software development. Ashish was the founder and President of BHC, where he led a start-up venture in technology as a service sector with a post-revenue exit in 2005. After that, Ashish spent 12 years at Beckman Coulter leading different organizations across Sales, Customer Service, IT, and Marketing. Ashish was actively involved in multiple acquisitions (Olympus, IRIS, Siemens Microbiology) and worked closely with the corporate DBS office during Pall and Cepheid's integration into Danaher.
Ashish holds a bachelor's degree in computer and electrical Engineering from University of Pune and a Master's in information systems from California Polytechnic College.
Job Titles:
- Chief Financial Officer
- Senior Vice President
Charles Mwangi was appointed Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Cepheid in July 2023.
Charles returned to Cepheid after having led the Finance and IT organizations as SVP and CFO from 2018 to 2021 when he provided leadership in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling the organization to meet the unprecedented demand for our respiratory tests. Charles first joined Cepheid in 2016 as the VP, Financial Planning and Analysis.
Since leaving Cepheid in 2021, Charles held Finance leadership positions as SVP and CFO of Western Digital's Flash Division and CFO at Freenome an early-stage company developing diagnostic tests for early detection of cancer and other diseases through blood biopsies.
Prior to his first tenure at Cepheid, Charles held Finance leadership roles at various companies including Lam Research, Broadcom (Avago Technologies), Affymetrix, and Intel.
Charles holds an MSc in Applied Economics and Statistics from California State University, an MBA in Finance from Alliant International University, and a BS in Civil Engineering from University of Nairobi.
Job Titles:
- Executive Vice President, Chief Medical & Scientific Officer
- Executive Vice President, Medical and Scientfic Affairs ( Chief Medical and Scientific Officer )
David (Dave) Persing, MD, Ph.D., is EVP/Chief Medical Scientific Officer at Cepheid and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) for the Danaher Diagnostics Platform.
He has spent most of his 30-year career in biomarker discovery, translational medicine, and innovation in the diagnostics space. As CSO, Danaher Diagnostics Platform, he has the responsibility for providing scientific, medical, and strategic input to the Diagnostics' Operating Companies. He also has the responsibility for the development of new clinical processes, technologies, and products that advance patient care, innovation, and the competitive position of the Danaher Diagnostics group of operating companies.
Dave joined Cepheid in 2005 and has focused on the enablement of molecular diagnostic technology to meet global needs in infectious diseases and oncology. He conducted his scientific and medical training with Don Ganem and Nobel laureate Harold Varmus at the University of California, San Francisco. After residency training in Clinical Pathology at Yale University, he held leadership roles in academia and industry starting in the early 1990s with the design, implementation, and operation of the first PCR reference laboratory at the Mayo Clinic.
His interest in the democratization of molecular diagnostic methods has been longstanding, starting in 1993 with his publication of the first of five widely adopted textbooks to include PCR protocols and guidelines for laboratory operations. He has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles and reviews, including multiple articles in the New England Journal of Medicine, Science, and PNAS. In 2020, he was named to the Fierce Pharma list of the 22 most influential scientists in the fight against COVID-19. To maintain a connection with the latest trends in translational medicine, Dave also serves as Consulting Professor of Pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine. He obtained his MD and Ph.D. degrees from UCSF in 1988.
Job Titles:
- Vice President / Commercial GM, the Americas, APAC & LATAM
Joe joined Cepheid in April of 2017 and currently serves as VP/Commercial GM, The Americas and APAC. He is responsible for Sales, Business Operations, Field Applications and Commercial Solutions in North America, Latin America, Southeast Asia, India, and ANZ.
Prior to Cepheid, Joe served in various Sales and Marketing leadership roles at Abbott from 2003 to 2017 where he focused on the development, deployment, and management of Abbott Point of Care's i-STAT franchise.
Joe began his career in Banking where he held increasing levels of management responsibility. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Tennessee.
Job Titles:
- Chief Technology Officer
- Chief Technology Officer and Head of Assay R & D
As Chief Technology Officer, Jonathan oversees the Innovation & Technology group at Cepheid, a global team focused on the development and launch of next-generation multiplex molecular diagnostics systems, software, consumables, and assays. A Cepheid veteran since 2011, Jonathan's teams have helped pioneer Cepheid's 10-color multiplexing technology and advanced special chemistries for assays. He has been part of the teams that launched the GeneXpert R2 systems, GeneXpert Infinity, GeneXpert Edge, Xpert Flu/RSV, and Xpert CT/NG, among others. Jonathan's teams continue to drive strategic projects across Cepheid's innovation portfolio including the next generation of GeneXpert systems.
Prior to Cepheid, Jonathan worked with entities such as Gen-Probe (now Hologic), Millipore, GenePOC (now Meridian), and his own start-up focused on glucose biosensors.
Jonathan holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from UCLA and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from UC Irvine.
Job Titles:
- Senior Vice President, Operations / Laurent
- Senior Vice President, Research & Development
Bellon joined Cepheid in 2018 as Senior Vice President, Global Operations, where he oversees all aspects of manufacturing, supply chain, technical operations, and facilities.
Prior to joining Cepheid, Laurent was Chief Operating Officer at Genapsys, Inc, a pre-commercial Redwood City-based enterprise focused on the development of point of test next-generation sequencer for life science and diagnostic applications where he was responsible for Genapsys' NGS platform commercial strategy, application research and development, and global operations. Prior to this, Laurent was General Manager of Microarray Business at Thermo Fisher Scientific following the acquisition of Affymetrix, Inc. At Affymetrix, Laurent occupied a variety of roles and was most recently General Manager of the Genetic Analysis Business Unit and Senior Vice President, Global Operations. Prior to joining Affymetrix in 2006, he held senior management positions at Applied Biosystems, Life Technologies, and Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals.
Laurent has more than 25 years of experience in general management, business development, research and development, and operations in the life science and molecular diagnostics industries.
Laurent holds a Ph.D. in Bio-Organic Chemistry and a master's degree in Biochemistry, both from University Sciences et Techniques, Montpellier, France.
Job Titles:
- Boston Consulting Group As a Principal
- Vice President, Product Management, Strategy & Business Development
- Vice President, Strategy & Business Development
As an executive leader of Strategy and Business Development, Luben Li leads Cepheid's strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions and strategic alliance activities.
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Worldwide Marketing
- Vice President / Commercial GM, Europe, Middle East & Africa
- Vice President, Worldwide Marketing
As Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Luke Maitland tackles the exciting challenge of promoting Cepheid's life-changing medical technology around the world.
Luke earned his bachelor's in Biomedical Science from University of Bedfordshire in 2011 and soon joined Meridian Bioscience as an intern. His impressive work led to a role as an associate product marketing manager. Luke quickly worked his way up the ladder, ending his six years at Meridian as the Director of Global Marketing. During this time, he also earned his MBA from the University of Xavier. Luke's marketing experience included growth strategies, pricing guidelines, market trends and even cross-functional work with R&D. As a director, he led the global marketing of twelve FDA-cleared and fifteen CE-marked products.
Luke joined Cepheid in 2017, continuing as a Director of Global Marketing-focusing on Hospital and Commercial Laboratory Segments. Two years later, Luke became the Vice President of Marketing, the Americas focusing on building the department including product marketing, segment marketing, digital marketing, data analytics, and pricing. In January 2022, Luke shifted from the Americas to global marketing. In his current position, Luke plays an instrumental role in leading, shaping and implementing product, go-to-market, and commercial strategic initiatives.
Job Titles:
- Vice President, Global Danaher Business System Leader
- VP of Danaher Business Systems
Nichole Halsey joined Cepheid as the VP of Danaher Business Systems in June 2023.
Nichole has a total of 15+ years of Danaher experience with ten years in water quality and five in the DBSO working across the entire enterprise including key projects with Cepheid. She has also held roles in sales, marketing, and product management. Prior to Danaher Nichole served in the US Army in a variety of leadership roles.
She has a B.A. in Psychology from Boston University and an MBA from Northeastern University.
Job Titles:
- Executive Vice President, Worldwide Commercial Operations
Throughout his eight years with Cepheid, Peter Farrell has helped bring our cutting-edge medical technology and global infrastructure to markets around the world in his position as Executive Vice President of Worldwide Commercial Operations.
Peter's journey to managing over $4B in revenue began when he earned his Bachelor of Science in virology from Western University Ontario in 1987. Peter started his career as a sales representative for Rhône-Poulenc (now Aventis) in Quebec, where he learned the unique challenges of medical sales. In 1988, he began a decade-long tenure at Abbott Diagnostics, where he held various commercial leadership roles that culminated in leading the Canadian sales team as National Sales Manager, with revenue of almost $100MM.
From 1998 to 2005, Peter served as Executive Vice President at iCAD, an innovative medical device company that used Artificial Intelligence to help detect breast cancer from digital mammograms. There he assembled the global team in many countries, earned premarket approval registration in the United States and over 40 other countries, and built iCAD's global infrastructure. He returned to Abbott Point of Care as Director of Marketing and Clinical Affairs, then was promoted to Divisional Vice President and General Manager, where he was responsible for building the global business, resulting in an increase of revenue to over $500MM, until joining Cepheid as the Executive Vice President of Worldwide Commercial Operations in 2014.
Job Titles:
- Senior Vice President, Legal and General Counsel
Samson joins Cepheid from GE HealthCare, where he spent the last two years, first as General Counsel of Products, then of Patient Care Solutions and Research, and most recently as General Counsel of Science and Technology. Prior to that, he held progressive leadership roles over the course of 10 years at GSK, culminating in his position as Vice President, Global Medical Affairs Excellence. During his early career, Samson was an attorney in private practice for seven years. He received his JD from Yale Law School, his MD from Duke School of Medicine, and his BA in philosophy from Stanford University.