Changing Faces May-June 2024: Government, non-profit, and professional organisation

Our fourth Changing Faces round-up is one that we don’t always publish, but in May and June we heard about enough hires in the public sector, non-profit, and academic worlds to stand in their own article.

New research head in at Gates Foundation. The Bill & Melinda Gates Research Institute, the non-profit medical research arm of the Microsoft founder and philanthropist’s Foundation, has a new CEO. Dr Patrice Matchaba began his career as a practicing physician in South Africa, but went on to a long career in global health at Novartis before landing at the Institute.

UCL’s health business school adds two honorary professors. The University College of London’s Global Business School for Health, which it describes as "the first business school dedicated to health", added two distinguished Honorary Professors of Practice. Jean Gomes is a New York Times bestselling author, podcast host, and founder of Outside, a CEO advisory practice, while Lawrence Hamilton is EVP of performance at The Permanente Medical Group, the medical group associated with Kaiser Permanente.

Stars join mental health non-profit board. Medicinal Media, a non-profit online tool and resource centre for mental health services, added some star power to its board with actress Jada Pinkett-Smith and yoga influencer Adriene Mishler. The board already includes Tripp VR CEO Nanea Reeves, prominent civil rights attorney Terry Gross, and social worker and board president Melissa Wilson.

Promotion at UK’s Drug Safety Research Unit. The DSRU, the UK’s leading pharmacovigilance and pharmacoepidemiology unit, tapped Dr Alison Evans as its new head of education and training. An internal hire, Evans has been with the DSRU since 2012, when she joined after a successful postdoctoral research fellowship.

Four appointments at professional organisations. If four-letter abbreviations are your thing, we’ve got just a few more notable hires for you:

• GIRP, the umbrella organisation of full-service healthcare distributors in Europe, representing over 500 pharmaceutical wholesalers, has added Kasper Ernst, the Secretary General of Affordable Medicines Europe, as Director General. Referred to as the European Healthcare Distribution Association in English, GIRP stands for “Groupement International de la Répartition Pharmaceutique”.
• The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (APBI), an industry group that supports drug discovery and development in the UK, tapped Russell Aberley, a 25-year pharma industry vet who currently serves as general manager of Amgen UK & Ireland, as its new vice president.
• The Consumer Health Products Alliance (CHPA) added two new faces to its Board of Directors: Jeffrey Rothman, SVP of oral care for North America at Colgate-Palmolive, and Greg Ross, head of consumer healthcare for North America at Sanofi. CHPA is a national trade organisation representing manufacturers and marketers in consumer healthcare products, including over-the-counter medicines.

And that’s it for our May and June hires round-ups! We’ll be back in August with a July round-up that will hopefully come out right on time! Remember, if you’ve had a recent appointment and you work in or around the pharma space, we want to hear about it. Please send your press releases to editorial@pharmaphorum.com to be included in future editions of Changing Faces.