Changing Faces: Agency, consultancy, and investor hires from January 2024

The month of January saw a smattering of investor and agency hires, as well as a couple of non-profit and professional organisation hires that we’re throwing in for completeness’ sake.

Read on for part three of our monthly hires round-up, and check out Part 1 and Part 2 if you missed them.

Two Jons are better than one at Permira. Private equity firm Permira announced both a new partner and a new senior advisor over the course of the month; both, it just so happens, named Jon. The New York outfit is a major healthcare investor, having put more than €4 billion into health and life sciences investments. Jon Maschmeyer, who brings experience from The Vistria Group and Chicago Pacific Founders, joins as a partner with a focus on pharmaceutical services. Jon Serbousek, who has held leadership roles at companies like Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson, joins as senior advisor to the firm’s global healthcare team.

UK comms agency appoints first MD. Cambridge healthcare communications group Cuttsy+Cuttsy announced the appointment of Harriet Karia as managing director, a new role for the agency. Karia, who joined up in 2020 following a long career in the charity sector, will oversee client services as the agency continues with its growth plans.

SV Health Investors expands biotech team. London and Boston-based VC and growth equity firm SV Health Investors has added a new investor to help oversee its biotech investing team: partner Jamil Beg. It has also promoted one of its current partners, Nikola Trbovic, to managing partner. Trbovic joined SV from Pfizer Ventures in 2022; Beg comes from 5AM Ventures, where he was also a partner.

Two new partners at Cure Ventures. SV wasn’t the only Boston-based VC to add healthcare investors to its team last month. Life sciences VC Cure Ventures appointed Dr Jeff Jonas and Al Robichaud as partners. Jonas previously served as CEO of ABio-X and Sage Therapeutics. Robichaud also worked at Sage as chief scientific officer, the latest stop in a long pharma career in neuroscience.

Life sciences non-profit makes C-Suite appointment. Just as it announced its 2024 project pipeline, The Pistoia Alliance, a global non-profit focused on increasing collaboration in pharma R&D, appointed Dr Christian Baber as its new chief portfolio officer. Baber’s 30-year pharma background includes stints at Shire, Takeda, and Janssen, as well as a number of start-ups.

“My guiding principle as chief portfolio officer will be to work with our members and demonstrate what the Alliance is able to achieve for them based on pressing needs within the community, whether that’s helping to improve the sustainability of their operations or tackling the ethics of emerging technologies such as AI,” Baber said in a statement. “I’m also keen to build on our relationships with global regulatory agencies and to collaborate closely with them on these issues as we develop new projects together.”

Independent agency adds Real Chemistry vet to Board. New York creative agency minds + assembly has appointed Adam Cossman to its Board of Directors. Cossman joined what was then W2O group in 2008 through acquisition of his own agency and was serving as chief digital officer and group president when the agency rebranded to Real Chemistry in 2021. minds + assembly promises more Board appointments this quarter.

British Infection Association welcomes new prez. Consultant microbiologist and infection control doctor at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, Dr David Partridge has been appointed president of the British Infection Association after a two-year tenure as vice president. Partridge brings a broad background in infectious disease to the role, including work on antibiotic and antifungal stewardship, orthopaedic infection treatment, efforts to increase HIV testing, and using genome sequencing to identify COVID-19 variants.

That’s it for this round-up. 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.