23andMe: Andre Fernandez, Jim Frankola, Mark Jensen
23andMe has appointed Andre Fernandez, Jim Frankola, and Mark Jensen as independent members of the board of directors and members of the board's audit committee and compensation committee, effective Oct. 28. In addition, Jensen has been appointed as the board's lead independent director.
The board now comprises the three new independent directors and Anne Wojcicki, the company's CEO, cofounder, and board chair. The moves follow a tumultuous September for the company in which seven independent board directors resigned, citing a lack of progress from Wojcicki in submitting a proposal to take the company private. Wojcicki subsequently publicly stated that she is not open to hearing third-party takeovers of the company.
Prior to his retirement in 2012, Jensen was an executive at Deloitte & Touche, where he served as US managing partner for audit and enterprise risk services, technology industry, and US managing partner for the venture capital services group. Prior to that, he was CFO at Redleaf Group, as well as an executive at the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, where he was the managing partner of the Silicon Valley office and led the company's global technology industry practice. Jensen currently serves on the board of directors and as chair of the audit committee of Lattice Semiconductor.
Fernandez most recently served as CFO of WeWork. Prior to that, he was executive VP and CFO of NCR Corporation and the president and CEO of CBS Radio. He currently serves on the board of directors and audit committee of Cardlytics.
Frankola was previously CFO and a strategic adviser to enterprise data company Cloudera. He has also previously served as CFO of Yodlee, a data aggregation and analytics platform, and Ariba, a procurement and supply chain management technology provider. He currently serves on the board of directors and as chair of the audit committee of Ansys and on the board of directors and audit committee of Skillsoft.
Delfi Diagnostics: Robert Guigley
Delfi Diagnostics, a developer of liquid biopsy tests for early cancer detection, has appointed Robert Guigley as its chief commercial officer. He most recently served in the same position at Invitae, now part of Laboratory Corporation of America. Prior to that, Guigley was also COO at Ambry Genetics, and before that, he was at Omada Health and Counsyl. He started his pharmaceutical career with AstraZeneca. He holds an MBA from Boston University and a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Pittsburgh.
Cofactor Genomics: Howard McLeod
Cofactor Genomics has appointed Howard McLeod to its advisory board. McLeod has more than 25 years of experience in the precision medicine industry, particularly in oncology. He is currently the director of the Center for Precision Medicine and Functional Genomics and is a professor of medicine and biology at Utah Tech University. McLeod has also been an active board member and/or founder for over a dozen privately held and publicly traded companies.
Proteomics International: Aaron Brinkworth, Roger Moore, James Williams, Neville Gardiner
Proteomics International of Perth, Australia, has appointed Aaron Brinkworth as an independent, nonexecutive director, effective Nov. 8. He succeeds Roger Moore, who is retiring. Brinkworth is a former biopharmaceutical executive who held various senior commercial, patient access, and strategic licensing roles at Gilead Sciences. The firm also said that nonexecutive director James Williams will become chair of the board as of Nov. 8, succeeding Neville Gardiner, who will remain a nonexecutive director.
For additional recent items on executive appointments, promotions, and departures in the omics and molecular diagnostics space, please see the People in the News page on our website.