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People in the News: Christian Henry, Didier Hirsch, Robert McMahon, Steve McPhail, and More

Christian Henry

Pacific Biosciences has appointed Christian Henry to its board of directors. Henry has served in executive level positions at Illumina for more than 10 years, including most recently as executive VP and chief commercial officer. Prior to joining Illumina, he served as CFO of Tickets.com and VP of finance at Affymetrix. He is also on the board at Ginkgo Bioworks and WAVE Life Sciences.


Didier Hirsch, Robert McMahon, Karleen Oberton

Agilent Technologies said its senior VP and CFO Didier Hirsch will retire, effective Oct 31. The company has appointed Robert McMahon, currently CFO of Hologic, as his successor. McMahon will join Agilent on Aug. 3 as senior VP and will become CFO on Sept. 1 when Hirsch steps down from that post. Hirsch will continue as an active member of the executive staff until his retirement date at the end of the fiscal year and will work with McMahon to ensure a smooth transition.

Hirsch has served as Agilent's CFO since 2010. Before that, he had oversight of the corporate controllership and tax functions. He joined Agilent in 1999 as VP of treasury and investor relations. He also held various international finance positions at HP from 1989 until joining Agilent.
McMahon has served as Hologic's CFO since 2014. Prior to that, he spent 20 years with Johnson & Johnson, most recently as worldwide VP of finance and business development for Ortho Clinical Diagnostics. He also held a variety of financial leadership positions within Johnson & Johnson after joining the company in 1993.

Separately, Hologic said it would promote its current Chief Accounting Officer Karleen Oberton to replace McMahon as CFO. She joined Hologic in 2006 as corporate controller and was promoted to her current position in 2015. Prior to that, Oberton served as senior corporate controller for Immunogen, and as a senior audit manager for both Ernst Young and Arthur Andersen.


Steve McPhail

Fluidigm Chief Operating Officer Steve McPhail will retire in early 2019, CEO Chris Linthwaite said on a conference call discussing Fluidigm's second quarter earnings. McPhail is retiring to focus on family and his involvement with Improve Care Now, a non-profit dedicated to improving quality of care for children with Crohn's disease and inflammatory bowel disease. McPhail serves on the board of directors for the non-profit, as well as the board of directors of the North Carolina Children's Hospital. He has served as COO at Fluidigm since August 2016. He also previously served as president and CEO of Expression Analysis.


For more recent items on executive appointments and promotions in the omics and molecular diagnostics industries, please see the People in the News page on our website.