OBN Announcement: OBN (UK) Ltd commences search for new CEO as John Harris announces planned retirement after BioTrinity 2022
OBN, the membership organisation supporting the UK’s innovative life sciences companies, announces today that Dr John Harris will retire as CEO on 30th April 2022, after leading the organisation to achieve significant growth over the last 6 years.
David Browning, OBN’s Chairman, said:
“As a result of John’s visionary leadership during the past 6 years, OBN has gone from strength to strength, introducing new events such as BioSeed, BioForward and Partner4Pharma, growing the membership, delivering state-of-the-art hybrid conferences incorporating dynamic in-person and video-conference interaction, and significant expansion of the group purchasing scheme. Additionally, he conceived and drove an overarching strategy of catering to all Life Sciences and sector support organisations whatever their size and stage of development to set new standards in delivery of valuable programmes for our members. OBN now has a very attractive and broad value proposition exhibiting financial strength coupled with organisational resilience, clearly demonstrated when OBN exceeded all its targets despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
I am delighted to announce that AggioSergeant has been appointed to recruit an equally dynamic leader to lead OBN into our next exciting new chapter of growth, building on our strengths and continuing to grow as a world-class organisation providing increased added value to our membership”.
John Harris, OBN’s CEO, commented:
“After more than 6 years in the role, I believe this will be the right moment for me to partially retire and pursue other work interests. Every organisation needs a CEO change at intervals, to infuse new energy, vision, and momentum to keep moving forwards strongly. It’s been an enormous privilege to lead OBN whose purpose is, refreshingly, just to help our Members, Supporters, Sponsors, and the Life Sciences community at large achieve their goals.
Leaving at the end of April will enable me and the team to successfully deliver our major forthcoming conferences including BioSeed 2022 and BioTrinity 2022, and allow sufficient time for a new CEO to get their feet under the table ahead of the autumn activities and programmes”.
About OBN (UK) Ltd
OBN is the Membership organisation supporting and bringing together the UK’s emerging life sciences companies, corporate partners and investors. Our 400 plus member companies are located across the Golden Triangle and beyond to Nottingham, Manchester and Scotland and benefit from our networking, partnering, purchasing, advising and advocacy activities. OBN is best known for its delivery of world-class life science conventions including BioTrinity (26-27th April 2022), Europe’s leading life sciences investment and biopartnering conference.
Further information about OBN’s tailored networking and partnering events, purchasing consortium, advice, consultancy services and advocacy activities is available here:
From Aggio Sergeant: If you feel you’ve got what it takes to be OBN’s next CEO – a person who will build on John’s achievements and legacy – and continue to inspire, grow, and support the OBN community, please contact Kari Kemp, Senior VP of Delivery, at Aggio Sergeant.
