- Pfizer recently announced that it has elected Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellmann to its Board of Directors, effective immediately
Pfizer recently announced that it has elected Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellmann to its Board of Directors, effective immediately. Dr. Desmond-Hellmann was also appointed to the Governance & Sustainability Committee and the Science and Technology Committee of Pfizer’s Board.
Dr. Desmond-Hellmann had served as Chief Executive Officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from 2014 until 2020 where she oversaw the creation of the Gates Medical Research Institute (the world’s first nonprofit biotech organization) as well as the launch of the Economic Mobility and Opportunity investment strategy in the U.S. And she remains a Senior Advisor and Board member of the Gates Medical Research Institute.
Before joining the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, she was the first female and ninth overall Chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) from 2009 until 2014 where she still serves as an adjunct professor.
And from 1995 through 2009, Dr. Desmond-Hellmann worked at Genentech where she served as President of Product Development from 2005-2009 overseeing pre-clinical and clinical development, business development and product portfolio management.
Prior to working at Genentech, Dr. Desmond-Hellmann was Associate Director of Clinical Cancer Research at Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute.
Dr. Desmond-Hellmann served as a Director of Facebook from 2013 to 2019 and Procter & Gamble from 2010 to 2017. And Dr. Desmond-Hellmann received a B.S. in Pre-Med and an M.D. from the University of Nevada and a M.P.H. from the University of California, Berkeley.
“We are pleased to welcome Dr. Desmond-Hellmann to Pfizer’s Board of Directors,” said Pfizer’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla. “She has made extraordinary contributions throughout her career in medicine, academia, research and global health. With Dr. Desmond-Hellmann’s election, we have further bolstered Pfizer’s already strong, diverse Board with additional clinical expertise, scientific insights and respected business leadership.”
