A prolific reader, Conor McKechnie is known for choosing precisely the right books to send to colleagues for insight and inspiration. He brings that talent for pinpointing needs and offering solutions into his relationships with customers.

As VP Marketing for Cytiva, Conor leads a team of marketers along the wire between being new and exciting, while ensuring consistency and stability for customers in the life sciences industry. He’s been in the role since March 2016, but his career in marketing, communications and public affairs spans more than 18 years.

Before becoming VP Marketing, Conor had served as Chief Communications Officer and Head of Public Affairs for GE Healthcare Life Sciences since 2012. His grasp of the industry’s priorities earned him an appointment in 2014 as director and trustee of CaSE, the UK Campaign for Science and Engineering, where he still serves.

From 2003-2006, Conor served as Communications Lead at GE Consumer Finance in the UK during a turbulent time of consumer re-branding, unprecedented growth, and intense regulatory scrutiny. He moved to GE Healthcare’s Global PR team in 2006 and in 2010 set up GE Healthcare’s Public Affairs unit. Prior to GE, Conor worked in Stockholm, Sweden, with one of the Nordic region’s leading communications agencies. He has previously worked in communications in the UK, telecoms in the Netherlands, and taught at Al-Jubayl Technical University in Saudi Arabia.

Born in Zaire, Conor has lived and worked in Africa, the Netherlands, Brazil, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Sweden and the UK. A linguist, he has an MA in Philosophy, Psychology and Business from the Universities of Glasgow and University of California Santa Barbara, where his 1996 MA thesis focused on the ethics of virtual reality and emerging technologies.

Firman Ghouze is Director of Global Strategy and Alliances for Cytiva’s Biotechnology Integrated Solutions business and has more than 20 years of experience in the life sciences industry. Over his career, Firman has worked in Product Management, Corporate & Commercial Strategy, Marketing, Business Development, Risk Analysis and General Management in Europe, the US, and Asia.
Achievements include initiating Cytiva’s Cell Therapy business and leading many private public partnerships across the three continents, including establishing a partnership with the Guangzhou government to establish the Guangdong Biocampus, which won a UN sustainable development award.

Firman holds a Bachelor of Science and a PhD in Molecular Biology from Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine in London. Firman lives in Singapore with his wife and two sons.

Jerome H. Kim, M.D., is the Director General of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI). He served as the Principal Deputy and Chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Virology and Pathogenesis at MHRP, in addition to being the Project Manager for the HIV Vaccines and Advanced Concepts Evaluation Project Management Offices, U.S. Army Medical Material Development Activity U.S.A., Dr. Kim was a Professor within the Division of Infectious Diseases of the Department of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. From 2004 – 2009 he led the Army’s Phase III HIV vaccine trial (RV144), the first demonstration that an HIV vaccine could protect against infection, as well as subsequent studies that identified laboratory correlates of protection and sequence changes in breakthrough HIV infections after vaccination. Dr. Kim graduated from the Yale University School of Medicine in 1984 and completed his training in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Duke University Medical Center. In 2013 he received the John Maher Award for Research Excellence from the Department of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Throughout his career to date, Dr. Kim has authored over 200 publications.