Leadership Team

Robert has more than 20 years' experience in technology R&D and high growth software businesses. After founding and selling his own disruptive technology company he has been a member of the executive team for businesses in R&D consultancy, biomedical development, and high-volume webs services delivery. His experience ranges from aggressive start-ups through to high growth multi-billion-dollar market cap organisations, leading a range of divisions across the businesses. During his career, Rob has excelled at building strategic partnerships with some of the world’s largest enterprises, national governments and international Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).

Simon is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants with over 30 years’ senior finance experience. First joining Congenica in 2019 he closed out the $50m Series C fundraising and returned in 2023 to assist with the latest round. He started his finance career with Carlsberg, Cadbury and Budweiser before completing a management buyout at Gaucho. He has spent the last 15 years growing software companies in the transport, healthcare and education sectors. Simon holds a B.A. in Accountancy and Management Control from Sheffield Hallam University.

Helen is a seasoned Clinical Scientist with more than 15 years of genomics expertise in both the NHS and biotech sectors. Leading Congenica's Clinical Team, Helen brings her passion for Precision Medicine to drive service delivery and shape the strategic direction of the company. Helen is committed to ensuring quality and regulatory excellence in Rare Disease diagnostics, for the benefits of healthcare providers, patients and families alike.

Alistair has over 20 years’ experience in project consultancy, product management and marketing in a range of industries including Finance, IT Security, Medicines Supply Chain Management and IT Service Management. He has worked in companies of all sizes ranging from start-ups to global enterprises including Symantec and Infor. Alistair is uniquely positioned to understand and address the technical and commercial challenges of delivering a secure, high-quality system with user experience at its core.

Peter has over 20 years of experience in leading product development in a range of industries, and applies his extensive experience at Congenica where he is responsible for the development and innovation of Congenica’s platform. After completing a degree in Pure & Applied Physics at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, Peter went on to a Masters in Software Engineering at Aston University. Following this, Peter went on to hold several Software Engineering and Development Leader roles, before being appointed the Development Director at Oracle, then Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at Aegate, and finally CTO at Congenica in September 2017.

Richard is a Professor in the Department of Genetics at Cambridge University and Associate Faculty of the Wellcome Sanger Institute. A pioneer in genome sequencing and bioinformatics for over 25 years, he has developed sequence data analysis tools that are now standards in the field, including the alignment software bwa and the SAM/BAM format which underpin most clinical genomic data analysis. Richard has also made significant contributions to the Ensembl resource for vertebrate genome annotation, and the TreeFam and Pfam databases and led the international 1000 Genomes Project and the UK 10K Genome Project. Richard is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Member of EMBO.

Philip is a consultant clinical geneticist and Professor of Medical and Molecular Genetics at the UCL Institute of Child Health (ICH), an NIHR Senior Investigator, Honorary Consultant in Clinical Genetics at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and the lead on Personalized Medicine for UCL. He is an internationally recognised expert in the genetics and pathogenesis of ciliopathies and pioneering use of next generation sequencing in mapping disease genes in this area.

Andy is a well-established entrepreneur and builder of biotechnology, healthcare and diagnostic ventures. He brings a strong business focus and an in-depth knowledge of the industry and company scale up. He is currently Chairman of Arecor, Abcodia and Closed Loop Medicine and is a director of Owlstone Medical and Ieso Digital Health. He is Chairman of BBT the Babraham Research Campus and a director of Cancer Research Technology Ltd (the commercial board of Cancer Research UK). Andy is a graduate of Cambridge University with a PhD in Chemistry and a track record as a founder, active investor in and director of more than 25 innovative healthcare and life-science companies, including Vectura plc and Arakis.

Heiner is a seasoned executive with more than 35 years of experience in the life sciences and health care industries. He was previously the President and CEO of Roche Molecular Systems, the world leader in molecular diagnostics, where he made significant contributions to the organisational and financial growth of the company’s molecular business area. Since leaving Roche Heiner has served on the board of a number of private and public biotechnology and healthcare companies in the United States, Europe and Israel.

Rob has more than 20 years' experience in technology R&D and high growth software businesses. After founding and selling his own disruptive technology company he has been a member of the executive team for businesses in R&D consultancy, biomedical development, and high-volume webs services delivery. His experience ranges from aggressive start-ups through to high growth multi-billion-dollar market cap organisations, leading a range of divisions across the businesses. During his career, Rob has excelled at building strategic partnerships with some of the world’s largest enterprises, national governments and international Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).

Matthew is Head of Human Genetics and Senior Group Leader at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. He is the scientific director of the Deciphering Developmental Disorders program and was a major contributor to the UK 10K projects. He has pioneered the analysis of whole exomes in clinically relevant disorders that previously failed diagnostic methods and has led an initiative to characterise structural variation in the human genome. Matthew has been awarded the Balfour Lecture by the Genetics Society and the Crick Lecture prize for accomplishments in genetics and is a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Michael is an Investment Director at Cambridge Innovation Capital plc and is focused on Healthcare businesses. Before joining CIC he was a Principal in the Healthcare Practice Area at The Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) Toronto office. Michael has experience in advising multinational healthcare businesses across North America, Europe, India, and Japan on a broad range of topics, including corporate strategy, sales and marketing, new launches, R&D and medical strategy, and M&A.

Ridhi is an Investment Principal at Legal & General working in the Fintech & Direct Investment team. Her role is to work closely with the team’s portfolio of start-up and scale-up businesses driving performance as well as scanning the market for new investment opportunities. She has worked in a wide variety of roles including pricing, product management, underwriting and claims, data analytics and corporate strategy across life, health and general insurance companies. Ridhi joined Legal & General from ICICI Lombard General Insurance where she was heading the Crop Insurance portfolio. Prior to Legal & General she has experience of working for insurers in New Delhi and Mumbai. She has completed her Post Graduate Program in Management from Indian School of Business, Hyderabad and she is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of India.

Alastair has over 30 years’ experience founding and leading various businesses and teams in broking, banking and fund management. Alastair was a Global Partner in Lazard Frere LLP. Currently he is a founder and CIO of Parkwalk Advisors, one of the biggest investors in UK University Technology Spinouts with a portfolio of over 80 companies.

David is the president and CEO of Digital China Health Technologies Corporation Limited. In China, he is the organiser of a national cancer database which includes information platforms in the National Cancer Center and provincial cancer hospitals, and built the National Population Macro Management Decision Model, approved by the UN. David serves as the Deputy Secretary General of the National Union for big data industry, the vice chairman of the national population medical big data Specialized Committee, and the Deputy Secretary-General of the Cancer Professional Committee on Healthcare Big Data.

Richard is a Professor in the Department of Genetics at Cambridge University and Associate Faculty of the Wellcome Sanger Institute. A pioneer in genome sequencing and bioinformatics for over 25 years, he has developed sequence data analysis tools that are now standards in the field, including the alignment software bwa and the SAM/BAM format which underpin most clinical genomic data analysis. Richard has also made significant contributions to the Ensembl resource for vertebrate genome annotation, and the TreeFam and Pfam databases and led the international 1000 Genomes Project and the UK 10K Genome Project. Richard is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Member of EMBO.

Matthew is Head of Human Genetics and Senior Group Leader at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. He is the scientific director of the Deciphering Developmental Disorders program and was a major contributor to the UK 10K projects. He has pioneered the analysis of whole exomes in clinically relevant disorders that previously failed diagnostic methods and has led an initiative to characterise structural variation in the human genome. Matthew has been awarded the Balfour Lecture by the Genetics Society and the Crick Lecture prize for accomplishments in genetics and is a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Philip is a consultant clinical geneticist and Professor of Medical and Molecular Genetics at the UCL Institute of Child Health (ICH), an NIHR Senior Investigator, Honorary Consultant in Clinical Genetics at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and the lead on Personalized Medicine for UCL. He is an internationally recognised expert in the genetics and pathogenesis of ciliopathies and pioneering use of next generation sequencing in mapping disease genes in this area.

Nick is Executive Director, MRC/UKRI Nucleic Acid Therapy Accelerator (NATA). Prior to founding Congenica, Nick was previously Director of Genetics Services at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London, with responsibility for the strategic and operational management of a genetics service that provides DNA diagnostic testing and services to a population of approximately 4.5M people. Nick is an honorary Reader at the UCL Institute of Child Health and has over 25 years’ of academic, healthcare and commercial experience in medical genetics and genomics. He was awarded a personal chair in Medical Genetics at Cardiff University in 2005 and was a founding CEO of London Genetics Ltd and Programme Director at Oxagen Ltd.

Anne O'Donnell-Luria is co-director of the Mendelian Genomics Research Center at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where she is an associate member as well as the associate director of the Program in Medical and Population Genetics. She is also an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, a faculty member in the Division of Genetics and Genomics at Boston Children's Hospital, and affiliated faculty in the Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her research group at Boston Children’s Hospital and the Broad focuses on using large-scale genomic and transcriptomic approaches to increasing the rate of rare disease diagnosis through improving rare variant interpretation and empowering the discovery of novel disease genes. She is particularly interested in how we can leverage gnomAD, a massive reference population database, in these efforts including in estimating rare disease prevalence. She also studies incomplete penetrance of genetic conditions, or why only some people with a disease-causing genetic variant will develop symptoms.