Team

Sir Shankar Balasubramanian (our Science Partner and Ahren Science Partner), is the principal inventor of the leading next generation human genome sequencing technology core to all sequencing platforms of Illumina, Inc. (approximately $60 billion market capitalization as of November 12, 2021); Founder of two highly successful companies: Solexa Inc. (sold to Illumina Inc. for approximately $620 million in 2007) and Cambridge Epigenetix Limited (on-going); Jointly awarded the 2020 Millennium Technology Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious science and technology prizes, by Technology Academy Finland; awarded 2022 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences — the world’s largest science prize; Fellow of the Royal Society; Professor of Chemistry and Senior Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute.

Jeremy Darroch (Independent Director), responsible for building Sky plc and leading the company through the $40 billion takeover of Sky plc by Comcast. He has extensive experience in building large businesses, identifying strategic M&A opportunities and negotiating deals. He has been a champion of ESG initiatives as CEO of Sky plc and Executive Chairman of Sky Group Limited. He joined British Sky Broadcasting Group plc as CFO in 2004 and was appointed CEO in 2007. Jeremy became Group CEO of Sky plc following the acquisition of Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland in 2014. He became Executive Chairman of Sky Group Limited in 2021. Jeremy is an Ambassador of World Wide Fund for Nature. He was previously Chair of Business in the Community, a Senior Independent Director of Burberry Group plc, a Non-Executive Director and the Chairman of the Audit Committee of Marks and Spencer Group plc, a Council Member of the National Centre for Universities and Business and trustee of the Youth Sport Trust. Jeremy holds a B.Sc. in Economics from the University of Hull.

Kathleen Hughes (Independent Director), 30 years’ experience at tier one global investment banks and was named “Investment Woman of the Year — Large Firms” by Investment Week twice (2018, 2019) and one of the “100 Most Influential People in Finance” by Treasury & Risk Magazine (2011). Experienced in building and restructuring senior management teams, developing and promoting next generation leaders and successfully implementing strategic investment plans. Prior to her recent retirement from The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (tenure from 2010 to 2021), Kathleen was the global head of the Liquidity Solutions client business and the interim head of the EMEA retail client business. Previously, Kathleen was the head of Global Liquidity sales for EMEA at J.P. Morgan Asset Management (from 2005 to 2010). Kathleen served on the Goldman Sachs Sustainable Finance Steering Group, the Goldman Sachs EMEA Inclusion and Diversity Committee and the Investment Management division’s Inclusion and Diversity council. Kathleen was a member of the Diversity Project Advisory Council and was a committee member of the CFA UK Diversity and Inclusion Network. Since 2019 Kathleen has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Richmond where she sits on several committees and is a member of the Executive Advisory Council of the Robins School of Business. Kathleen holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Richmond.

Uwe Krüger (Independent Director), an experienced academic, investor, and technology business executive, and was awarded the ACE European Chief Executive Officer of the Year award in 2016. Since 2018, Uwe has been Head of Industrials, Business Services, Energy & Environment and Head Europe, Middle East & Africa at Temasek International Pte. Ltd., a leading globally diversified investment company headquartered in Singapore with a net portfolio of S$306 billion as of March 31, 2020. In addition to a series of additional executive roles at private and public firms in both Europe and the United States, Uwe was also an Operations Director and Senior Advisor with TPG Capital based in London and San Francisco. Uwe currently serves on the board of several international companies. Alongside his career, Uwe has had a longstanding commitment to academia and cutting-edge research, having worked on various research assignments at Columbia University, New York and Ecole Normale Superieur, Paris. Uwe holds an Honorary Professorship of Physics at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt, where he lectures, and also holds an Honorary Doctorate at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. Uwe holds several degrees from the University of Frankfurt, including: a B.Sc. in Business Administration; a B.Sc. and Master’s in Physics; and a Ph.D. in Complex System Theory and Brain Research.

Donald (“Don”) McLellan (Independent Director), is Partner at BDT & Company, LLC. Prior to joining BDT at its formation in 2009, Don was Interim Capital Purchase Program Director for the United States Department of Treasury as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program from October 2008 to 2009. Previously Don had a longstanding career at Motorola, Inc. from 1996 to 2008, including as Senior Vice President of Mergers and Acquisitions and Strategy. Don holds a J.D degree from the University of Chicago Law School, an M.A in Social Science from the University of Chicago, and a B.A. in Behavioral Science from the University of Chicago. Don is International Co-Chairman of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars National Cabinet.

Alice Newcombe-Ellis (Chief Executive Officer), is the Founding and General Partner of Ahren, an investment firm which she established alongside Ahren’s Science Partners in 2017. Alice has over a decade of investing experience, including at TPG Capital LLP (a leading global private equity firm with more than $70 billion of assets under management (“AUM”) as of March 30, 2021) and at Lansdowne Partners LLP (a leading investment firm with more than $11 billion AUM as of November 2020). Alice has had an investing focus predominantly in technology and disruptive healthcare. Alice holds a Double First-Class degree in Mathematics, and Master’s in Mathematics/Physics from the University of Cambridge. Alice was a Fulbright Scholar and a Baker Scholar at Harvard Business School.

Elliot Richmond (Chief Financial Officer), was previously a Partner and Managing Director at Moelis & Company. Elliot has 20 years of investment banking experience advising companies across a broad range of industries and transactions, including greater than $75 billion of domestic and cross-border mergers & acquisitions and equity offerings. Prior to joining Moelis & Company in 2011, Elliot was Director of UK Investment Banking and Head of UK ECM at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. In 2013, Elliot was honored by Financial News’ “40 Under 40 Rising Stars in Investment Banking”. Elliot holds a B.Sc. in Economics from University College London.

Principal inventor of the leading next generation human genome sequencing technology core to all sequencing platforms of Illumina, Inc. (approximately $60 billion market capitalization as of November 12, 2021; Founder of two highly successful companies: Solexa Inc. (sold to Illumina Inc. for approximately $620 million in 2007) and Cambridge Epigenetix Limited (on-going); Jointly awarded the 2020 Millennium Technology Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious science and technology prizes, by Technology Academy Finland; awarded 2022 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences — the world’s largest science prize; Fellow of the Royal Society; Professor of Chemistry and Senior Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute.

Professor of Information Engineering, University of Cambridge; Director of Toshiba’s Cambridge Research Laboratory; Advisor and mentor to several highly successful start-ups; Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering; Distinguished Fellow of The British Machine Vision Association (BMVA); Fellow of The International Association for Pattern Recognition.

Creator of IRIS eye recognition technology, being used to register India’s 1.4 billion citizens and build an approximately $3 billion market; Professor of Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, University of Cambridge; Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering; Institute of Mathematics and its Applications; US National Academy of Investors; awards include the IT Award; Medal of the British Computer Society; “Time 100” Innovator; inducted into the US National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Professor of Information Engineering, University of Cambridge; Deputy Director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence; Founder of Geometric Intelligence Inc., (sold to Uber Technologies, Inc in 2016); developed Automatic Statistician for Google Inc.; adviser to several highly successful start-ups; former Uber Technologies, Inc. Chief Scientist and Head of AI; now Distinguished Scientist and Senior Research Director at Google Brain; Fellow of the Royal Society and Alan Turing Institute; appointed as one of the first Turing AI World-Leading Research Fellows.

Originator of Olaparib cancer therapy, partnered by AstraZeneca plc/Merck & Co., Inc. and valued as an asset at up to $17 billion in 2017; Head of Gurdon Institute’s Cancer Research UK labs; Frederick James Quick Professor of Biology; Founder of KuDOS Pharmaceuticals Limited (sold for $206 million in 2006); Mission Therapeutics Limited (has raised $101 million as of July 6, 2020); Adrestia Therapeutics Ltd (on-going); Awarded 2016 Heineken Prize for Medicine; Fellow of the Royal Society.

Head of Cavendish Laboratory and Professor of High Energy Physics, University of Cambridge; Founder of the ATLAS experiment for the Large Hadron Collider and former member of the Executive Board; developed silicon detectors, fast electronics, large software systems; Pioneered computational radiotherapy and artificial photosynthesis.

Nobel Prize-winning biologist (2009) for his work on the atomic structure and function of the ribosome; Awarded Heatley Medal of the British Biochemical Society; Knighted in 2012; Former President of the Royal Society; Group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge; During the summer of 2020, convened the group DELVE and participated in SAGE to provide input into the advice for the pandemic.

Former Astronomer Royal and former Master of Trinity College; Awards include Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society; Bruce Medal; Fritz Zwicky Prize; Knighted in 1992; Founder of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and devotee to innovation with the goal of addressing climate change and protecting the environment; Former President of the Royal Society; former Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Nobel Prize-winning biologist (2018) and pioneer of technologies for making humanized/human antibodies, such as Herceptin, Keytruda and the world’s best-selling drug Humira ($19.8 billion of sales in 2020, in a $120 billion market); Founder of three companies: Cambridge Antibody Technologies Group plc (sold for £702 million in 2006), Domantis Limited (sold for £230 million in 2007), Bicycle Therapeutics plc (approximately $1.7 billion market capitalization as of November 20, 2021); former Master of Trinity College, Cambridge; Fellow of the Royal Society.