Jeff Smith

Chief Executive Officer

Jeff has been the CEO at Alimentiv since October 2016. In May 2018, Jeff led the successful separation of the organization from its sole owner, Western University, to a Health Trust establishing the first social enterprise of its kind in North America.

Background

Jeff has a strong record of leading high-performing global teams that support the growth of global business units. His background in clinical research spans more than 20 years in the pharma and contract research organization (CRO) industries. Prior to his current position, he held senior positions with Alimentiv (formerly Robarts Clinical Trials) including Vice President, Clinical Operations and Director, Business Development. And before joining Alimentiv he was a Senior Director, General Medicine & Vaccines/Infectious Disease with PharmaNet (now Syneos). Jeff trained as a registered nurse, and holds a Bachelor Degree in Health Sciences (nursing).

Achievements

Jeff’s perspective on building a great company has been shaped from his experience working in a variety of ownership structures including government, private, public, private equity and venture capital. These experiences helped shape his vision for building a 100-year private company that pursues its purpose and putting people first ahead of shareholder returns. In May 2018, he was able to realize this vision with the transition of ownership of Robarts Clinical Trials to a Health Trust.

Ethos

“When leaders prioritize goodness in themselves and in others, they can create lasting cultures and tremendous value.”

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Hershell William Thompson

Chief Clinical Solutions Officer

Hershell has led the Clinical Research division since 2019. He is responsible for end-to-end clinical trial services and the continuous development of resources and capabilities.

Background

Hershell has over 25 years of experience in medicine development. Prior to this role, Hershell was Senior Managing Consultant at Navitas Life Sciences and held senior roles at GSK and ICON Clinical Research where he was the Director of Clinical Process and Change Management. He also has a strong CRO services delivery background resulting from years as a clinical trials project lead and CRA.

Achievements

Over the past 20 years, Hershell has defined strategy and provided leadership for major R&D process improvement and organization redesign initiatives to resolve current issues and enable future success. He drove implementation of a change management framework throughout the clinical research organization, implementing standard methodologies and tools for managing change and leading complex change initiatives to the expected benefit.

Ethos

“Be authentic, breathe, listen. The time is now. There is no other opportunity than this moment to give your very best.”

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Vipul Jairath

MBChB, DPhil, MRCP, FRCPC Chief Medical Officer

Vipul oversees the global Medical R&D initiatives and services. In conjunction with the executive team and senior medical advisors, he assumes overall responsibility for research strategy, as well as performance of the organization’s Medical R&D services including medical operations, medical imaging, precision medicine, medical writing, medical monitoring, medical/biostatics advisory collaborations and IBD fellowships. He also provides medical oversight for the design of clinical trials, protocol development and imaging R&D endpoints. Vipul was previously VP Medical Research & Development (2019-2021) and Director of Academic Research and Development (2016-19).

Background

Dr Jairath obtained his BSc (Pharmacology) and Medical Degree from the University of Leeds (UK), DPhil (PhD) in Clinical Medicine from the University of Oxford and post-graduate diploma in Clinical Trials from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He is Professor of Medicine at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, and holder of the John and Susan McDonald Endowed Chair in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) at Western University.

His specialist clinical training in Gastroenterology was completed in London and Oxford, and he holds specialist certification in both Ontario and the UK. Prior to moving to Western in 2016, he was a National Institute for Health Research Clinical Trials Fellow at the Oxford Clinical Trials Research Unit and Consultant Gastroenterologist at Oxford University hospitals.

He is a practising gastroenterologist and specialist in inflammatory bowel disease, and his research interests in clinical therapeutics for IBD include design of clinical trials, development and validation of outcome measures for use in clinical trials, patient reported outcome measures and prediction modelling for response to therapy.

Achievements

Vipul has driven the development and validation of several novel indices for use in IBD clinical trials, like the UC-100 and the novel patient reported outcome measures, SIQ-UC and SIQ-CD. In addition, he was instrumental to the delivery of the REACT2 trial and to the design of the VERDICT trial, both of which are important clinical practice questions for patients with Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis, respectively.

Ethos

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Aristotle

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Mike Reffeitt

Chief Financial Officer

Mike has been CFO of Alimentiv since spring of 2021. He oversees the overall strategy and business operations of the company as well as leading the Finance/Accounting, IT, Legal, Quality Assurance, Facilities, and Enterprise Analytics areas at Alimentiv.

Background:

Mike is a senior executive leader with decades of demonstrated success in business transformation expertise. With more than 20 years of experience in the CRO space, his accomplishments have spanned driving growth within Venture Capital, Private Equity, Private and Public Organizations. Prior to Alimentiv, Mike was President of a US based technology company and before then he was CFO of BioStorage Technologies. He also spent nearly a decade in leadership roles at Covance (now part of LabCorp). Mike holds both undergraduate and graduate degrees in business administration.

Achievements:

As a founding executive of BioStorage Technologies, Mike was instrumental in driving the organization from start-up to an international market leading business, ultimately navigating the company through a strategic sales process and acquisition by Brooks Life Sciences (NASDAQ: BRKS). He has won awards such as “CFO of the Year” as well as recognized by the Association for Corporate Growth for its annual transaction honor.

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Clare McNally

Chief Commercial Officer

Bio coming soon.

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