ZRG Partners Recruits Chief Commercial Officer for Agendia
March 30, 2022 – ZRG Partners, a leading search firm backed by private equity firm RFE Investment Partners, has assisted in the recruitment of Elizabeth (Betsey) Hanna as executive vice president and chief commercial officer of Agendia. Heather Burns led the assignment. “We are pleased to welcome Betsy as a critical member of our executive team,” said Mark Straley, CEO of Agendia. “Betsy is a distinguished global healthcare and biotech executive with a proven track record building market value in medical device and diagnostic businesses in the U.S. and globally. Her extensive functional experience to create and execute global growth strategies will serve Agendia well as she becomes an integral part of our executive team, spearheading all commercial activities,” he said. “We look forward to tapping into Betsy’s strategic thinking and accountable leadership to further expand our global commercial impact towards the achievement of our mission.”
Most recently, Ms. Hanna served as president and CEO at Clinical Genomics where she developed and executed go-to-market strategies and accelerated the commercialization of liquid biopsy tests to detect colorectal cancer. Prior to that, she was president and chief operating officer at Origin Inc., a clinical-stage biotech company, where her responsibilities included product development and manufacturing, negotiating clinical study design with the U.S. FDA and creating strategic plans to support private funding for a Class III medical device.
Ms. Hanna brings a wealth of knowledge from her time serving in commercial and managerial roles at Johnson & Johnson Vision Care and Ortho Clinical Diagnostics. During her time with these two divisions of Johnson & Johnson, she was responsible for global product strategy and global and regional market share growth plans. In her tenure at Ortho, Ms. Hanna launched two new diagnostics platforms globally and doubled the company’s market growth in Europe. Ms. Hanna serves on the board of directors for Treace Medical Concepts, a high-growth orthopedics company.
“It’s an exciting time to be a part of Agendia’s growing business momentum and I’m particularly inspired by the company’s unique approach to bring meaningful genomic diagnostic solutions to the breast cancer community,” said Ms. Hanna. “I look forward to joining the well-established and talented commercial team at Agendia, and leading the U.S. and global businesses to accelerate access to these important assays in order to guide decision making for women with breast cancer and their physicians.”
Agendia is a mission-driven, commercial stage company focused on enabling optimized decision-making by providing physicians with next-generation diagnostic and information solutions that can be used to help improve outcomes for breast cancer patients worldwide. The company currently offers two commercially-available genomic profiling tests that help surgeons, oncologists, and pathologists to personalize treatment for women at critical intervention points throughout their patient journey.
Related: The Ropella Group Assists Itaconix in Finding Chief Commercial Officer
ZRG, founded in 1999, is a progressive mid-sized global executive search firm and one of the fastest growing in the search industry. It provides a full suite of executive, middle-management, and customized search solutions through its offices in North America, Europe, South America, and Asia. The firm finds leaders across a broad spectrum of business markets, including aerospace, consumer, education, healthcare services and solutions, industrial, life sciences, non-profit, private equity and venture capital, and technology.
Ms. Burns is a managing director for Toft Group, a ZRG company working with top life science and healthcare companies across the U.S. She brings over 20 years of experience placing executives across many functional areas, including C-suite, R&D, commercial, human resources, manufacturing, and other senior management positions within biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, medical devices, life science tools, and digital health.
Chief Commercial Officer Recruiting
The CCO is essentially responsible for the commercial strategy and the development of an organization. The role typically involves activities relating to marketing, sales, product development and customer service to drive business growth and market share. As a corporate officer, the CCO generally reports directly to the CEO and is charged with ensuring the integrated commercial success of an organization. The role typically combines technical knowledge of the relevant field with strong marketing and business development skills.
A CCO in large part takes ownership of the customer and the customer interface with the product or service offering, making sure that all functions of the organization are aligned to meet its strategic commercial objectives. This means that the role is closely linked to the organization’s strategic management function, in drafting, implementing, and evaluating cross-functional decisions that enable an organization to achieve its long-term objectives.
Related: Slone Partners Recruits Chief Commercial Officer for Argonaut Manufacturing Services
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
