Benchling Appoints Biotech and SaaS Veterans to Board of Directors
Former Veeva and Netsuite executives to help lead next chapter for life sciences R&D cloud
Sep 23, 2020, 09:00 ET
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Benchling announced today that it appointed Jennifer Goldsmith, former Veeva SVP, and Ron Gill, former Netsuite CFO, as independent board directors. Goldsmith brings an extensive background at the intersection of life sciences and software, including experience taking Veeva through IPO, while Gill brings deep financial experience helping SaaS platforms scale globally. The appointments come on the heels of Benchling's strongest quarter ever, in which Benchling continued its strong growth with new and existing global corporations across pharmaceuticals, agriculture, materials and more.
"Jennifer and Ron are industry veterans with rare expertise in scaling cloud software companies to over $1B in revenue," said Sajith Wickramasekara, Benchling CEO and co-founder. "Jennifer is one of the few people who has built transformative and enduring software for the life sciences. Her extensive industry knowledge and experience as a product leader will help us navigate the technology needs of complex R&D organizations. Ron is a seasoned operator with the financial expertise to help us build and scale our operations and set us up for our next chapter of growth."
Goldsmith was an executive at Veeva for nearly a decade and led the creation and growth of the Vault platform and suite of applications, which is now used by nearly all of the top 20 life science companies. For more than 20 years, she has advised biopharma innovators such as Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer, Takeda, BMS and Roche. Additionally, she has experience in building vertically focused products and solutions for technology leaders such as IBM, CSC and Fujitsu.
"More and more biotech and pharmaceutical companies are embracing software that will accelerate innovation and give them a competitive edge," said Goldsmith. "Benchling has cracked the code on delivering the vertical cloud to biotech -- offering clear value and ease of use to attract a generation of researchers committed to converting the complexity of biology into real results faster. They're on the front lines of enabling the century of biology."
Gill was most recently at NetSuite, where he was CFO for nearly a decade. Under his leadership, Netsuite grew to $1 billion in revenue and was later acquired by Oracle for $9.3B. Previously, he held a variety of financial positions with several of the world's largest technology companies, including SAP, Dell and Sony. He also serves as an independent director at Hubspot and Amplitude Analytics with past experience as a director at Duo Security prior to their acquisition by Cisco.
"Biotech has delivered disruptive breakthroughs that enhance and extend people's lives, but the industry hasn't yet experienced widespread digital transformation powered by SaaS platforms," said Gill. "Benchling's deep life science expertise and innovative technology make it uniquely positioned to become the must-have tool for any biotech company and lead the industry into the cloud era."
Benchling was recently named to the 2020 Forbes Cloud 100 list which recognizes the best private cloud companies in the world. The company has seen demand surge as companies embrace cloud solutions for today's virtual work environment. Earlier this year, Benchling closed its $50 million Series D funding to build advanced product capabilities, expand its international presence and drive adoption across leading R&D organizations.
About Benchling
Benchling's R&D cloud platform is powering the life science industry and helping the next generation of scientists make breakthrough discoveries faster than ever before. Bringing the power of modern-day software to the life sciences industry, Benchling is used globally across the largest multinational pharmaceutical corporations, emerging biotechnology companies and renowned research institutions. More than 230,000 scientists and 1,000 R&D organizations use Benchling's cloud platform to centralize massively complex experimental datasets and optimize R&D processes across industries ranging from pharmaceuticals and fuels to agriculture and food. For more, please visit benchling.com.
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