Illumina Management Team

Francis deSouza was appointed CEO of Illumina in 2016 and is responsible for directing all aspects of company strategy, planning, and operations. He initially joined the company as President in 2013, and led Illumina’s business units and core functions responsible for envisioning, developing and producing the company’s products.

Previously, deSouza served as President of Products and Services at Symantec Corporation, where he was responsible for driving the vision for the company’s market-leading portfolio and served in a variety of executive roles. He joined Symantec through the acquisition of IMlogic, where he was co-founder and CEO.

Prior to joining IMlogic, deSouza was co-founder and CEO of Flash Communications, a provider of corporate instant messaging that was acquired by Microsoft. Following the acquisition, he joined Microsoft and led the team responsible for the development of the company’s enterprise real-time collaboration offerings. Currently, he is a member of the board of directors for The Walt Disney Company.

Francis deSouza received a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Alex Aravanis, MD, PhD, is Illumina’s Chief Technology Officer, Head of Research and Product Development. He re-joined Illumina in June 2020 and is responsible for leading Illumina’s research and product development teams in engineering, consumables, applications, user design, software, informatics, and artificial intelligence. These teams are Illumina’s innovation engine and deliver product excellence in next-generation sequencing platforms and applications to accelerate scientific breakthroughs and translation of genomics to the clinic.

Alex is an experienced entrepreneur and was involved in founding several start-ups in the life sciences and healthcare. Most recently, he co-founded GRAIL Bio where he served as Chief Scientific Officer and Head of R&D. At GRAIL, Aravanis led the research, development, operational, and clinical teams developing its multi-cancer early detection test. Alex’s passion for accelerating the commercial application of technology innovation continue in his current role where his responsibilities also include the Illumina Accelerator, the world’s first business accelerator focused solely on creating an innovation ecosystem for the genomics industry.

Prior to GRAIL, Alex served as Senior Director of R&D for Illumina, Inc., where he developed multiple technologies, including clinical assays for the analysis of RNA and DNA from fixed tissues, whole exome analysis, massively parallel single cell transcriptomics, and liquid biopsy using cell-free nucleic acids.

Alex earned BS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and Physics Minor from the University of California, Berkeley, as well as an MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering, and an MD from Stanford University. He holds more than 30 (pending and issued) patents and numerous peer-reviewed publications, additionally he serves on various Scientific Advisor Boards for biotech startups.

Charles Dadswell

General Counsel

Charles (Chuck) Dadswell is General Counsel of Illumina, where he has worldwide responsibility for all legal and intellectual property matters and is also Illumina's code of ethics compliance officer.

Before joining Illumina, Dadswell was Vice President, General Counsel for North and Latin America and Corporate Director of Global Intellectual Property at bioMerieux. He was previously General Counsel of BioDelivery Sciences International, a specialty pharmaceutical company, and oversaw US intellectual property in a variety of positions with Glaxo, GlaxoWellcome and GlaxoSmithKline.

Dadswell received an LL.M. in patent law and trade regulation from The George Washington University Law School, a J.D. from Thomas M. Cooley Law School and a BS in Pharmacy from Ferris State University.

Paula Dowdy

General Manager—Europe, Middle East, & Africa

Paula Dowdy is the General Manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Since joining Illumina in August 2016, Dowdy has reorganized the business, identified new markets and returned the region to sustainable growth. In addition, Dowdy played a pivotal role as a senior leader with the launch of the NovaSeq.

Previously, Dowdy was Senior Vice President for Cloud, Software, and Managed Services at Cisco where she drove numerous innovative solutions. During her 20-year tenure at Cisco, she held numerous leadership roles, spearheading product, software and service groups for virtually all customer segments. Having spent the majority of her career in Europe, Dowdy currently resides in London.

Dowdy holds a Master of Business Administration from Pepperdine University and an undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Aimee Hoyt

Chief People Officer

Aimee Hoyt is Chief People Officer at Illumina, where she is responsible for all aspects of the company’s HR strategies. Hoyt has a successful track record for leading workforce transformation, driving business growth and creating high-impact teams.

Previously, she has held senior positions at some of the world’s best-known technology companies including Hewlett-Packard, Cisco and Sun Microsystems. Most recently, she was the Chief Human Resources Officer at Rackspace, a leading managed cloud computing company, in San Antonio, Texas. She led the HR team and was responsible for helping build, align and develop high-performing global teams. During her tenure, Rackspace was recognized as one of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For, Top 30 Best Places in Tech and Great Places to Work for Millennials.

Hoyt earned a master’s in human resource development from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Kevin Pegels

Chief of Global Operations

Kevin Pegels is Chief of Global Operations for Illumina where he is responsible for the company’s global operations. His organization includes Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Life Cycle Management, Information Technology and Global Facilities and Real Estate teams who are committed to ensure high product quality and customer satisfaction.

Prior to joining Illumina, Kevin spent over 20 years in senior leadership roles leading supply chain and operations organizations for Bayer Healthcare, The Clorox Company, and Levi Strauss. In addition, his experience includes Deloitte Consulting advising companies on supply chain, operations strategy, and process improvement.

Kevin currently serves on the advisory committee for Bio Supply Management Alliance (BSMA) and will join the board of the San Diego Regional EDC. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University as well as a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

Li Qing

General Manager—Greater China

Li Qing is the General Manager of Greater China at Illumina. He joined Illumina in 2019 and is responsible for driving the company's growth strategy and evolution in Greater China. Qing is dedicated to achieving this market's long-term vision and financial goals.

Qing is an industry veteran with over 28 years of experience in the healthcare and life science industries at various global organizations.

Prior to joining Illumina, Qing served as the General Manager for Life Sciences at GE Healthcare Greater China, where he led over five business units covering four customer segments. In this role, Qing successfully led the strategic growth of the business. Before that, Qing held a senior leadership role overseas at Baxter.

Qing received his EMBA degree from China Europe International Business School (CEIBS).

Sam Samad

Chief Financial Officer

Sam Samad joined Illumina in 2017 and holds the role of Chief Financial Officer with responsibility for the company’s finance, accounting, investor relations, internal audit, treasury, and global information systems functions.

Before joining Illumina, Samad held several senior leadership positions at Cardinal Health including Senior Vice President and Corporate Treasurer, leading all tax and treasury functions. During his tenure as Treasurer, Samad also had operational and financial responsibility for Cardinal Health’s China business. Prior to that, Samad served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Cardinal Health’s $85B pharmaceutical segment, among other leadership roles. Prior to Cardinal Health, Samad spent thirteen years at Eli Lilly and Company, in a variety of sales and finance roles, both domestically and internationally, including his role as Chief Financial Officer of the Canada affiliate prior to leaving Eli Lilly. Samad started his career at Pepsico Inc.

Samad has served as Director on the Board for IDEXX Laboratories, Inc. (IDXX) since July 2019 and on the Board of Visitors at the Owen Graduate School of Management since 2016.

Samad holds a BBA degree from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon and an MBA from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada.

Susan Tousi

Chief Commercial Officer

Susan Tousi is Chief Commercial Officer at Illumina, where she leads global sales, commercial operations, and commercial strategy and enablement. Susan combines her extensive general management leadership and deep technical knowledge of Illumina’s product portfolio to ensure the global commercial success of the organization. She is committed to empowering Illumina customers with innovations to further unlock the power of the genome.

Susan has been with Illumina since 2012, and previously lead the product development organization as Chief Product Officer. During that time, she was responsible for global engineering, consumables, sequencing applications, IVD, software and informatics development efforts: During this time, she oversaw the most impactful decade of product launches including: HiSeq X, NovaSeq, MiSeq Dx, NextSeq 550Dx/1000/2000, iSeq, VeriSeq NIPT, TSO500,COVIDSeq, DRAGENTM, and Illumina Connected Analytics. Additionally, she led the acquisition of Edico Genomics, BlueBee, and Enancio, combined with Illumina’s existing software solutions, these new capabilities enable scalable, seamless, end-to-end software solutions that drive the utilization of genomic data and accelerate the adoption of genomic data in clinical care.

Susan has more than 25 years of R&D and business leadership at Fortune 100 technology companies and within the life sciences industry. Formerly, she was Corporate Vice President and General Manager for Eastman Kodak’s Consumer Inkjet Systems organization. Prior to joining Kodak, Susan was an R&D program manager for Phogenix Imaging LLC, a joint venture start-up of Hewlett-Packard and Kodak. She previously spent 10 years with Hewlett-Packard in technical and management roles. Along with many academic honors, she has received numerous awards in both business and technology. In 2018, Susan was elected to the National Academy of Engineers. Susan was named one of the 50 Top Diverse Leaders for 2020 by the California Diversity Council and is a member of the International Women’s Forum, a global organization of preeminent women of significant and diverse achievement.

Susan holds an MBA degree from UCLA and an Honors BS in Engineering Science and Mechanics from Pennsylvania State University. She currently serves as a scientific advisor on Vizgen’s Scientific Advisory Board, as well as on BICO’s Board of Directors.

Gretchen Weightman

General Manager—Asia Pacific & Japan

Gretchen Weightman is the General Manager for Asia Pacific and Japan at Illumina. In her role, Weightman is responsible for leading and developing the commercial organization within the region that includes Japan, Singapore, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, and India.

Weightman has held several leadership positions within Illumina prior to her current role. She was the Director of Sales for Asia Pacific, where she was responsible for sales of the Asia Pacific region, overseeing five geographical districts for orders, shipments and revenue. Prior to this, Weightman was the Senior Marketing Manager for South Asia Pacific, responsible for the overall marketing strategy and implementation in South East Asia, India, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand.

Prior to joining Illumina, Weightman worked at Applied Biosystems in a variety of commercial positions including Sales, Marketing, and Product Management. Her professional career started at Genesis Research & Development where she set up the high-throughput sequencing facility.

Weightman graduated from Auckland University with a BSc in Molecular Genetics and a Diploma of Commerce.

Joydeep Goswami, PhD

Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer

Joydeep Goswami is Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer where he is responsible for driving planning, strategic partnerships and acquisitions.

Most recently, he served as the President of Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Clinical Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) and Oncology business unit, where he oversaw efforts that drove the adoption of NGS in clinical oncology, research and reproductive health. Goswami has held senior leadership roles across the pharma/biotech, diagnostics and research tool continuum, previously serving at companies such as Life Technologies and Invitrogen, in addition to Thermo Fisher Scientific. He has led teams across various functions, including sales, marketing, R&D and other support functions. Mr. Goswami served as President, Asia Pacific and Japan while at Thermo Fisher Scientific and created the Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine Business Unit at Invitrogen. Additionally, he spent five years at McKinsey, where he specialized in strategy for pharmaceutical, medical technology and technology companies.

Mr. Goswami holds his MS, PhD in Chemical Engineering, an MBA from MIT and a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology.

Phil Febbo, MD

Chief Medical Officer

Phil Febbo, MD was appointed as Chief Medical Officer in March 2018. In this role, he is responsible for developing and executing the Company’s medical strategy to drive genomic testing into healthcare practice. Dr. Febbo has a successful track record of translational research, clinical excellence, and for embedding molecular insights into clinical care.

Immediately before joining Illumina, Dr. Febbo served as CMO of Genomic Health. Prior to his five years at Genomic Health, Dr. Febbo was a Professor of Medicine and Urology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where his laboratory focused on using genomics to understand the biology and clinical behavior of prostate cancer, and his clinical practice focused on genitourinary oncology.

Before joining the faculty of UCSF as an associate professor in 2010, Dr. Febbo worked at Duke University Medical Center’s Institute of Genome Sciences and Policy. He completed his internal medicine residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and his fellowship in oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. After which he was an Attending Physician in the Genitourinary Oncology Center at Dana-Farber, Instructor at Harvard Medical School, and a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Todd Golub's laboratory at Dana-Farber, as well as the Whitehead Institute Center for Genomic Research of MIT (now the Broad Institute). Throughout his career, Dr. Febbo has served as a primary investigator for the Translational Research Program of The Alliance, an NCI-supported cooperative group, where his work focused on incorporating biomarkers into large clinical trials.

Dr. Febbo holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from Dartmouth College and an M.D. from UCSF.

Nicole Berry

General Manager—Americas

Nicole Berry is the General Manager for the Americas Region, inclusive of the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. In this role, she is responsible for leading the customer facing functions including Direct and Channel Partner Sales, Service and Support, and Regional Commercial Operations teams in the Americas region.

Berry has been with Illumina since 2009 and has held several commercial leadership positions within the company. During the three years prior to her current role, she served as the Vice President of Sales for the Americas. Prior to this, Berry served in a number of sales management roles covering the U.S. and Canada.

Prior to joining Illumina, Berry worked at Applied Biosystems on the U.S. sales management team. Other highlights of her professional career include 15 years at Eastman Kodak Company, where she held a variety of global marketing and business management roles. Her professional career started at the Sloan Kettering Institute in the Tumor Immunogenetics laboratory of Dr. Lloyd Old.

Berry graduated from the University of Rochester with a B.S. in Biology, with a concentration in Neuroscience.

Kathryne Reeves

Chief Marketing Officer

Kathryne Reeves is Chief Marketing Officer at Illumina, where she is responsible for the development and implementation of a global marketing strategy that strives to expand patient and physician awareness of the benefits of genomic testing, amplify the voice of our customers, and accelerate clinical adoption of genomics.

Reeves brings more than 25 years of cross-industry marketing and corporate strategy experience to Illumina. Most recently, she was Senior Vice President of Enterprise Marketing and General Manager of the Medical Services Global Business Unit at Cardinal Health, where she led a rapidly growing portfolio of business with annual revenues in excess of $1 billion USD. Prior to Cardinal Health, Reeves held positions at Booz Allen Hamilton, AOL/Time Warner, Nationwide Insurance, and Scotts Miracle-Gro, among others.

Reeves is a member of the International Women’s Forum where she was a Leadership Fellow in 2017, and was named one of the Top Influential Women in Corporate America by the Savoy Network in 2016. She holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Carissa Rollins

Chief Information Officer

Carissa Rollins is Chief Information Officer at Illumina, where she is responsible for leading all Global Information Systems strategy, operations, risk and compliance, infrastructure, enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, employee and business-facing applications.

Before joining Illumina, Rollins was CIO at UnitedHealthcare. There she was responsible for the strategy, roadmap, and technology investments in support of the commercial, Medicare and retirement, and government programs technology business portfolios at UnitedHealthcare. Prior to UnitedHealthcare, Rollins held the positions of executive and senior roles at Gander Mountain at Kohl’s Corporation, Manpower Global, and Miller-Coors.

Rollins has served on the Board of Directors for the YWCA, Minneapolis, and is currently the Board Chair. She also serves on the Grand Canyon Conservancy board and the T-Mobile advisory board.

Rollins holds a B.S. in Management Information Systems and an MBA from Marquette University.

Salli Schwartz

Vice President of Investor Relations

Salli Schwartz is the Vice President of Investor Relations, leading all investor strategies and activities including quarterly earnings releases and conference calls, investor presentations, and day-to-day interactions.

Schwartz brings deep expertise, joining Illumina from MSCI Inc., where she served as Head of Investor Relations and Treasurer. In her role at MSCI, she oversaw relationships with equity and debt investors, sell-side analysts, rating agencies and partner banks, and executed company financing, cash management and capital allocation activities. Schwartz also served as a member of MSCI’s Corporate Responsibility Committee, Enterprise Risk Oversight Committee and Investment Committee.

Prior to MSCI, Schwartz spent more than 12 years with Moody’s Corporation, most recently as Global Head of Strategic Capital Management and Treasurer. She previously served as Treasurer and as Global Head of Investor Relations and Communications, as well as on Moody’s Corporate Development team.

Schwartz also held positions in corporate strategy, corporate treasury and FP&A with Citigroup Inc., and investment banking and merchant banking positions with Legg Mason. She previously served as a Board Director and Chair of the Audit Committee of the National Academy Foundation (NAF), a non-profit national network of education, business and community leaders who work together to ensure high school students are college, career and future ready.

Schwartz hold an MBA from Cornell University and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, both with distinction.