Management Team

Senior Management

Glenn Kerkhof, BCom, MBA

  • Executive Chairman

Glenn Kerkhof is Executive Chairman of George Clinical. Glenn has over 27 years’ experience in the contract research or drug development industry and joined George Clinical from Chiltern, where he was Chief Executive Officer. Before Chiltern, Glenn served as Vice President, Clinical Services for Charles River Laboratories, and as Vice President, Clinical Europe for Inveresk Research. Also, he is a non-executive director of Immunoglobal Pty. Ltd and his previous directorships include Cell Care Pty. Ltd. Glenn, based in Melbourne, works closely with the executive team to formulate and execute George Clinical’s global strategy.

James Cheong, BSc (Pharm), MBA

  • Chief Executive Officer

James Cheong is Chief Executive Officer of George Clinical. James has significant business leadership experience and more than 20 years of industry experience in both global pharma and CRO companies in the areas of Clinical Operations, Regulatory Affairs, Data Science and Regional Management. Prior to George Clinical, Cheong served as Head of Clinical Operations for the Chinese Market for Boehringer Ingelheim. Prior to Boehringer Ingelheim, Cheong acted as VP of Clinical Development at EPS International in the Asia-Pacific region. Based in our Singapore office, James leads global operations and directs the company’s administrative functions.

Matthew Prior

  • Chief Financial Officer

Matthew is the Chief Financial Office for George Clinical. He was formerly the Chief Financial Officer for global IVF service provider Virtus Health and prior to this, Vice President, Finance & Commercial Operations, Asia Pacific for Cochlear. He previously served as the Head of Equities Research at Evans & Partners and Head of Healthcare Equities Research, Asia for Bank of America where he analyzed the healthcare companies across Asia and was involved in numerous listed market transactions. Matthew also worked as a Research Analyst at Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank and started his career in accounting at Deloitte and Ernst & Young in Australia. He is based in the Australian offices of George Clinical.

Sean Hart

  • Chief Business Officer

As Chief Business Office for George Clinical, Sean Hart leads the U.S. and Asia-Pacific business development teams and directs global marketing and public relations efforts for George Clinical. Prior to joining George Clinical, Sean was the Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Vector Oncology overseeing the Global Pharma Services team including early phase and observational research. Sean is a recognized industry leader in Phase IV clinical trials, post-marketing surveillance programs, and patient registries. His experience spans all major therapeutic areas and all phases of research and development.

Maria Ali, MBBS, MBA

  • Chief Medical Officer

Maria serves as the Chief Medical Officer for George Clinical, responsible for continuing to build the organization’s enviable network of investigators and scientific leaders. Previously, she led the medical and safety services group at George Clinical who provide safety management, endpoint adjudication, medical monitoring and scientific leadership for both commercially sponsored and academic clinical trials. Maria has worked closely with the scientific leads at the George Institute to develop and implement scientific leadership models for George Clinical studies, as well as to develop new ideas for clinical research, and processes to improve clinical trial design and efficiencies. Maria has several years’ experience in both public health and clinical research as well as research management across a range of settings including hospitals, academic and clinical research organizations.

Graham Birrell, PhD, MBA

  • Head, Project Operations, APAC

Graham holds a PhD in Neuropharmacology from the University of Edinburgh Medical School. His more than 30 years of industry experience includes clinical operations, project management, regulatory consulting and business development. Formerly VP, Clinical Development, Travecta Therapeutics, Graham has also held senior management roles in UK and Singapore with Parexel, ICON, Quintiles and Syneos. He has directly managed 20 Phase II/III clinical programs that successfully gained marketing approval through submission to the US FDA.

Zhenfei Yin, MD

  • Head, Project Operations, China

As Country Head and Regional Head of Project Operations, China, Zhenfei is responsible for leading the operations teams across China. Zhenfei Yin brings with him more than 14 years of substantial industry experience leading Clinical Operations, Project Management, and Business Development teams across the CRO and Pharmaceutical sectors, including experience in Electronic Data Capture trials. Zhenfei, fluent in English and Chinese, obtained his degree in Clinical Medicine from Shanxi Medical University and also holds a Master’s Degree in Surgery from Peking University.

Susan Cole

  • Head, Project Operations, USA & Europe

Susan is responsible for U.S. project and clinical operations, including project management, study startup, monitoring and site management services. With over 25 years in clinical research, she brings experience in all phases of clinical trials, multiple therapeutic areas including over 12 years in oncology, and key leadership roles in clinical operations and financial management. She has helped develop or improve services for multiple U.S. Contract Research and Site Management organizations, as well as a national oncology site network. Her work with global and cross-functional teams brings added value to the George Clinical team as the Global Head of Therapeutic Strategy, Oncology.

Abby Abraham, MPharm

  • Head, Data Science

Abby Abraham serves as the Global Head of Data Science for George Clinical. Abby is responsible for developing new capabilities in data science and operations and enabling continued growth of Data management in the organization. He brings a combination of significant experience in clinical operations, leveraging data for operational effectiveness, and adopting new technologies to enable the organizational transition to new and emerging paradigms of clinical trial execution. His experience in business operations, strategy, and new technology adoption enable George Clinical to pursue innovation-led growth. In addition to his responsibilities in Data Science, he is also the Country Head of India business operations.

Louise Brnabic, PhD

  • Head, Quality

Louise Brnabic, Global Head, Quality, and is responsible for providing quality management support for all functional areas and countries, ensuring that global standards are maintained in all clinical trial-related activities. With a background in biochemical research, Louise has 20 years’ experience in quality management, project management, and clinical operations. She has worked with pharmaceutical and device companies, across all study phases and in a wide range of therapeutic areas.

Harmony Chan, MBA

  • Head, Human Resources

Harmony leads the Human Resources (HR) team globally to effectively partner with the organization to deliver on its people and company objectives.  Harmony has over 15 years of talent acquisition and generalist HR experience across the Life Sciences, IT&T and Built Environment industries globally and is MBA qualified in addition to holding a BA (Organizational Learning) and being Training & Assessment certified.

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