Executive Board

Mark Walport (Director - Wellcome Trust) (Chief Executive)

Mark Walport is Director of the Wellcome Trust, which is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in health by supporting the brightest minds. Before joining the Trust he was Professor of Medicine and Head of the Division of Medicine at Imperial College London.

He has been a member of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology since 2004.He is also a member of the India UK CEO Forum, the UK India Round Table and the advisory board of Infrastructure UK and a non-executive member of the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research. He is a member of a number of international advisory bodies.

He has undertaken independent reviews for the UK Government on the use and sharing of personal information in the public and private sectors: ‘Data Sharing Review’ (2009) and secondary education, ‘Science and Mathematics: Secondary Education for the 21st Century’ (2010).

He received a knighthood in the 2009 New Year Honours List for services to medical research and was elected as Fellow of The Royal Society in 2011.

Ted Bianco (Director - Technology Transfer)
Ted Bianco joined the Trust in 1999 as Head of the Centres and Initiatives department and became Director of Technology Transfer in 2002. Before joining the Trust, Ted was the Professor of Parasitology at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine where he led a research group working on the immunobiology of filarial infections.

John Cooper (Francis Crick Institute Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Chief Executive Officer)
John Cooper is Chief Operating Officer and Deputy CEO of the Francis Crick Institute. John joined the Crick Institute in the summer of 2009. He was previously Director of Resources of the Wellcome Trust, where he was responsible for a wide range of business services, including various construction and other large projects. He is also Managing Director of the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus at Hinxton and a Director of Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst (a joint venture between the Wellcome Trust and GlaxoSmithKline with support from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and the East of England Development Agency). Before joining the Wellcome Trust in 1999, John spent 30 years in the commercial electronics industry.

Simon Jeffreys (Chief Operating Officer)
Simon Jeffreys joined the Trust in March 2009. He is responsible for a wide range of business services, including finance, human resources, information technology, facilities management and grants management. Simon was previously Chief Administrative Officer for Fidelity International and for most of his professional life was a partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he was the global leader of the firm's investment management and real estate practice.

David Lynn (Director - Strategic Planning and Policy)
David joined the Wellcome Trust in April 2004, where he is a member of the Executive Team and the Director of Strategic Planning and Policy. His responsibilities include leading the Trust's strategic planning, policy and evaluation functions.

David's career has been in science policy and strategy. He has worked alongside the UK's Chief Scientific Adviser in the Cabinet Office. His time at the UK Department of Trade and Industry involved him working closely with the European Space Agency and European Commission on earth observation policy; and he has worked in a number of roles for the Natural Environment Research Council.

David is a non-executive member of the UK Association of Medical Research Charities Executive Council; a founder member of the European Foundation Centre Forum for Research and Philanthropy; and a member of the Governing Body and Executive Committee of the Public Health Foundation of India.

Clare Matterson (Director - Medical Humanities and Engagement)
Clare Matterson has responsibility for medical humanities, public engagement, media and communications, Wellcome Library and Wellcome Collection. She joined the Trust in 1999 as Head of Policy, and produced the Trust's first Strategic Plan. Clare previously worked as a Management Consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers. She was a Senior Policy Adviser to the 1999 National Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education and is a member of the Science Museum Advisory Committee, the Kohn Award Committee for Science Communication, and the Government's High Level Strategy Committee for Science Education. She is also a Trustee for ENTHUSE - an initiative for science teachers - and a member of the BBC Children in Need Funding Committee.

Kevin Moses (Director - Science Funding)
Kevin Moses joined the Trust in July 2011. Kevin was the founding Chief Academic Officer at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Farm Research Campus. Previously, he held faculty positions at Emory University and the University of Southern California, where he led a research group that studied morphogenetic mechanisms in the development of the Drosophila compound eye.

Danny Truell (Chief Investment Officer)
Danny Truell joined the Trust in 2005, having previously been a Managing Director of Goldman Sachs and Co. in its investment management division. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs in 1996, Danny's career was focused on Asian financial markets.