Here is a name that many people will recognize: Margo Georgiadis is the former CEO of Ancestry.com. The following is a press release written by Flagship Pioneering:
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 7, 2022 — Flagship Pioneering, the bioplatform innovation company, announced today that former Ancestry.com CEO Margo Georgiadis is joining Flagship as CEO-Partner. Georgiadis brings extensive expertise in technological innovation and high-performance business transformation. As a CEO-Partner, she will serve as the CEO of a Flagship Pioneering company currently in stealth mode, play an instrumental role in Flagship Pioneering’s efforts to scale its focus on preemptive health and medicine, as well as efforts to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to advance biotech innovation.
Georgiadis was most recently an Endurance Partner in Residence at venture capital firm General Catalyst, where she focused on building next-generation healthcare platforms that improve clinical outcomes while making healthcare more customer-centric, accessible and affordable. During her tenure as President and CEO of Ancestry.com, she scaled the company to over 3.6M subscribers, doubled its genomics network to over 20M consumers, increased subscription revenue to over $1B, and oversaw the sale of the company to Blackstone for $5B.
“The future of health lies in two forces advancing and converging: the development of diagnostics and therapeutics that preempt and deter disease, and AI and ML generating new classes of programmable medicines.” said Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering. “Margo is uniquely positioned to accelerate Flagship’s efforts to help transform the sick care system to a true health care system, and to help drive our company-building activities in this arena.”
With an extensive background in data-driven ecosystem transformations across multiple sectors, Georgiadis will draw upon her experience serving as President of the Americas at Google, where she led the hyper scaling of Google’s commercial operations and advertising sales across all digital solutions and platforms. She has also served as Chief Executive Officer of Mattel, Inc., Chief Operating Officer at Groupon, Executive Vice President of US Card Services and Chief Marketing Officer at Discover Financial Services, and Partner at McKinsey and Company.
“I am thrilled to have the opportunity to join Flagship Pioneering and contribute to building new models for preemptive health. With an unrivaled team of world-class scientists and technologists, Flagship is bringing to market transformational technology platforms that are reshaping the future of health and sustainability,” said Margo Georgiadis, Flagship Pioneering CEO-Partner. “I am excited to join an organization creating boundary-pushing life sciences platforms to improve health outcomes for as many people as possible.”
Georgiadis is a champion of organizations that inspire women and girls to pursue education and careers in STEM and advancing the next generation of women leaders. She has received multiple awards for her business and community leadership including the Forbes “Excellence Award in Innovation,” Chicago Innovation’s “Visionary Award,” the Eastman Medal from the University of Rochester, Executive of the Year in Utah, and was named to Crain’s “Most Powerful Women in Business” and Fortune’s “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” lists.
Her appointment complements recent executive appointments of Tom DiLenge, Senior Partner, Global Policy, Regulatory & Governmental Strategy; Vaithianathan “Palani” Palaniappan, Chief Technology Officer of Pioneering Medicines; Justine Levin-Allerhand, Senior Partner, Corporate Development; Kathy Biberstein, General Counsel; and Dr. Stephen Hahn, CEO-Partner and Chief Executive Officer, Harbinger Health, among others.
About Margo Georgiadis
Margo Georgiadis is a seasoned CEO and company builder with a passion for innovation, technology and health. A mission-driven leader with a track record for delivering results, Georgiadis brings more than two decades of distinguished leadership, business transformation and technological innovation to drive growth. Most recently, she served as an Endurance Partner at venture catalyst firm General Catalyst, where she focused on building and scaling health technology companies focused on improving clinical outcomes, access and affordability. Previously, she served as President and CEO at Ancestry.com, where she led the democratization of access to everyone’s family story and built new platforms in personalized health. Georgiadis spent nine years at Google as President of the Americas and Vice President, Global Sales Operations, where she led the company’s commercial operations and advertising sales for Google’s largest region. As Chief Executive Officer of Mattel, Inc., she spearheaded an 18-month turnaround to reset the mission and align the organization, product and channel strategy, partnerships and operating platform. Georgiadis has also served as the Chief Operating Officer of Groupon, Executive Vice President of US Card Services and Chief Marketing Officer at Discover Financial Services, and as a Partner at McKinsey and Company. She holds a BA in economics as well as an MBA from Harvard.
Georgiadis sits on several boards, including McDonald’s Corporation, AppLovin, Handshake, Neeva, WorkBoard, and Ro. Margo has received multiple awards for her business and community leadership including the Forbes “Excellence Award in Innovation,” Chicago Innovation’s “Visionary Award”, the Eastman Medal from the University of Rochester, Executive of the Year in Utah, and was named to Crain’s “Most Powerful Women in Business” and Fortune’s “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” lists.
About Flagship Pioneering
Flagship Pioneering conceives, creates, resources, and develops first-in-category bioplatform companies to transform human health and sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, the firm has, through its Flagship Labs unit, applied its unique hypothesis-driven innovation process to originate and foster more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in more than $140 billion in aggregate value. To date, Flagship has deployed over $2.6 billion in capital toward the founding and growth of its pioneering companies alongside more than $19 billion of follow-on investments from other institutions. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises 42 transformative companies, including Axcella Therapeutics (NASDAQ: AXLA), Codiak BioSciences (NASDAQ: CDAK) Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI), Evelo Biosciences (NASDAQ: EVLO), Foghorn Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FHTX), Indigo Ag, Kaleido Biosciences (NASDAQ: KLDO), Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Omega Therapeutics (NASDAQ: OMGA), Rubius Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RUBY), Sana Biotechnology (NASDAQ: SANA), Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB), and Sigilon Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SGTX).