Charles Conn and Patrick Pichette will join Oxford Sciences Innovation to become chief executive and chairman, respectively, with founder Dave Norwood retiring.

Oxford Sciences Innovation (OSI), the university venture fund of University of Oxford, today appointed Charles Conn and Patrick Pichette as its chief executive and chairman, respectively. Conn will take up his position from tomorrow and replace chief executive Dave Norwood, who will retire. Norwood was instrumental in founding OSI in 2015 and the fund has grown steadily to $800m over the past four years. Norwood had previously also launched commercialisation firm IP Group and managed to raise the firm’s initial $40m in a single afternoon. He was recognised by Global University Venturing for his work with OSI as Personality of the Year in 2017. Conn was most recently CEO of the Rhodes Trust, which offers Oxford scholarships, and led the Warden of Rhodes House. He had previously co-run investment partnership Redjuice Capital and was a senior adviser to the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation. Conn earlier co-founded online city guide Citysearch and acted as its chief executive through an initial public offering and eventual merger with event ticketing service Ticketmaster. Pichette will also join OSI tomorrow but will remain a non-executive board director until July 1, when current chairman Peter Davies will step down and take a non-executive director position. Pichette is currently general partner at venture capital firm Inovia Capital and was previously the chief financial officer of internet company Google from 2008 to 2015. He had also spent seven years with telecoms company Bell Media from 2001, during which time his positions included chief financial officer and president operations. Davies said: “We believe that these appointments provide the ideal blend of industrial and entrepreneurial experience to aid the growth of the investee companies and build on OSI’s unique position as the preferred commercialisation partner to Oxford University, the world’s leading research university. “The work of the last few years has been extremely successful in its breadth and intensity, the potential of which is evident in the world class talent it has attracted. We are greatly looking forward to working with both Charles and Patrick to continue this development in the years ahead.”

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Thierry Heles

Thierry Heles is the editor of Global University Venturing, host of the Beyond the Breakthrough interview podcast and responsible for the monthly GUV Gazette (sign up here for free).