Dear All,
As many of you will have heard our COO, Jonathan Truslow, is relocating to the UK for personal reasons. He is taking up the position of Head of Administration at the Kennedy Institute in Oxford, and his last day with us will be 5th June. Over the past three and a half years Jonathan has done a wonderful job in improving all aspects our administration, resulting in our first ever completely clear audit from the Wellcome Trust – a remarkable achievement! We will of course miss him tremendously, but he leaves our administration in excellent shape, almost certainly the best of all the Wellcome Trust Major Overseas Programmes.
Pat Hannay has kindly agreed to be Acting COO between 5th June and 1st August 2015. From 1st August Karen Valentine, currently Head of Operations at the Nuffield Department of Medicine in Oxford will arrive to take over as COO for a period of 12 months. She is very able and experienced, has visited the unit several times, and we are grateful to the NDM for seconding her to us for a year. With Pat and then Karen in position this will allow us the time to find the right long term replacement for Jonathan. I anticipate that after a re-assessment of our requirements for this role we will be advertising in late 2015 or early 2016.
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Jonathan for all he has done for us over the past few years, and I’m sure you will join me in wishing him every success in his new job and life in the UK.
With best wishes,
Nick