Fiona Black

Dr. Fiona Black has over 20 years of expertise in the biotechnology and biomedical industries, focusing on interdisciplinary technology development of both market-leading end-to-end product solutions and operationally efficient and scalable manufacturing processes. Most recently, Fiona led Illumina’s Array portfolio R&D organization. Under her leadership, the portfolio transitioned back to accretive growth, delivering 40% growth in revenue and a double-digit reduction in cost basis over four years. This was achieved via a multi-pronged strategy covering operational streamlining, consolidation of the on-market product portfolio, and focused technology innovation to drive emerging global markets. Before this, Fiona thrived in roles across the genomics, pharma, and agrochemical industries that required strategic and technology planning, product, process, and manufacturing infrastructure development, design transfer, and supplier development.

Fiona’s passion lies in working at the intersection of scientific fields, as is evident from her published patents. These range from polymeric drug delivery systems for biologics to low-volume fluidic transfer for biochemical assay, and methods to detect ligands on beads.