Kathy Fernando is a Senior Vice President and Global Head of Pfizer Ignite and Pfizer CentreOne (PC1) within the Business Innovation division at Pfizer. Pfizer Ignite is an innovation partner for biotechs to advance their science and programs and PC1 is Pfizer’s global contract development and manufacturing organization. Kathy’s prior roles at Pfizer include Head of Worldwide Research, Development & Medical Operations and Head of mRNA scientific strategy. In those roles, she focused on strategic initiatives to identify and evaluate new scientific areas of focus, increase the value of the R&D portfolio and enhance R&D productivity. Kathy also led efforts to develop an ambitious and holistic scientific strategy for mRNA across therapeutic areas as well as a well-orchestrated plan for execution.

Prior to joining Pfizer, she worked in management consulting, most recently at Deloitte.  During her time in consulting, Kathy helped address diverse business needs for pharmaceutical and biotech companies in the US and EU markets in areas such as therapeutic area strategy, product launch and lifecycle management. Kathy has strong strategy and operations expertise across the R&D and commercial space and has navigated complex strategic challenges across 10+ products launches.

Kathy has a Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Pennsylvania. Her Ph.D. thesis focused on mRNA vaccine and HIV vaccine development. She has a bachelor's degree in biotechnology from the Indian Institute of Technology (I.I.T) in Kharagpur, India. She lives in New York City with her husband and two young boys. She has a passion for discovering new restaurants and playing tennis, a necessary counterbalance.