Background:

Based near Cambridge, The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute ("The Sanger") is a charitably funded genomic research centre. A leader in the Human Genome Project, the Sanger is now focused on understanding the role of genetics in health and disease. The aim is to provide results that can be translated into diagnostics, treatments or therapies. Their achievements and contributions in genetics place the Sanger Institute at the forefront of genomic research.

The IT infrastructure at the Sanger Institute is one of the most extensive in the life sciences. IT is critical for the Sanger in enabling research - generating huge volumes of data. New disruptive Next Generation Sequencing, exponential growth in storage and computational requirements (30PB and 20,000 processing cores of computational utility at the time of writing) plus the move towards more clinically linked data, create significant challenges in this area.

The Brief:

Our client needed a new Director of Information and Communications Technology. As well as taking strategic and operational responsibility for the delivery of ICT services to The Sanger and for other clients on the Genome Campus, this person would need to plan for new and disruptive technologies and initiatives globally, in the fields of both science and IT, to provide support for the Institute's leading edge work.

Solution:

We targeted agreed organisations and individuals from a range of appropriate fields, including Research Institutes, leading Universities and Biotechnology firms, with an emphasis on "Big Data", complimenting the search with an international online, client-branded advertising campaign.

Having been presented with a formidable shortlist, our client's choice was for an exceptional candidate sourced via an approach to The Office for National Statistics. We are delighted that they have gone on to prove a great success in the position.

Feedback:

“The thing that stands out was the relationship with Inspire People, who not only understood the client - but also were able to spend the time to get to know me. Dealing with an organisation who recruit IT specialists in the fields of Data Science and Big Data gave me confidence about their integrity and professionalism. Having dealt with many recruitment agencies and head hunters it was a refreshing change to feel as if they were genuinely interested in the work being done in this area and that they understood what was required. All of this meant that when I started the role, there were no surprises and it was a successful move for the Sanger Institute and for me"

Paul Woobey, Director of ICT at The Sanger

Links:

http://www.sanger.ac.uk
https://www.youtube.com/user/sangerinstitute

For more information, or to speak to a Consultant in confidence, email hello@inspirepeople.net or call +44 (0)20 7871 8550.