The Board of the national non-profit association for the life science industry in Sweden, SwedenBIO, has appointed Helena Strigård as their new CEO.

Strigård will start her new position on September 1st 2019 and she will be replacing Jonas Ekstrand, who has been the CEO of SwedenBIO for eight years.

“I am very pleased that Helena Strigård has accepted the task of leading Sweden’s largest industry association for life sciences. As deputy CEO she has highly contributed to the positive development of the organization and I am convinced that she will be able to further develop our organization which right now is going trough a significant expansion,” says Lars Adlersson, SwedenBIO’s Chairman.

Political experience

Helena Strigård (M.Sc. Molecular Biotechnology, BA Business Economics), has previously among other thing been working as an advisor within research and innovation politics at the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (Svenskt Näringsliv) and as advisor at BusinessEurope. At the Ministry of Finance she has been responsible for a number of political areas, such as industry and research politics and the 2016 research and innovation bill.

“I look forward to take over the leadership of SwedenBIO and together with my colleagues further develop the organization’s efforts in supporting our members and strengthening the conditions for Swedish life sciences. Life sciences is an area where Sweden manifestly excels and our focus is to keep it that way,” says Strigård.