Simon Thornber in

Simon Thornber

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Head of Research Data and Digital Services at University of Cambridge
📍 Stevenage, England, United Kingdom

Simon is a digital leader who, after two decades in the pharmaceutical industry at GSK, now heads Research Data and Digital Services at the University of Cambridge. He specializes in large-scale transformation and tech partnerships to accelerate research. Colleagues describe him as an insightful, strategic, and exceptional leader.

He led a Pistoia Alliance project, sponsored by five major pharmaceutical companies, to develop cloud-hosted Next Generation Sequencing platforms.

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Experience
12 Years
Current Role
Head of Research Data and Digital Services
Job Level
Mid-senior
Location
Stevenage, England, United Kingdom
Personality Overview

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Priorities

Topics Simon cares about

AI in Life Sciences
His experience at GSK involved deploying AI/ML tools like Knowledge Graphs and NLP, and his current role focuses on leveraging tech to accelerate research.
Strategic Tech Partnerships
He has a history of leading partnership engagements with major tech giants including Google, Microsoft, IBM, and NVIDIA to drive innovation.
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Career

Work history

2-2025
Head of Research Data and Digital Services
University of Cambridge
1-2023 - 2-2025
Head of Discovery Digital and Tech
GSK
1-2020 - 1-2023
Product Director
GSK
12-2016 - 1-2023
R&D-IT Director of Analytics, Target Sciences, and InVitro-InVivo Translation
GSK
1-2010 - 4-2012
Sequence Services WorkGroup Leader
Pistoia Alliance, Inc.
In the press

Media appearances

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Education
1990 - 1994
Bachelor's degree
University of Leicester
mini MBA
Birkbeck, University of London
Social presence
in
Behavioral profile

DISC profile (public)

DISC behavioral profile

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