Several companies, including two US biotech firms, have appointed new members to their IR teams this week, as industry veteran Brian Christie took up a new role with a Canadian mining firm.
At Nasdaq-listed Precision BioSciences, Naresh Tanna has been promoted from chief of staff to the CEO to vice president of investor relations. He has been tasked with enhancing and expanding the IR program at the company, which is behind a tech platform used to develop gene-editing therapies for a range of genetic and infectious diseases.
Tanna takes over from Mei Burris, who was promoted to senior director of finance and corporate controller in September 2023.
‘Naresh’s breadth of experience before Precision, along with the deep knowledge gained since joining the company, position him to successfully lead communications with our shareholders,’ says Michael Amoroso, CEO of Precision BioSciences.
Meanwhile, Aligos Therapeutics has named Jordyn Tarazi as its new vice president of investor relations. She joins the Nasdaq-listed company from ABio-X Holdings.
Tarazi says she is ‘thrilled’ to be joining Aligos, a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing new treatments for liver and viral diseases, based in San Francisco.
‘This is an exciting time for the [metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis] space and we are well positioned to continue advancing our potential best-in-class pipeline. I look forward to sharing our exciting story with our stakeholders,’ she adds.
Elsewhere in San Francisco, Anna Vu has taken up a new post as director of investor relations at IVP, as US venture capital investment firm focused on late-stage companies and growth equity investments. She was previously senior director of investor relations at SVB and was recently named one of NIRI’s ‘40 under 40’ honorees.
Despite recently delisting from the Nasdaq First North Growth Market, Danish music tech company Linkfire has named Sabrina Højbjerg as its new head of investor relations.
The Copenhagen-based company first became publicly traded in 2021 but had its last trading day on the exchange on January 18 this year over concerns about the cost of accessing the market. Højbjerg says she is ‘happy to share’ the news on LinkedIn, and will also take up responsibilities for business affairs and corporate communication in her new role.
And finally, Brian Christie – formerly head of IR at Canadian extractives company Agnico Eagle Mines until his retirement in July 2022 – has joined the board of directors at Forum Energy Metals.
Christie, who has won a myriad of IR Magazine Awards, including the lifetime achievement gong in 2023, will lend his expertise to the TSX Venture-listed company, which is focused on the discovery of uranium deposits in the Athabasca Basin in Saskatchewan and the Thelon Basin in Nunavut, as well as other metal mining projects in Canada and the US.
‘I am excited to be joining Forum’s board,’ Christie says of his new role. ‘The company has done a great job of maintaining and building a large prospective land package in Nunavut near the Kiggavik deposit. Results from last year’s exploration program indicate that the company is well positioned to make a significant new discovery in the region in 2024.’
Laurie Havelock
Laurie has been part of the IR Magazine team for more than a decade, starting out as a reporter and research editor before becoming editor in 2023. He was previously acting business editor at the i newspaper and deputy business editor at The Daily...
