Illumina began hunt for CEO candidates in midst of activist fight, eventually picking little-known diagnostics exec

Il­lu­mi­na’s board be­gan look­ing for po­ten­tial CEO re­place­ments ap­prox­i­mate­ly two months be­fore the res­ig­na­tion of then-leader Fran­cis deS­ouza, dur­ing an in­tense proxy cam­paign tar­get­ing the com­pa­ny, ac­cord­ing to the search firm in­volved in the process.

The process, which was con­duct­ed qui­et­ly, meant that Il­lu­mi­na al­ready had a list of can­di­dates when deS­ouza and the board agreed in ear­ly June that he would step down.

Endpoints News

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.