Jeffrey Walsh

Jeff Walsh is strategic advisor and former Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Bluebird Bio which he joined in 2011. He served in a variety of roles during bluebird’s growth from a fledgling, private gene therapy biotech company with 20 employees to a publicly traded, commercial stage leader in the field of gene and cell therapy with global operations and over 1,200 employees worldwide. Jeff held the roles of chief operating and financial officer from 2011-2015, chief financial and strategy officer from 2015-2019 and, most recently, as chief strategy officer from 2019-2020. He currently is a Strategic Advisor to bluebird.

Jeff has over 30 years of experience in healthcare leadership positions with responsibility for finance, business development, commercial and business operations, strategic planning, and legal functions with established, emerging and start-up public and private life sciences companies. From 2008 to 2011, Jeff served as chief business and financial officer of Taligen Therapeutics, Inc. where he played a key role in the growth of the company and the ultimate sale of Taligen Therapeutics, Inc. to Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Jeff started his career at SmithKline Beecham Corporation in finance and worldwide business development roles. He subsequently held senior business development, finance, sales and operations roles at PathoGenesis Corp. (PGNS acquired by Chiron Corporation), Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc., EXACT Sciences Corporation and Inotek Pharmaceuticals Corp. During his career, Jeff has raised over $3 billion in capital through venture capital financings, business development deals and initial and follow on public offerings. Jeff received his B.A. in sociology and economics from Yale University and his MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

Jeff resides in Wellesley, MA with his wife and three daughters. He is currently on the board of directors of Tevard Biosciences, as well as Tenaya Therapeutics, a series B clinical stage company focused on developing cures for the underlying causes of heart disease. He is also on the board of directors and executive committee as an officer (Treasurer) of The Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM), a non-profit advocacy organization supporting the cell and gene therapy industry. Jeff has been a guest lecturer on topics of entrepreneurialism and biotechnology organizational development at the University of Chicago (Booth), Dartmouth (Tuck), Boston University (Questrom) and MIT (Sloan).