Teckro CEO and leadership

Gary Hughes is co-founder and CEO of Teckro. He is an entrepreneur who has successfully launched two global companies in Ireland - more than a decade ahead of the start-up boom and withstanding the dot-com bust.

Combining a passion for design with love of technology, Gary is influenced by Dieter Rams’ principles of good design. He co-founded Teckro with a motivation to make an impact and the belief that clinical research needs to be simpler and more accessible.

Gary started his career in the budding e-learning market in the mid 1990s, first working at Dublin-based Interactive Services as a graphic designer. Gary later relocated to the US to gain international experience. Here he worked as a program manager for Microsoft on their Step-by-Step Interactive Training programs before moving back to Ireland to join an early stage start-up based in Galway as one of its first employees. It was a formative experience that led Gary to start Firecrest Clinical in 2001 along with Nigel Hughes and Jacek Skrzypiec.

At its inception, Firecrest was an e-learning solution that provided online training for healthcare professionals. By 2004, Firecrest evolved into an investigator portal - one of the first site-facing solutions in the market. In 2011, after a decade, Gary and the Firecrest management team accepted an acquisition offer from ICON, one of the world’s largest clinical research organizations.

Post-acquisition, Gary remained with ICON for a couple of years as Executive Vice President. In this time, he gained a greater appreciation for the scale of the problems facing modern drug development processes. Inspired for a second time, Gary, along with co-founders Nigel and Jacek, started Teckro in 2015. Today, Teckro has more than 100 employees across Europe and the United States, with ambitious future growth plans.

Brendan’s extensive experience as a senior clinical investigator fosters credible peer-to-peer conversations with prospective Teckro customers.

Brendan is a medical graduate of University College Cork (UCC) and a doctoral graduate in Biochemistry of Oxford University. He brings more than 40 years of experience in academic clinical practice as a physician in endocrinology, diabetes and clinical pharmacology.

Brendan is also a non-executive director of a number of biopharma development and services companies. He chairs the board of the leading Irish research charity, Fighting Blindness, and is a member of the board of Breakthrough Cancer Research. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Irish Medicines Board (now the Health Products Regulatory Authority), chairing its statutory Advisory Committee for Human Medicines. In the past, he was also a member of the European Medicines Agency Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products (COMP) and of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) Scientific Advisory Committee on diabetes and metabolism.

Brendan is an Honorary Clinical Professor at UCC and an Adjunct Professor at University College Dublin in the respective medical faculties. He was Director of the European Collaborative Centre for Clinical Trials in Rare Diseases at UCC. With more than 150 scientific papers published in his career, Brendan also authored the opinion-leading book Re-Engineering Clinical Trials. He has directed a number of very large outcomes trials in metabolic/cardiovascular disease and chairs the independent data and safety monitoring boards for a number of large clinical development programs.

Brendan co-founded Firecrest Clinical, and when it was acquired by ICON served as Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President.

Jacek Skrzypiec is a Chief Technology Ofcr/Co-Founder at Teckro and is based in Ireland. He has worked as Co-Founder and CTO at FIRECREST CLINICAL, VP & CTO Firecrest Clinical at ICON PLC, and Senior Software Engineer at SyberNet Ltd.. Jacek attended Ecole nationale supérieure des Télécommunications (ENST), Paris, France between 1997 and 1997; Franco-Polish School of New Information and Communication Technology (EFP), Poznan, Poland between 1994 and 1997; and Politechnika Wrocławska between 1992 and 1994.

Kelly Brown is a Chief Marketing Officer at Teckro and is based in London, Greater London, United Kingdom. She works or has worked as VP Marketing, Europe at Veeva Systems. Kelly studied at Bentley University and University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Experienced CFO with a proven track record of establishing cross-functional partnerships to deliver on organisational goals.

Extensive experience in both the development and implementation of corporate strategy.

Track record of building and leading finance functions in a range of different industries.

Experience of successfully raising seed financing from private investors and Series A & Series B from US Venture Capital firms (VC's).

Chartered Accountant (FCA) with over 14 years' post-qualification experience.

Senior executive with cloud technology, sales and finance experience in international software companies.

Gary Hughes is co-founder and CEO of Teckro. He is an entrepreneur who has successfully launched two global companies in Ireland - more than a decade ahead of the start-up boom and withstanding the dot-com bust.

Combining a passion for design with love of technology, Gary is influenced by Dieter Rams’ principles of good design. He co-founded Teckro with a motivation to make an impact and the belief that clinical research needs to be simpler and more accessible.

Gary started his career in the budding e-learning market in the mid 1990s, first working at Dublin-based Interactive Services as a graphic designer. Gary later relocated to the US to gain international experience. Here he worked as a program manager for Microsoft on their Step-by-Step Interactive Training programs before moving back to Ireland to join an early stage start-up based in Galway as one of its first employees. It was a formative experience that led Gary to start Firecrest Clinical in 2001 along with Nigel Hughes and Jacek Skrzypiec.

At its inception, Firecrest was an e-learning solution that provided online training for healthcare professionals. By 2004, Firecrest evolved into an investigator portal - one of the first site-facing solutions in the market. In 2011, after a decade, Gary and the Firecrest management team accepted an acquisition offer from ICON, one of the world’s largest clinical research organizations.

Post-acquisition, Gary remained with ICON for a couple of years as Executive Vice President. In this time, he gained a greater appreciation for the scale of the problems facing modern drug development processes. Inspired for a second time, Gary, along with co-founders Nigel and Jacek, started Teckro in 2015. Today, Teckro has more than 100 employees across Europe and the United States, with ambitious future growth plans.

Brendan’s extensive experience as a senior clinical investigator fosters credible peer-to-peer conversations with prospective Teckro customers.

Brendan is a medical graduate of University College Cork (UCC) and a doctoral graduate in Biochemistry of Oxford University. He brings more than 40 years of experience in academic clinical practice as a physician in endocrinology, diabetes and clinical pharmacology.

Brendan is also a non-executive director of a number of biopharma development and services companies. He chairs the board of the leading Irish research charity, Fighting Blindness, and is a member of the board of Breakthrough Cancer Research. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Irish Medicines Board (now the Health Products Regulatory Authority), chairing its statutory Advisory Committee for Human Medicines. In the past, he was also a member of the European Medicines Agency Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products (COMP) and of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) Scientific Advisory Committee on diabetes and metabolism.

Brendan is an Honorary Clinical Professor at UCC and an Adjunct Professor at University College Dublin in the respective medical faculties. He was Director of the European Collaborative Centre for Clinical Trials in Rare Diseases at UCC. With more than 150 scientific papers published in his career, Brendan also authored the opinion-leading book Re-Engineering Clinical Trials. He has directed a number of very large outcomes trials in metabolic/cardiovascular disease and chairs the independent data and safety monitoring boards for a number of large clinical development programs.

Brendan co-founded Firecrest Clinical, and when it was acquired by ICON served as Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President.

Jacek Skrzypiec is a Chief Technology Ofcr/Co-Founder at Teckro and is based in Ireland. He has worked as Co-Founder and CTO at FIRECREST CLINICAL, VP & CTO Firecrest Clinical at ICON PLC, and Senior Software Engineer at SyberNet Ltd.. Jacek attended Ecole nationale supérieure des Télécommunications (ENST), Paris, France between 1997 and 1997; Franco-Polish School of New Information and Communication Technology (EFP), Poznan, Poland between 1994 and 1997; and Politechnika Wrocławska between 1992 and 1994.

Kelly Brown is a Chief Marketing Officer at Teckro and is based in London, Greater London, United Kingdom. She works or has worked as VP Marketing, Europe at Veeva Systems. Kelly studied at Bentley University and University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Experienced CFO with a proven track record of establishing cross-functional partnerships to deliver on organisational goals.

Extensive experience in both the development and implementation of corporate strategy.

Track record of building and leading finance functions in a range of different industries.

Experience of successfully raising seed financing from private investors and Series A & Series B from US Venture Capital firms (VC's).

Chartered Accountant (FCA) with over 14 years' post-qualification experience.

Gary Hughes is co-founder and CEO of Teckro. He is an entrepreneur who has successfully launched two global companies in Ireland - more than a decade ahead of the start-up boom and withstanding the dot-com bust.

Combining a passion for design with love of technology, Gary is influenced by Dieter Rams’ principles of good design. He co-founded Teckro with a motivation to make an impact and the belief that clinical research needs to be simpler and more accessible.

Gary started his career in the budding e-learning market in the mid 1990s, first working at Dublin-based Interactive Services as a graphic designer. Gary later relocated to the US to gain international experience. Here he worked as a program manager for Microsoft on their Step-by-Step Interactive Training programs before moving back to Ireland to join an early stage start-up based in Galway as one of its first employees. It was a formative experience that led Gary to start Firecrest Clinical in 2001 along with Nigel Hughes and Jacek Skrzypiec.

At its inception, Firecrest was an e-learning solution that provided online training for healthcare professionals. By 2004, Firecrest evolved into an investigator portal - one of the first site-facing solutions in the market. In 2011, after a decade, Gary and the Firecrest management team accepted an acquisition offer from ICON, one of the world’s largest clinical research organizations.

Post-acquisition, Gary remained with ICON for a couple of years as Executive Vice President. In this time, he gained a greater appreciation for the scale of the problems facing modern drug development processes. Inspired for a second time, Gary, along with co-founders Nigel and Jacek, started Teckro in 2015. Today, Teckro has more than 100 employees across Europe and the United States, with ambitious future growth plans.

Brendan’s extensive experience as a senior clinical investigator fosters credible peer-to-peer conversations with prospective Teckro customers.

Brendan is a medical graduate of University College Cork (UCC) and a doctoral graduate in Biochemistry of Oxford University. He brings more than 40 years of experience in academic clinical practice as a physician in endocrinology, diabetes and clinical pharmacology.

Brendan is also a non-executive director of a number of biopharma development and services companies. He chairs the board of the leading Irish research charity, Fighting Blindness, and is a member of the board of Breakthrough Cancer Research. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Irish Medicines Board (now the Health Products Regulatory Authority), chairing its statutory Advisory Committee for Human Medicines. In the past, he was also a member of the European Medicines Agency Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products (COMP) and of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) Scientific Advisory Committee on diabetes and metabolism.

Brendan is an Honorary Clinical Professor at UCC and an Adjunct Professor at University College Dublin in the respective medical faculties. He was Director of the European Collaborative Centre for Clinical Trials in Rare Diseases at UCC. With more than 150 scientific papers published in his career, Brendan also authored the opinion-leading book Re-Engineering Clinical Trials. He has directed a number of very large outcomes trials in metabolic/cardiovascular disease and chairs the independent data and safety monitoring boards for a number of large clinical development programs.

Brendan co-founded Firecrest Clinical, and when it was acquired by ICON served as Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President.