Helen Yuanyuan Cao has a background in neurobiology, business and international affairs and is an executive in the life sciences and healthcare industry with over 15+ of experience and a focus on innovation.

Most recently the COO and Chief Innovation Officer of Indical Bioscience, Helen has been the Member of the Management Team Europe, Middle East and Africa at Becton Dickinson/BD Biosciences. Previously Helen was the Head of Global Solution Marketing at Qiagen and in charge of the strategic integration of Qiagen business with bioinformatics. The focus of her work is in the medical diagnostics and life sciences tools industry.

Helen has been named “40 under 40” by the German magazines Capital and Wirtschaftswoche as well as “Manager of the Year” by GenerationCEO.
Born in China and growing up in Germany and with having lived extensively in the US and Switzerland, Helen is globally minded and feels connected to Asia, Europe and the United States.

Helen has served on multiple boards, in academia, non-profits as well as for profit ventures including currently on the advisory board of the Digital Business School of the Nuertingen-Geislingen University. Previously, Helen has been on the Board of the Make-A-Wish Foundation in Germany. Helen is the strategic advisor to Future Coop, a social enterprise in the field of sustainability where she was previously member of the executive board.

Helen lectures on the topics of innovation and leadership at universities and has been a mentor of several startup accelerator programs including Startupbootcamp, Indiebio and Vodafone F-LANE and is an angel investor.
Helen started her career at Bain & Company. She holds an M.A. in Neurobiology from Washington University in St. Louis, a Master of Public Administration from Columbia University and an MBA from European Business School.

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