Betting on Scope and Scalability: Introducing Bryan Bothwell, G&H’s New Executive Vice President Life Sciences
Trailblazing the make-over of the G&H Life Sciences division
A go-getter by nature and a visionary by profession, Bryan Bothwell is one of the newest additions to the global G&H team. Starting his role in May 2024 as the Executive Vice President Life Sciences, Bryan is bringing in an extensive expertise in biotechnology, sales and business strategy to the ambitious leadership mix of the company. His plans for the Life Sciences division focus on expanding G&H’s already considerable progress, while making room for new market segments, fresh innovations and novel ways of tackling challenges. We sat down with Bryan to get to know him and his vision for G&H better and see what makes a maverick like him tick.
Q: First thing’s first: who is Bryan Bothwell?
I am originally from New Zealand, although no one can tell that anymore because my accent is completely gone. I moved to the United States in my early 20s on a track-and-field scholarship. I ended up being a multi-time, all-American distance runner in college. Initially, I didn’t have the intention of staying in the US, but here is where I met my wife and the rest is history, as they say.
What was vital for my professional development during this period was the specific combination between athletics and academics that left a distinctive mark on me. Looking back, I was fortunate enough to be a national level student athlete and a national finalist for the Rhodes scholarship. About 4 years ago, I was honored to be inducted into my college’s Athletic Hall of Fame. I am proud of all I achieved regarding my sports performance, even though it doesn’t directly represent what I do in my job nowadays. But these experiences do transfer themselves into my work ethic and the personal drive behind everything I set my mind on.
Q: Where does your passion for the life sciences field stem from?
Here, I need to come back to my college days. Regarding the academic side, I studied biology and biochemistry, and then worked at Intel for 7 years. During that time, I got 2 master’s degrees, one in electrical engineering and an MBA. My educational background gave me leverage to then move to TriQuint, which turned into Qorvo after a merger, where I worked in global strategy and business development for about 7 years. Throughout this role, I kept trying to find new global growth trends. So, when you think about concepts like 5G, I was the one who brought that into the company, which now is a multi-billion-dollar revenue stream for Qorvo. Power switching is another one of those trends I could spot, something that is used in electric vehicles. I brought that selling point into the company which was successful. And then 10 years ago, I started a business within Qorvo around biosensing. I helped build a device which is a bulk acoustic wave or a “BAW”. We made a million of those per day for cell phones and they just happen to make phenomenal biosensors, something that was sought after on the market. In a nutshell, I’ve always liked to stay ahead of the curve in this field.
Q: You have recently joined G&H as the Executive Vice President of the Life Sciences division. What are you looking forward to in your new role?
I'm super excited about what I have found at G&H. My impression of the life sciences division is that we’re lucky enough to have phenomenal people, paired with great technology. What I am personally excited for is to work on a specific commercial focus that will enable our customers to benefit from our value proposition and for us to achieve the aggressive growth targets we know this business is capable of. So, my goal is to leverage my expertise, network relationships and understanding of how to build a business, mix it all with the available technology and the people that are already well positioned to be exceptionally capable to achieve the growth, and deliver the results that our CEO, Charlie Peppiatt, and the rest of the executive team are looking for.
I am also looking forward to being able to drive a dual capability to our customer set that not many competitors can offer. This is the combination of high-volume injected molded plastic consumable devices and instrument R&D and manufacturing. Within our Rochester facility, we have a proud history of plastic precision lenses, and we will make every effort to grow that business as the core. However, we have the ability to make in the range of 20-50 million consumable devices per year that can address a variety of industrial and medical applications (non-core) where the market growth rate is double digits. We can leverage this strength of the division in multiple ways, based off of this rationale.
Q: One of the most exciting news coming from the life sciences division is the creation of the G&H Innovation Hub in Rochester, US. What is your vision regarding this new facility?
I want to start answering this question by looking at the big picture at G&H as a whole. And it all starts with finding our corporate “why”. What is the value proposition at Gooch & Housego? Why would customers choose us instead of a competitor? Then, we need to start the analysis, including what capabilities we have available, considering the pricing points for our innovations. Realistically speaking, there are people in the industry that have been going at this for longer. Maybe they host larger manufacturing sites. I mean, I've seen some big players in life sciences, what kind of orders they can easily accommodate and how they operate.
What this all means for G&H is that we need to decide what space we want to occupy. A potentially shocking statement is that if we are working in a 100+ billion-dollar market, we don't need to be the market leader in terms of volume. But maybe we want to become the best in another corner of the field – this is where we can separate ourselves through a low to medium volume profile in terms of manufacturability, but delivering high-quality products and fast time-to-market criticality. Those are the spaces where we can make a difference, where we can set ourselves apart from the rest. I’ve not seen a company with as much expertise across consumables and instrumentation that has such a track record of getting customers visions to market.
The new Innovation Hub in Rochester will play into this vision for G&H Life Sciences, and it will be an extension of the G&H | ITL Hub at Ashford. In the United Kingdom, the team has created a long and successful engagement profile. In the process they’ve built up phenomenal talent and skillsets across the spectrum of need from R&D to manufacturing. What that combined team can do rates within the top echelon of market capability from my experience. Rochester is poised to now become an extension of this, when combined with the plastic injection molded capability. As a whole, we specialize in enabling groundbreaking solutions through precision optics, among other processes. This entails understanding optical system design, looking at how to bring next generation technology to market to make a difference and so on. I want the Innovation Hub in the United States to be a facility whereby we can amaze larger companies that are looking to work with us through the way, look and feel. I want everyone who considers collaborating with G&H to be impressed, to experience working with the great R&D teams in Ashford and the R&D team that is being built up in the United States, so that researchers and technologists from large companies can come in and have sophisticated scientific conversations about system design and componentry.
At the same time, I also want the Hub to be a place where the commercial team and I can really work with these clients on their specific commercial pathways. I am mentioning this because we're going to have a mix of industry players present in the Rochester ecosystem. Some of them are going to be startups or universities because that's where innovation often comes from. In that case, we're going to formulate special university partnership programs, catering to the needs and interests of both parties.
In other instances, the Hub will offer an infrastructure that will enable our team to build projects with major company executives, major company engineers or any other folks who are on the cutting edge of innovation, who understand that G&H globally is the partner that they should be choosing for our efforts and impeccable results. If we connect with clients who appreciate our strategy, that we're focused on the small-to-medium, high-quality, quick time-to-market capabilities, which is where all our strengths align, then the sky is the limit for everyone involved.
Q: One last question – what is up next for Life Sciences at G&H?
Our schedules are busy with many strategically picked plans. We are focused on building our exposure to the UK and European markets and continuing the amazing business the G&H | ITL team in Ashford has created over the years. We are actively investing in the upcoming Life Sciences Innovation Hub in Rochester, US, for both instruments and high-volume plastic injected molded consumables. What we are aiming for is a long-term play. But we will go at this with an agile and feedback-first mindset. I mean, my mantra has always been fail fast, but go quickly. And in order to reach what’s untapped in life sciences, we need to move. Not every path is going to work for us, but one thing I am sure of is that I don't want to spend 6 months figuring out that something will not work.
If we set objectives, we're going to go try and make them happen. If they end up not being the right pathway, we're going to fail fast, learn and move on to something that does pan out the way we want. I’m confident that with the team I have inherited and the capabilities I have seen across the different manufacturing sites at G&H, the prospects are very bright in terms of smart return-on-investment, alongside the wonderful impact our technology will have on the world.
Life sciences solutions
As a vertically integrated supplier of optics, modules, and subassemblies, G&H is uniquely positioned to support scalable manufacturing, documented quality control, and security of supply.
