Jeffrey Elton is Senior Vice President of Strategy and Global Chief Operating Officer (COO) at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR).

In his role as Senior Vice President of Strategy, Jeff leads the development of strategies fulfilling NIBR's mission of discovering and developing drugs where there is high unmet medical need, integrating functions, and enhancing partnerships within NIBR and across Novartis. He ensures that NIBR operations fully support drug discovery mission and goals, and work coherently with key external alliances. Jeff is also responsible for forming and maintaining major academic collaborations. In his role as COO, Jeff oversees Global Research Operations, Finance, Human Resources, Research Information Technology, Legal and Communications.

Prior to joining NIBR, Jeff had 15 years of experience as a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry, most recently as a partner in McKinsey & Company’s Boston Office for four-and-a-half years, where he co-led that firm’s global R&D Operations and Intellectual Property Strategy & Management practices in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. He has been active in serving leading academic medical centers and biotech firms in their research strategies for more than a decade. Over the past three years at McKinsey Jeff has led several NIBR and Novartis Pharma projects.

Jeff holds a Ph.D. in Business Economics and marketing and a M.B.A. in Finance and Statistics from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.