Leadership moves at Veeva, Nuclera and Revalia Bio reshape commercial and CEO seats

Three leadership changes worth knowing about in life science software and tools. At Veeva, a change first disclosed in an SEC filing in August took effect on 2 October 2026. Nuclera and Revalia Bio both appointed new CEOs in September.

Veeva: a new head of sales, consulting and services

Dan Rizzo has taken over as EVP, Sales, Consulting, and Services at Veeva Systems, effective 2 October 2026. He succeeds Thomas D. Schwenger, who joined Veeva in September 2019 and was most recently President and Chief Customer Officer.

Schwenger told Veeva on 18 August that he would resign, with his departure taking effect on 2 October. According to the filing, he is leaving to take a CEO role at a long-standing Veeva partner. The partner has not been named.

Combining sales with consulting and services under one executive is a notable choice for a company of Veeva's size. It puts the people who win deals and the people who deliver them in the same reporting line, which is where much of the industry's thinking on software deployment is heading.

Nuclera: a Thermo Fisher executive as CEO

Nuclera, based in Cambridge, UK and Boston, which uses cell-free protein synthesis and digital microfluidics to speed up protein work, has appointed Carl Raimond as CEO. He was previously President of proteomic sciences at Thermo Fisher Scientific, a role that followed Thermo Fisher's acquisition of Olink Proteomics. Dr Michael Chen, the previous CEO, becomes chief scientific and business officer.

Revalia Bio: AI and research software experience from Lilly

Revalia Bio, which produces drug development data from working donated human organs, has named Casimir Starsiak III as president and CEO. At Eli Lilly he was Associate Vice President for enterprise AI and research software product management, and before that he spent more than six years at Verily. Co-founder Greg Tietjen has moved into the chief innovation officer role.

The pattern

Two of these appointments bring in leaders from much larger organisations, and one is a CEO coming from the software side of big pharma. For smaller life science technology companies, a CEO who has sold to, or built software inside, the largest buyers is an increasingly common hire as they move from early adopters to enterprise customers.