Tim Cowper appointed CFO, Jordan Herman joins as General Counsel

Oxford Nanopore has announced that Tim Cowper is taking the role of Chief Financial Officer, and Jordan Herman has joined as General Counsel.

“We’re delighted to announce that Tim will be taking on the important role of CFO, and to welcome Jordan to the Company after working with him for so long as external counsel,” said Gordon Sanghera, CEO.  “These new roles add strength to the Company’s Corporate team as Oxford Nanopore continues its rapid expansion.”

Tim Cowper
A Chartered Accountant and operations specialist, Tim Cowper was interim Finance Director at Oxford Nanopore for several months in 2009, handing over a stable and well documented finance infrastructure. He then joined Oxford Nanopore as Commercial Operations Director in 2012.
In his first five years at the company Tim was responsible for setting up and managing operations and infrastructure across the company, including leading on operations for our first product launch – the MinION Access Programme – in 2015.

As part of his Operations role, Tim selected and implemented our Enterprise Resource Planning system which has remained robust and fit for purpose throughout the company's rapid growth and development.

Tim was appointed as VP-Finance in 2017 and continues to ensure that Oxford Nanopore’s values of agility and entrepreneurialism are reflected in our corporate governance, risk control and business processes, to maximise business efficiency.

Having qualified as an accountant at Ernst & Young, Tim became Financial Controller of Celltech Group plc where he was a key member of the IPO team and managed several transactions of the Listed company. He went on to co-found Sterilox and ran the finance function before joining Clipper Ventures plc as Finance Director. Tim has also been Finance Director at British Biotech plc (Vernalis plc) as well as managing a portfolio of biotech and technology companies, including the AIM-listed Bioventix plc, before joining Oxford Nanopore.

Jordan Herman
Jordan Herman joined Oxford Nanopore in 2021 as General Counsel. Prior to this Jordan was a partner at Baker Botts L.L.P., where he was our outside counsel for over a decade. He’s long been involved in supporting our growth from a dozen people to a global company; from an idea to an industry leading technology.

Jordan leads our growing in-house legal team, and his responsibilities reflect our growth journey both corporately and commercially. His main remit is to ensure his team have the desire and ability to enable the company to grow, flourish and innovate while remaining legal, ethical and reflecting our values.

Jordon’s role includes supporting and collaborating with leadership team, overseeing the legal department, negotiating legal transactions and identifying and managing risk. He and his team are also working on strengthening internal controls, simplifying our terms and conditions and establishing processes for global monitoring and compliance.

Jordan has many years’ experience in areas including technology transfer and commercial agreements, M&A, joint ventures, licensing, and venture capital. He has worked across the life science, software, medical device and digital media industries, supporting high growth businesses in the US, Europe and around the world.
Jordan was most recently Baker Botts L.L.P., Chair of the Austin Office Corporate Department and Co-Chair of the Life Sciences group. He JD from The Ohio State University, following which he clerked for the Hon. James Rosenbaum, formerly, Chief Judge for the U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota. Jordan also has a degree in Political Economy from Washington University.