Ex­clu­sive: Il­lu­mi­na CEO Fran­cis deS­ouza re­signs, fol­low­ing chal­lenge by ac­tivist in­vestor

Fran­cis deS­ouza has stepped down as CEO of Il­lu­mi­na, ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny, just weeks af­ter he sur­vived an ac­tivist in­vestor’s cam­paign to re­move him from the DNA se­quenc­ing gi­ant’s board.

His res­ig­na­tion as CEO and from the board is ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly, though he’ll stay on as an ad­vis­er un­til the end of Ju­ly. Il­lu­mi­na gen­er­al coun­sel Charles Dadswell will be­come in­ter­im CEO while the board con­ducts a search.

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