About

“Official Business Bio” – Please Enjoy

Chris Knerr is a seasoned Life Sciences executive and industry thought leader—both as a practitioner and an entrepreneur—whose leadership experience and expertise spans from the Fortune 50 to a PE portfolio firm to a bootstrapped AI/ML tech startup. Chris thrives on tackling difficult problems in strategic and white space areas to foster innovation, catalyze growth, and improve operating leverage.

As Chief Digital Officer of Syniti, Chris served Global 2000 clients in multiple industries as a trusted senior advisor to drive digital transformation, data strategy and data monetization. From leading more than 25 consecutive hypercomplex enterprise scale transformations at Johnson & Johnson—across multiple functions, disciplines, businesses, and continents—to developing concept-to-launch digital/software products, Chris is a champion of recruiting, developing, and retaining diverse,
high-performing, cross-functional, global teams. He believes that digital transformation is a growth and opportunity creation engine.

A frequent industry speaker, writer, and podcaster, Chris is a recognized thought leader in Enterprise Analytics & Data, Value Realization, and Mega-Program Management. Chris’s special areas of expertise and interest include executive leadership and governance; AI/ML; integrating digital strategy, technology, and operations; leading and developing diverse, global, cross-functional teams; change management; metrics and performance measurement; mergers, acquisitions, and divestures; and innovation.

As a teacher and mentor, Chris is passionate about educating and enlightening the next generation of business leaders, and is a Guest Lecturer at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management in the Digital Technology & Strategic Brand/Product programs.

Chris grew up in New York City, is a father of two, and currently lives in Princeton, NJ with his family and 10,000 books in a revolutionary war era house built c. 1760. In addition to his business writing, Chris is a novelist and poet; a wood-worker; a mediocre guitarist; a diehard tool and hot pepper junky; and is passionate about heritage home restoration projects. He has traveled to twenty-five countries on six continents and forty-eight of the American states. (Alaska and North Dakota are on the list.)

Chris holds a BA in Philosophy from Columbia University and an MBA with distinction in Strategy, Operations, and Finance from Cornell University.