Karen Lewis

Karen Lewis

Chief People Officer

Karen joined Apellis in May 2020 as our chief people officer and brings over 20 years of experience leading human resource (HR) teams in the biotechnology and technology industries. She most recently led and built the HR function at Axcella Health, a start-up biotech company in the Boston area. Prior to Axcella, Karen held numerous leadership roles with increasing responsibility at Biogen including overseeing global talent acquisition, leading human resources for several commercial and market access functions, and managing HR for Asia Pacific and Latin America. Previously, Karen worked at Amazon and Bristol-Myers Squibb where she held leadership roles in talent acquisition, talent management and as an HR business leader supporting the R&D and commercial functions. Karen holds a B.S. in biology from Rider University and worked as a research scientist at a start-up biotech company before entering HR.