JUNE 25, 2024, NEW YORK – The Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR) announced today that its CEO and President Edward A. McDermott will be retiring from his post effective July 1. The Institute’s Scientific Director Chi Van Dang will take on the additional role of CEO, while current Executive Vice President for Technology Development Jonathan Skipper will serve as President.
McDermott will continue to serve at the helm of the Ludwig Institute as chairman of its Board of Directors, replacing the current Chairman John Notter, who will remain a director on the Board of the Institute, which he helped launch in 1971. In addition, President and Chief Investment Officer of the LICR Fund Xing Chen will join the Board of Directors.
An attorney by training, McDermott was recruited to the Ludwig Institute in 1988 by then-chairman James Kerr to assist him in managing the vast, global conglomerate that funded LICR at the time. McDermott helped Kerr sell those businesses and establish a more traditional investment fund to support the Institute’s research operations. He was named President of the LICR Fund in 1995 and CEO of LICR in 2010—positions from which he steered the Institute through the harrowing global financial crisis of 2008, oversaw its subsequent restructuring and helped guide the launch of two new Branches to create the Ludwig Institute of today.
The people of Ludwig Cancer Research will miss McDermott’s pleasant and reassuring presence at our headquarters in New York but look forward to working with him as chairman of our Board of Directors. We are confident that his invaluable counsel and steady leadership will continue to be felt in the work we do every day in pursuit of our mission.
You can learn more about McDermott’s life, career and contributions to the Ludwig Institute in this interview with him that ran in our Ludwig Link magazine last year.