Irene Birbeck Promoted to Partner with Clarkston Consulting

January 30, 2019 | Durham, NC

Consumer products and life sciences consulting leader Clarkston Consulting announced today the promotion of Irene Birbeck to Partner. Birbeck will continue to serve her long-standing client relationships while driving growth and development for the firm and its stewards.

With Clarkston since 2004, Birbeck has served in roles both internally and externally. Prior to this promotion, Birbeck served as Associate Partner, where she applied her life sciences consulting experience to help her clients execute and maintain lasting change. With a particular focus and differentiated expertise in quality systems, lab optimization, and clinical operations, Birbeck has partnered with some of the life sciences industry’s most innovative and successful companies to drive global transformation, create new efficiencies, and reign in excess R&D costs.

“R&D and clinical operations continue to be areas with critical challenges impacting our clients’ profitability and growth. Over time, we’ve seen a troubling decrease in ROI on R&D endeavors to the point where many organizations are on the verge of almost no returns, short or long-term, on the largest expense in their budget.” said Clarkston President Paul Garrison.

Garrison continued, “Our ability to help our clients navigate these challenges – to break the cycle of diminishing returns and create an R&D machine that fails fast and innovates faster – will be strengthened with Irene’s leadership in the firm.”

Birbeck’s expertise stems from an unmatched track record of implementing, operationalizing, and sustaining complex, global quality systems and clinical operations models. Partnering with her clients, Birbeck has led global LIMS implementations for the industry’s largest manufacturers, developed innovative new R&D models and organizational structures, and helped pre-commercial clients prepare clinical and lab operations for commercialization.

“Irene’s experience is unparalleled. She’s successfully led some of the largest scale quality system implementations in the industry and has made a real name for herself as a true advisor for her clients.” said Managing Partner Mike Hackett on Birbeck.

Hackett continued, “Irene is strongly devoted to helping our clients achieve their mission and purpose and this cascades through everything she does. This passion for our clients and their work sets Irene apart.”

Birbeck also has deep experience in training and professional development as she was previously responsible for designing Clarkston’s training program to build innovative skills and competencies that would best serve the present and future needs of Clarkston’s clients.

Birbeck is based in Clarkston’s corporate headquarters in Durham, NC. She received her B.A. in public policy with a concentration on science and technology policy and a B.A. in communications studies with a concentration in rhetoric from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating with honors.