Management Team

Kim Kelderman became President and Chief Executive Officer of Bio-Techne Corporation on February 1, 2024. Kim joined Bio-Techne on April 30, 2018, as President, Diagnostics and Genomics and served as Chief Operating Officer of the Company from November 1, 2023 to January 31, 2024. Prior to Bio-Techne, Mr. Kelderman was employed at Thermo Fisher Scientific where he led three different businesses of increasing scale and complexity. For the last three years, Mr. Kelderman managed the Platforms and Content of the Genetic Sciences Division, where he was responsible for the Instrumentation, Software, Consumables and Assays businesses, and brands such as Applied Biosystems and legacy Affymetrix. Before joining Thermo Fisher, Kim served as Senior Segment Leader at Becton Dickinson, managing the global Blood Tubes "Vacutainer" business.

Mr. Kelderman holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Hogeschool Heerlen of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands.

James T. Hippel became Chief Financial Officer on April 1, 2014. Prior to joining the Company, he served as Senior Vice President and CFO for Mirion Technologies, Inc., a $300 million global technology and manufacturing company which provides mission critical products to detect, monitor and identify radiation. Prior to Mirion, Mr. Hippel served as Vice President, Finance at Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., leading finance operations for its $2 billion Mass Spectrometry & Chromatography and $1 billion Laboratory Consumables divisions. Mr. Hippel's experience also includes nine years of progressive financial leadership at Honeywell International, within its Aerospace Segment. He began his career with KPMG Peat Marwick LLP. 

Mr. Hippel holds a Master of Business Administration from Arizona State University and a Bachelor of Accountancy degree from Northern Arizona University. He is also a CPA (inactive).

Will Geist joined Bio-Techne on January 3, 2022 as President, Protein Sciences Segment. 

Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Geist was Chief Operating Officer at Quanterix, a company with immunoassay tools for life science research and diagnostic applications.  Prior to Quanterix, Mr. Geist led two of Thermo Fisher Scientific’s largest business units, qPCR and Protein & Cell Analysis, each with revenues of ~$1 billion. Prior to Thermo Fisher Scientific, Mr. Geist led the commercialization of Quanta BioSciences, a genomics tools company, from start-up through acquisition by QIAGEN where he took on leadership for additional life science brands. 

Mr. Geist holds a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.

Matthew F. McManus became President, Diagnostics and Genomics on January 8, 2024. Prior to joining the company, Dr. McManus served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Azenta, where he was responsible for Life Sciences Products, Services and all commercial operations. Previously, Dr. McManus was President and CEO of Asuragen, which Bio-Techne acquired in 2021, and served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Bio-Techne’s Molecular Diagnostics Division.

Dr. McManus received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, his MBA from Boston College, and his B.A. in Economics from College of the Holy Cross.

Mr. Bohnen has over 20 years of experience as a senior legal advisor, including serving as Bio-Techne's Associate General Counsel since 2019. During his tenure at Bio-Techne, Mr. Bohnen led several initiatives, including commercial support across the entire Bio-Techne enterprise, co-leading recent M&A activities, contributing to the Company's ESG initiatives, including the preparation of the most recent Corporate Sustainability Report, and protecting the enterprise's competitive interests through offensive and defensive litigation. Prior to joining Bio-Techne, Mr. Bohnen spent 10 years in private practice where he developed broad experience in life sciences litigation, practicing in more than sixty U.S. jurisdictions on behalf of life sciences manufacturers and providers, and eventually being elected to the partnership at Bowman & Brooke LLP. Mr. Bohnen also served as in-house corporate counsel at Smiths Medical where he held roles of increasing responsibility including providing conglomerate-wide, global legal support across five distinct enterprises. Additionally, he served briefly as in-house counsel at Resideo where he supported three successful acquisitions, a number of process and culture improvement initiatives and several strategic reorganizations.

Bernie Andruss became Vice President and General Manager of the Molecular Diagnostics Division on September 1, 2023.  Previously, Dr. Andruss was the Chief Operating Officer of the Molecular Diagnostics Division and Head of the Companion Diagnostics (CDx) Business Unit.   Dr. Andruss joined Bio-Techne following its acquisition of Asuragen in 2021, where he was Senior Vice President of Operations and Regulatory Affairs. During his nearly 20 years with Ambion and Asuragen, Dr. Andruss worked in a variety of expanding leadership roles in R&D and product development, business development, regulatory affairs and quality, and operations while providing leadership for pharma partnerships focused on companion diagnostics. 

Dr Andruss holds a PhD in Biochemistry and Cell Biology from Rice University and a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from Texas A&M University.

Cheryl Bethune joined Bio-Techne in September 2024 as Chief Human Resources Officer. Prior to joining the Company, Cheryl spent more than 20 years at General Mills, leading and developing HR strategies across the U.S., Asia, Latin America and Europe. In her most recent role as Vice President of Total Rewards, she was responsible for global compensation and benefits programs that enabled company performance and allowed General Mills to attract, engage and retain talent. Before changing her focus to HR, she held a variety of engineering and manufacturing roles at The Procter & Gamble Company.

Cheryl earned her MBA and Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering, both from the University of Michigan.

Qi Cheng became Vice President of Quality & Regulatory on July 27th, 2021. Dr. Cheng held various management positions at Bio-Techne from Technical Service, Quality Control, Senior Director of Product Support/Process Improvement and Senior Director of Quality. Dr. Cheng has in-depth knowledge of many Bio-Techne products and understand customers’ quality & regulatory needs. She is a Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence from American Society for Quality since 2013.

Dr. Cheng attended Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and North Dakota State University when she received Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology. She served as NIH postdoctoral Fellow at Pediatric Infectious Disease Division from University of Minnesota School of Medicine.

Steve Crouse joined Bio-Techne in March 2021 as the Vice President, Analytical Solutions Development, responsible for Bio-Techne’s ProteinSimple branded products and R&D Systems Immunoassays portfolio. Steve has >20 years of experience leading R&D, Business Development, Marketing and Sales organizations. Most recently he was the Sr. Director and General Manager for the Protein Detection and Quantification business unit at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Prior to that he held positions as the Chief Operating Officer at Vortex Biosciences and the Sr. Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Freeslate Inc., which was sold to Unchained Labs in 2016. Previously, Steve held several marketing, sales, and R&D leadership roles with Bio-Rad Laboratories and Life Technologies (now Thermo Fisher Scientific). He has an MBA from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California and a M.S. in Biochemistry from Georgetown University.

Evett Kruka became the Vice President and General Manager of the Spatial Biology Division on February 7, 2022.  Evett brings 20+ years of experience in Life Sciences and has deep expertise in Strategic Marketing, Product Management and General Management. Most recently she was the Vice President and General Manager (VP/GM) for the Life Sciences Mass Spectrometry business for Thermo Fisher Scientific for five years and prior to that she was the VP/GM for Thermo-Fisher’s Ion Chromatography (IC) Business after leading the IC Marketing Organization. Previously, Evett held various life sciences analytical instrument management and marketing leadership roles at Perkin-Elmer and built a life sciences focused market research consulting business.

Evett holds a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Gary Latham joined Bio-Techne with its acquisition of Asuragen in April 2021. He became Bio-Techne’s Chief Technology Officer on August 6, 2023. Previously, Gary was Asuragen’s Chief Scientific Officer, having joined the company when it was founded in March 2006. While there, he directed technology and product development, including Asuragen’s breakthrough AmplideX® PCR chemistry and genetic kits and several next-generation sequencing-based innovations for oncology. From 2000 to 2006, he developed commercially successful enzyme tools and research kits as an R&D section head at Ambion. In his career, Gary has led the development of over 30 life science and molecular diagnostic products and is an inventor on 16 US patents. He has also authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications and has been awarded $13M in research grants from the NIH and other funding agencies.

Gary received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Vanderbilt University and was an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oregon’s Institute for Molecular Biology.

Dylan Malayter joined Bio-Techne in August 2023 as the Vice President for the Reagent Solutions Division, overseeing the Recombinant Protein, Antibodies, and Small Molecule business units. Prior to joining Bio-Techne, he served as the General Manager of the Cell Analysis Instruments business segment at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Preceding this role, he held the position of General Manager for the Antibodies and Flow Cytometry Consumables business segment, also at Thermo Fisher. Dylan's professional journey also includes significant experience in product management and marketing roles of increasing scope and complexity at Affymetrix, eBioscience, and GenWay Biotech.

Dylan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

Dr. Peter Schuessler joined Bio-Techne on May 1, 2023, as Vice President of EMEA based in Düsseldorf, Germany and Abingdon, United Kingdom. Prior to joining Bio-Techne, Dr. Schuessler worked in several positions of increasing responsibility for Thermo Fisher Scientific in EMEA, including as Vice President and General Manager of Chromatography & Mass Spectrometry, Commercial EMEA from 2019-2023, as well as Country Leader Germany from 2020-2023, and Global Leader for CMD Indirect Channels and IOMS from 2022-2023. Prior to Thermo Fisher Scientific, Dr. Schuessler held roles of increasing scale at Life Technologies, Invitrogen, Operon Biotechnologies and QIAGEN.

Dr. Schuessler holds a Ph.D. from the Institute for Genetics, University of Düsseldorf, a Master of Science from the Institute for Genetics, University of Düsseldorf, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf.

Steven M. Silverman became Senior Vice President – Customer Experience in July 2024. Previously, Mr. Silverman was Vice President and General Manager of Bio-Techne’s Diagnostic Reagents Division, and prior to this role, he was Vice President and General Manager of the Exosome Diagnostics business. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Silverman served as Vice President of Global Marketing for the Life Science Group of Thermo Fisher Scientific. Steve’s experience also includes twenty-seven years of progressive general management, marketing and commercial experience within Thermo Fisher Scientific and over thirty years within the Life Science industry in total.

Mr. Silverman holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Vermont and attended the Advanced Management Program at INSEAD.

Martin Wirtz joined Bio-Techne in July 2024 after spending more than seven years in business development and strategy leadership roles at Danaher. Most recently, he led Strategy and Business Development for Danaher’s Diagnostic Platform. Prior to that, Mr. Wirtz held Strategy, M&A, and Wound Care Management roles at Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals.  Before moving into the life sciences and diagnostics industry, Mr. Wirtz was a leader in McKinsey’s Healthcare practice, primarily serving biopharma and medtech clients.

Mr. Wirtz earned his M.D. from Heidelberg University in Germany.