Ardena announced the appointments of Ben Ash as Chief Financial Officer and Henny Zijlstra as Chief Commercial Officer. These additions further strengthen Ardena’s executive leadership team as the company continues to scale its operations and commercial reach globally.
Ben Ash joins Ardena as Chief Financial Officer, bringing more than 20 years of finance leadership experience, predominantly within the pharmaceutical sector. He has held senior finance roles across publicly listed companies in the UK and US, as well as privately held organizations, including most recently as Chief Financial Officer at Essential Pharma, a global pharmaceutical company focused on medicines for small, underserved, and rare disease patient populations. Prior to this, he held senior finance roles at PTC Therapeutics and Shire. Ben is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
At Ardena, Ben will lead the company’s financial strategy, supporting scalable growth and disciplined international expansion while working closely with the Chief Information Officer to advance Ardena’s digitization roadmap.
Henny Zijlstra joins Ardena as Chief Commercial Officer, bringing a strong track record in commercial leadership, brand positioning, and business development within the pharmaceutical and CDMO industry. She has held senior leadership roles across the sector, including at Lonza, and most recently at Adragos.
At Ardena, Henny will lead the commercial organization across business development and marketing, elevating Ardena's brand presence, accelerating its go-to-market strategy, broadening customer engagement, and bringing greater visibility to the company's established drug development capabilities in complex molecules, nanotechnology, drug conjugates, and bioanalysis.