Bill Barbo has over 30 years of business leadership experience in multinational environments, having lived and held executive positions in North America and Europe. During his career, he has established a reputation for operational and business excellence, innovative strategic thinking, deep commercial acumen, and a commitment to working with the highest level of integrity, all while demonstrating a passionate dedication to clients and colleagues.

He began his career as a research scientist in 1982 at Charles River Laboratories. As an intrapreneur, he started and ran three businesses within the company in the contract drug development services area, serving as General Manager for those businesses and growing them since inception to more than $100M in revenue with facilities on three continents. He had full profit and loss ownership and ensured risk management, compliance, and business controls across these business units, leading more than 500 employees. 

In 2009, Bill moved into the commercial organization and took an executive-level position as a Key Account Manager for the company’s largest European clients. He lived and worked in Europe during this time, returning to corporate headquarters in the US to lead the commercial organization at the end of 2010. He was elevated to Executive Vice President & Chief Commercial Officer in 2016. In his commercial leadership role, Bill led the company from $1 billion to $4 billion in revenue, overseeing more than 1,200 sales and marketing professionals across 20 countries. He also participated in more than 30 acquisitions during this period, supporting the M&A and Strategy teams with target identification, due diligence, and integration.

In 2024, he announced his planned retirement from Charles River Laboratories (effective December 31, 2024). He moved into the role of Executive Vice President, Community Liaison, where he continued to serve on the Executive Committee as a strategic advisor, with a particular emphasis on advising and collaborating with external affairs to develop a strategic approach to educating and informing broader external audiences about the criticality of the company’s life-saving work.

Currently, Bill is an Independent Executive Consultant. He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Massachusetts Society of Medical Research, serving as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Board. He is also a member of the Boston & Miami D’Amore-McKim School of Business Executive Leadership Councils at Northeastern University. He holds undergraduate and master’s degrees in biology, as well as an MBA.