Leadership Team

Anup Radhakrishnan joined CARGO Therapeutics as CFO in August 2022 and was appointed COO in November 2024 and Interim Chief Executive Officer in March 2025. He brings over 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical sector providing strategic financial leadership across both R&D and commercial stage organizations.

Most recently, Anup served as Chief Financial Officer at Dascena, where he was responsible for pre-IPO readiness, capital formation and scaling the Finance, Information Technology and Procurement organizations, ultimately leading the company through a successful acquisition. Prior to Dascena, Anup was CFO for the Genentech Patient Foundation and Head of Finance for the U.S. Breast and Skin cancer franchises. During his 11 year career at Genentech, he gained broad financial responsibility across the U.S. commercial organization supporting products in various therapeutic areas and lifecycle stages, Managed Care and Government Affairs. He was actively involved in business development assessments and partnerships which helped shape the future of the commercial portfolio. Before Genentech, Anup held R&D Finance roles of increasing responsibility at Elan Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Perrigo), CV Therapeutics (acquired by Gilead) and University of California San Francisco (UCSF).   

Halley Gilbert joined CARGO Therapeutics as Chief Legal Officer in September of 2023. She brings to the role over 20 years of biotechnology industry management and operations expertise, including launching new medicines and managing the private to public company transformation.

Most recently, Halley served as the Chief Legal Officer of NeoGenomics, Inc., a premier cancer diagnostic, pharma services and informatics company. Prior to NeoGenomics, she served as Chief Operating Officer of Adagio Therapeutics, Inc., (now Invivyd, Inc.), a company focused on developing broadly neutralizing antibodies for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 and future coronavirus outbreaks. In just over one year as an operating company, her contributions supported the seamless transition of Adagio to public company status, significant financings, advancing the pipeline and building the team. Previously, Halley spent 12 years in various roles of increasing scope and responsibility at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc., including Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Chief Administrative Officer with oversight of corporate and business development, legal, compliance and government affairs. Prior to joining Ironwood, she was Vice President, Deputy General Counsel at Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and participated in the launch of Cubist’s blockbuster antibiotic.  Halley also served as a corporate counsel at Genzyme Corp., prior to its acquisition by Sanofi. She began her career at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, where she specialized in mergers and acquisitions and securities law. Halley currently serves on the boards of directors of Arcutis Biotherapeutics, Inc., CytomX Therapeutics, Inc. and Vaxcyte, Inc.  

Halley holds a BA from Tufts University and a JD from Northwestern University School of Law.

Kari Leetch joined CARGO as Chief People Officer (CPO) in July 2023.   

Kari is a seasoned people leader with 25 years of experience building and scaling strong and effective teams and organizations from early stage through commercialization. Prior to joining CARGO, Kari was Senior Vice President, Human Resources at ChemoCentryx, Inc. where she scaled the company through commercialization and was instrumental in its acquisition by Amgen. Prior to ChemoCentryx, Inc., she held leadership roles at Risk Management Solutions, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Cepheid where she developed and delivered the organizational and people strategies to support growing global footprints. 

Kari earned a BS in Business Administration from the University of San Diego.