Tom Phillips
Founder, Ceres Strategy.
I’ve been taking computers apart and testing the limits of tech since I was a child. That instinct — understanding systems from the inside, figuring out how to make them do more — has shaped most of what I’ve done since.
I studied bioinformatics and started at the intersection of computing and life science, at an informatics-driven biotech in London. From there, two decades in pharma communications and strategy: symposia, advisory boards, strategic messaging, digital campaigns. Writing-team leadership. Pitch to delivery for most of the top-10 pharma and smaller clients besides.
Building and tinkering carried on alongside — neural networks, then language models. When LLMs landed in serious work I wasn’t learning a new skill, I’d been practising for years.
What I do for clients is what I’ve been doing for myself: working out how to make AI genuinely useful in medical communications. The methods work. The tooling changes weekly. The judgement of what’s good doesn’t.
Multi-agent platforms ship faster than competence catches up. Closing that gap is the work — at every scale, from one writer to a connected agency.
