Dear Community colleagues,

I am writing to inform you that after almost 20 years of outstanding service and extraordinary contribution to Cochrane, Nancy Owens will be leaving us at the end of this month.

Nancy began her Cochrane life in 1999 in Oxford, UK as Managing Editor for the Cochrane Schizophrenia Group before taking up a role as Quality Improvement Manager with Cochrane’s Secretariat (the former name of Cochrane’s Central Executive Team). This was a one-off special role with responsibility for visiting Cochrane entities all over the world with an aim to learn about their work and assess their needs. Following completion of this project, she spent a year as the Administrator of Cochrane US, before joining the IKMD team (now IT Services) to establish the role of Web Content and Social Media Editor. In recent years, Nancy has also worked with Wiley and the Cochrane Editorial Unit (now the Editorial and Methods Department) as Manager of Copy Edit Support, and since 2014 has been Senior Communications Manager within the Communications and External Affairs Department, working and living in Australia. In 2013, in recognition of her "extraordinary contribution to the work of The Cochrane Collaboration", she was awarded the coveted Chris Silagy Prize.

Nancy has therefore made an outstanding contribution to Cochrane’s present strength and future development, for which we are immensely grateful. We will miss her enormously: not only for her wide-ranging expertise and passionate commitment to Cochrane’s mission, but also for the kindness, consideration, and conscientiousness which she extends to all her colleagues. On hearing the news yesterday, one close colleague of many years said: “Nancy is everything Cochrane holds dear – she’s collaborative, consultative, a believer in evidence for everyone, a great communicator. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt to be a globetrotter, calmness personified, and to have a great sense of humour!”

Nancy’s last day is Thursday 29th March. On behalf of the Cochrane community, we will be hosting a virtual farewell gathering to recognize Nancy’s outstanding contribution to Cochrane since 1999 on Tuesday 3rd April; and, we hope she will be joined by many of her closest colleagues and friends, past and present. If you wish to share in this celebration with us, please feel free to contact Lydia Parsonson, lparsonson@cochrane.org, from our Knowledge Translation Department, who can provide you with more information.

I would like personally to thank Nancy for her dedication and long service to Cochrane, and I hope you will join me and other colleagues in celebrating her achievements and expressing our appreciation next month.

With my very best wishes,

Mark Wilson
Chief Executive Officer