Jan van der Merwe is global project lead of the Angels Initiative, the project he co-founded with Thomas Fischer in 2016, and which is now the largest stroke community in the world.
In December 2013, when Jan was group product manager for cardiovascular medicines at Boehringer Ingelheim’s South African office, a close family member suffered a stroke. Despite arriving at a private hospital 30 minutes after symptom onset, stroke wasn’t diagnosed until seven hours later, and she received no acute treatment. The catastrophic impact on her life and on the lives of her family motivated Jan to look for ways to improve acute stroke care in South Africa and gave rise to the idea for the Angels Initiative.
After he was transferred to Ingelheim, Germany, in 2014, Jan teamed up with Thomas (who shared his goal of improving stroke care, to formally establish the Angels Initiative.
Jan holds a degree in Human Movement Sciences from the University of Pretoria in South Africa, a degree in Business Administration from the Institute of Marketing Management, and an MBA from Henley Business School.
As global project lead of the Angels Initiative he is dedicated to doing whatever it takes to change the outcomes for stroke patients around the world.
