CTV Executives in Residence

Bio

Gad Berdugo, MSc. Eng., MBA

Mr. Berdugo is the Managing Partner of Explorium Capital LLC, a strategic and financial advisory firm focusing on the global biotechnology sector. He currently serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of clinical development stage precision oncology company, Diaccurate. Mr. Berdugo brings over 35 years of biotech corporate & business development, strategy, operational, financial, investment and general venture management experience. He served as CBO at CRISPR gene editing pioneer Editas (Nasdaq EDIT); Co-founder and CEO at personalized neoantigen cancer vaccine venture, EpiVax Oncology Inc.; CFO and EVP at Immune Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq IMNP); Managing Director and Head of Life Sciences at Tegris Advisors, a strategic and financial advisory boutique; Founder and Managing Partner of the Explorium Global Life Sciences Investment Fund; Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst and Life Sciences Sector Leader at Lazard, Asset Management Group. Prior to that, he served as a Director of Global Business Development within Baxter’s Biopharmaceuticals group and started his career at Abbott Labs. Mr. Berdugo received his B.Sc. with Honors in Biotechnology from Imperial College London, his M.Sc. in Biochemical Engineering from University College London and his M.B.A. from H.E.C. Paris. He serves on the Board of Directors of Friends of H.E.C. Inc. and Friends of U.C.L. Inc. Mr. Berdugo is bilingual in French and English and has dual US and French citizenships. He resides with his wife in New York City.

Jessica DesNoyer

Ostiio, J&J DePuy Synthes, Smith & Nephew, Abbott, and Becton Dickinson

Year Served:

Bio

Dr. Jessica DesNoyer, PhD, MBA – Chief Executive Officer, Ostiio

Jessica is CEO of Ostiio, a seed-stage medical device startup focused on improving the lives of people with craniofacial abnormalities. An accomplished healthcare and life sciences executive, Jessica brings a track record of building innovation centers and emerging businesses within several large corporates (J&J DePuy Synthes, Smith & Nephew, Abbott, and Becton Dickinson) to the Ostiio team.

Prior to joining Ostiio, Jessica enjoyed a successful and rewarding career that encompassed a diverse background across therapy spaces (interventional, cardiovascular, and orthopedics), technologies (devices, biologics/biomaterials, and combination therapies), and functional leadership roles (R&D, strategy & innovation, marketing, business development, and general management). Her education, experience, and passion uniquely position her to guide technology from concept through commercialization. Throughout her career, she has enthusiastically led cross-functional teams to build and execute global operational plans that supported a diverse portfolio of product clearances/approvals and their subsequent commercialization.

Most recently, Jessica was Sr Director, Global Strategic Marketing of DePuy Synthes, a Johnson & Johnson Company, where she helped drive turnaround of the declining Spine business through leadership of Platform strategy, business development initiatives, and commercial execution of the global $250M Biomaterials portfolio. Before that, she was VP, Marketing & Business Development of MicroMedicine, where she helped secure $35M in financing and developed a business plan for the novel microfluidic cell isolation technology startup. Jessica also served as Head of Strategic Innovation for Becton Dickinson’s largest Division, Medication & Procedural Solutions, and established and led Smith & Nephew’s Advanced Healing Technologies franchise, an internal startup aimed at improving outcomes in sports medicine and orthopedic surgery through biologics and biomaterials solutions.

Jessica began her career at Guidant/Abbott Vascular where she helped develop and launch the world’s leading Drug Eluting Stent, the XIENCE/PROMUS system; spearheaded the company’s Vulnerable Plaque program for heart attack prevention; and built the Structural Heart market access strategy, culminating in the $320M acquisition of Evalve, Inc.

Jessica holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a BSE in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Ramon Felciano

QIAGEN, Ingenuity Systems

Year Served:

Bio

Ramon has a distinguished track record in entrepreneurship, innovation, and executive management in the digital health and life sciences industries. Most recently, Ramon held the role of Chief Technology Officer and Vice President, Strategy for QIAGEN N.V., a global provider of sample and assay technologies for molecular diagnostics, applied testing, academic and pharmaceutical research.

While at QIAGEN, Ramon founded QIAGEN Digital Insights (QDI) to build on its acquisition of Ingenuity Systems for entry into the AI, data science, and informatics markets. Ramon led the effort to found a new business unit, reporting to the CEO, to spearhead and accelerate this market entry, and helped recruit the founding QDI leadership team. He subsequently defined and drove the market entry roadmap and technology and data strategy that ultimately delivered a portfolio of 30 data science products and services through internal R&D and external acquisitions. Ramon further led the development and commercialization of an award-winning AI-based precision medicine product line that successfully guided care of 1M+ patients, unlocked a data rights strategy that enabled QDI to expand into the real-world evidence market. QDI rapidly establishing QIAGEN as an acclaimed market leader in research and clinical informatics markets, and achieved investor recognition as one of QIAGEN’s “crown jewels” (JP Morgan, 2019).

Prior to QIAGEN, Ramon founded Ingenuity Systems out of Stanford University to use AI and data curation to unlock the value of the human genome. As founding CTO and SVP Research, Ramon drove the venture-funded development of an award-winning core technology platform, unique data assets, and growing product lines (including IPA - Ingenuity Pathway Analysis) that ultimately defined a new market segment around genome interpretation and systems biology. Through these efforts, Ingenuity established itself as a global leader in AI-driven genome interpretation, predictive drug discovery, and cloud-based data management for pharma, biotech, and life sciences enterprises. QIAGEN acquired Ingenuity in 2013 for $105M to serve as a cornerstone for its expansion into sequencing and software and data markets.

Prior to Ingenuity, Ramon held several technology leadership positions at Stanford Medicine, where he founded SUMMIT, the Stanford University Medical Media and Information Technologies lab, an innovation lab for digital approaches to medical education and clinical decision making. Ramon also serves as principal at Digital Alchemy, a consultancy specializing in innovation, product, business model and go-to-market strategies for digital health startups as well as digital transformation and tech+data strategy creation for life sciences, pharma/biotech, and diagnostics organizations.

Ramon received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Biomedical Data Sciences from Stanford Medical School, his B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University, and a B.A. in English and French Literature from Stanford University. He holds dual citizenship (Swiss and American), speaks 4 languages, has authored numerous patents and publications, and advises and presents on digital health topics around the world.

Melissa Fensterstock

Landsdowne Labs, Material Impact

Year Served:

Bio

Melissa Fensterstock brings a unique mix of scientific and business acumen applicable at both the strategic and tactical levels. With an MBA from Harvard Business School, MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise from Cambridge University, and a BA in Neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University she develops and commercializes early-stage scientific innovations.

Melissa is currently CEO of Landsdowne Labs, a spin out from MIT co-founded with Robert Langer. In her role as CEO Melissa transformed an academic concept to market-ready status that included executing a global partnership with one of the world’s largest metal and mining companies, received a NSF grant, raised venture capital investment, and was involved with developing legislation around child-safety. Previously, Melissa worked across the life science sector ranging from running corporate development for a small publicly traded biotechnology company, to consumer product CEO, to spinning out companies from Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University.

Melissa is also an EIR at Material Impact, a venture fund building deep tech companies powered by material science. Material Impact is a champion of the bravest ideas for the future, building companies from the ground up that turn material science and deep tech innovation into products that solve enduring, large-scale, real-world problems.

Melissa lives in Wilton, CT with her husband and two sons.

Colin J. Foster

iSci Management, Bayer Pharmaceuticals North America, Optherion

Year Served:

2020-2023

Bio

Colin has thirty years of experience as a public and private life science company Chairman, Executive Chairman, Board Member, CEO, and entrepreneur with leadership experience across the R&D-commercial continuum in therapeutics, diagnostics, and medical devices. He has led multi-billion-dollar, midsized, small, and start-up life science companies in the USA, Canada, United Kingdom/Ireland, and Israel. He began his career in pharmaceutical marketing & sales ultimately becoming President & CEO of Bayer Pharmaceuticals North America, following which he co-founded and was CEO of Optherion Inc, a venture-backed biotechnology company. Subsequently, he was Executive Chairman of Ivenix Inc, a venture-backed medical device company, Board Member, President & CEO of Bioblast Pharma Ltd, a public biotechnology company, and founder of iSci Management, a strategic advisory firm. Colin has a B.Sc. in Zoology and Microbiology from the University of Toronto, an M.B.A. from the Ivy School of Business, Western University, and his Canadian Securities Certificate.

William LaFontaine

IBM

Year Served:

Bio

William LaFontaine is a recognized leader in the areas of technology licensing, technology partnerships and intellectual property. In his current role as General Manager of Intellectual Property at IBM, Dr. LaFontaine and his team work at the intersection of Research, Business Units and Clients to accelerate market introduction of new technologies including Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing and Healthcare. Dr. LaFontaine is responsible for annually delivering over a billion dollars in joint development, technology transfer and patent licensing. In his 29-year career at IBM, Dr. LaFontaine has been the Chief Operating Officer for IBM’s Research division, General Manager of Global Technology Services in Middle East and Africa as well as General Manager of Worldwide Semiconductor and Technology sales.

Cheryl Martin

Harwich Partners, ARPA-E

Year Served:

Bio

Dr. Cheryl Martin founded her consulting firm, Harwich Partners, to engage public and private sector entities in designing and implementing solutions for complex problems, especially those related to energy, sustainability, urban development and technology adoption.

Previously she was a member of the Managing Board at the World Economic Forum where she was responsible for a range of business and innovation initiatives. Before this, Cheryl had served as the Acting Director of the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E). She was also the Deputy Director for Commercialization at the agency where she developed the Technology-to-Market program, which helps breakthrough energy technologies succeed in the marketplace. Prior to joining ARPA-E, Cheryl was an Executive in Residence with at Kleiner Perkins after a career with Rohm and Haas Company in roles ranging from technology development to finance and business management.

Cheryl serves as the chair of the Board for Sound Agriculture, an early-stage sustainable agriculture technology company, as well as on the Boards for Evergreen Climate Innovations (Chicago) and Elemental Excelerator (HI and CA). Cheryl is also on the Board of Queens Gambit Growth Corporation (GMBT), an ESG-focused SPAC. She received her PhD in organic chemistry from MIT.

Igor Matushansky

Hookipa Pharma, Crescendo Biologics, Daiichi Sankyo, Novartis

Bio

Currently, Igor Matushansky is Chair of Hookipa Pharma’s Scientific Advisory Board, a non-executive director (NED) on the Board of Crescendo Biologics, as well as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medical Oncology at Columbia University where continues to be involved in both patient care and educational activities.

Previously, Igor was the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and Global Head of Research and Development of Hookipa Pharama where he was instrumental in bringing Hookipa’s novel arenavirus technology from early preclinical to early clinical proof of concept.

Prior to Hookipa, Igor was the Global Head of Translational Development for Oncology at Daiichi Sankyo. Igor led Daiichi Sankyo’s international research unit, which focused on early oncology therapeutic programs, strategy and development. He was also responsible for a range of development activities, including post-target identification, clinical trials, and proof-of-concept research.

Before this, Igor worked at Novartis; both as Global Head for Clinical and Scientific Development in the Gene & Cell Therapy Unit, and as Global Clinical Program Lead within the Oncology Translational Medicine Unit.

Prior to this Igor was at Columbia University Medical Center full time where he served on both the faculty of the Division of Medical Oncology and member of the Herbert Irving Cancer Center where he treated sarcoma patients and ran an independent laboratory which focused on the molecular biology of sarcomas, including translational opportunities and clinical trials.

Igor’s academic qualifications include a BA degree, summa cum laude, from Columbia University, as well as a MD and a PhD in Molecular Biology from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He performed his internal medicine residency at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and then completed a fellowship in Medical Oncology as well as a post-doctoral research fellowship in Cancer Biology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Shreefal Mehta

Pulmokine, USI Lugano, Severino Center at RPI

Year Served:

Bio

Dr. Mehta is a serial entrepreneur who has successfully brought new technologies from lab prototypes to market

in biotechnology and energy storage. He has raised millions of dollars from venture capital for his previous ventures, forged strategic partnerships with Fortune 500 companies and driven multimillion$ value in licensing and sales revenues. Dr. Mehta has experience in managing and growing successful ventures in life sciences including drug discovery and development, medical devices/diagnostics and in the field of advanced materials and energy storage. He is currently executive chair at Pulmokine and consultant or advisor to several public and private biotech companies.

He is the author of the industry leading biomedical technology commercialization text book and manual for bio-entrepreneurs (titled Commercializing Successful Biomedical Technologies, covering drugs and devices from concept to commercialization) that has been recognized as “the bible” and the “roadmap” for entrepreneurs and executives in the biotech industry, in addition to being used as a textbook in several universities. The book’s 2nd edition will be launched by Cambridge University Press in 2022. Dr. Mehta is guest lecturer and course moderator for the intensive annual BioBusiness course in Switzerland at USI Lugano and is an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Severino Center at RPI and mentor at StartX (StanfordU).

Geoffrey W. Smith

Digitalis Ventures, GRO Biosciences, Terray Therapeutics, Digitalis Commons

Year Served:

Bio

Geoffrey W. Smith is the Founder and Managing Partner of Digitalis Ventures, a venture capital firm that partners with founders and scientists across all stages of venture investing to back technology-driven solutions to complex problems in health. He currently represents Digitalis as a Director of GRO Biosciences and Terray Therapeutics.

Geoff serves as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Central European University. He also serves as a Trustee of The Jackson Laboratory where he is a member of the Executive Committee and Chair of the Finance Committee. He is also a founding member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. Geoff sits as an Executive in Residence at Columbia University Technology Ventures. Geoff is also the Founder and a Director of the Digitalis Commons which supports the development of public-interest technologies for better health. Previously, he was the founding Director of the Mount Sinai Institute of Technology and a Professor in the Department of Population Health Science and Policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Geoff received a B.A. (with honors) from Williams College and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Peter Tollman

Boston Consulting Group, MPM Capital

Year Served:

Bio

Peter Tollman is Senior Partner Emeritus and Senior Advisor at Boston Consulting Group. He's also an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School and an advisor to several private equity firms and development-stage companies.

Previously, Peter was Managing Director and Senior Partner in BCG's Boston office. He led BCG's CEO Advisory Practice globally, served as global leader of BCG’s Biopharmaceutical Practice, and led its People and Organization Practice in the Americas. He was also a BCG Fellow, a prestigious thought-leadership post.

Over the course of his consulting career, Peter has served many leading firms across industries and around the globe and has counseled numerous CEOs. He specialized in strategy and organizational and operational effectiveness and has advised on numerous corporate transformations, restructurings and mergers.

Peter has authored a large number of publications, and has been a featured speaker at many corporate and industry events. He coauthored the book Six Simple Rules: How to Manage Complexity without Getting Complicated, detailing the transformational approach to improving organizational performance that he helped to pioneer.

Peter joined BCG in 1989. He was also founding managing director of a healthcare venture capital firm, MPM Capital. He is a board member of Tech Care for All and sits on the Board of Governors of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance at the Hebrew University.

Peter received his PhD in engineering from the University of Cape Town, and his MBA with distinction from Columbia Business School.

Past CTV Executives in Residence

Michael Aberman

Quentis Therapeutics, Regeneron, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley

Year Served:

Bio

Michael Aberman, M.D. was most recently president and chief executive officer of Quentis Therapeutics, a NY based biotech start up company. Prior to joining Quentis, Dr. Aberman spent over seven years at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals as the Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Strategy. In that role, Dr. Aberman was a member of the senior management team and was responsible for the investor relations, corporate communications, business development, and corporate strategy functions at Regeneron. Prior to joining Regeneron, Dr. Aberman spent six years as a Wall Street research analyst covering the biotechnology industry at Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley. Before moving to Wall Street, Dr. Aberman was Director of Business Development at Antigenics, Inc., an oncology-focused biotechnology company. Dr. Aberman received his B.A. from Cornell University and his medical degree from the University of Toronto. He completed his residency training at New York Presbyterian Hospital and received an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of Business.

Tom Brennan

ARCH Venture Partners

Year Served:

2020-2022

Bio

Tom Brennan joined ARCH in 2008 as a Venture Partner. He has special focus on ARCH activities at Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Life Sciences Accelerator in New York. During his first year with ARCH, he served as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), a position supported by a Department of Energy grant awarded to ARCH early in 2008.

Mr. Brennan began his career as a member of the technical staff at AT&T Bell Labs, then joined SNL in 1986 where he became a senior member of the technical staff focused on the material growth of III-V semiconductor materials and devices. Mr. Brennan’s work included the growth of some of the first ‘vertical cavity surface-emitting laser’ (VCSEL) material at SNL and in the U.S., and the development of new and unique VCSEL manufacturing techniques. In 1994, Mr. Brennan and a colleague from SNL collaborated with ARCH Managing Directors, Clint Bybee and Keith Crandell, to license the VCSEL technology from SNL and co-founded MicroOptical Devices (MODE). Mr. Brennan was Co-President of MODE through December 1997 when EMCORE Corp. acquired the firm and established a new business unit called EMCORE Photovoltaics, which Mr. Brennan started-up and led as its General Manager. In 2001, Mr. Brennan was named President and CEO of Zia Laser, a spin-out from the Center for High Technology Materials at the University of New Mexico, which developed quantum dot laser diodes. He also served as Chairman of Medical Lighting Solutions, which uses solid state lighting to treat disease.

Mr. Brennan holds an A.S. in Chemistry from the Florida Institute of Technology, a B.S. in Biochemistry from Monmouth College, and an M.S. in Material Science from Steven’s Institute of Technology. He has published more than 120 articles and holds twelve patents issued and pending.

Dennis Brestovansky

Linde, Aveso, ATMI

Year Served:

2020-2022

Bio

Dennis most recently served as Director of Technology Commercialization at Linde where was responsible for global growth through bringing new ideas to market and expanding existing product lines in semiconductor, LED, display and photovoltaics markets as well as industries ranging from wastewater treatment to metals refining. Prior to that he was President and CEO at Aveso, a venture capital funded startup in flexible electronic displays. He has been a division president and Sr VP at ATMI, a small cap advanced materials company, where he ran businesses in gas products, chemicals, packaging and containment for electronics and biopharmaceutical applications and was involved in multiple M&A transactions. He has also been an adjunct faculty member in the University of Delaware’s chemical engineering department where he also conducted industry sponsored research at the Institute of Energy Conversion into large scale solar cell manufacture. Dennis holds a PhD from ETH-Zurich and a BS/MS in chemical engineering from the University of Delaware.

Linda Dujack

Area of expertise:

Biomedical

Johnson & Johnson, FDA, Hoffman-La Roche, National Academy of Sciences

Year Served:

2016-2018, 2021-2022

Bio

Linda Dujack, retired from Johnson & Johnson (J&J), was Vice President for Product Evaluation and University Relations, where she was responsible for proactively establishing relationships with universities, small bio-tech companies, and major pharmaceutical companies in order to identify new opportunities that would merit participation by J&J.

Prior to that Linda served as Vice President of Worldwide Regulatory Affairs at J&J, resulting in many successful submissions and approvals. She was also part of the licensing/financing team responsible for evaluating new product/technology opportunities and developing R&D cost models for the financial evaluation of these opportunities. At J&J Linda also served as Executive Director for the Erythropoietin (EPO) Worldwide Development Project and Director for Medical Services and Support, a department she established for Ortho Biotech.

Prior to joining J&J, Linda was Deputy Director for the Food and Drug Administration in the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. She was also Vice President for Regulatory Affairs and Special Projects at Geritech, a small start-up company whose technology came from Rockefeller University. Linda was also Associate Director of Regulatory Affairs at Hoffmann La-Roche. Prior to that she was a Senior Staff Officer at the National Academy of Sciences/Institute of Medicine.

Linda earned her PhD in biology from Georgetown University with distinction and her BS degree also in biology from Ramapo College of New Jersey with honors. She taught biology and cell biology as an Assistant Professor at Hood College in Frederick, MD.

Mamta Gautam-Basak

US Pharmacopeia, FDA, NIH

Year Served:

Bio

Mamta currently serves as a senior technical advisor for US Pharmacopeia's Promoting the Quality of Medicines program, a USAID-funded initiative that helps low- and middle-income countries improve the systems that ensure the quality of and increase the supply of priority medicines. In this role, she provides technical oversight and direction to all global implementation activities related to regional and country regulatory systems.

Prior to USP, Mamta spent 20+ years with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) working in various scientific and regulatory roles primarily within the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). She was consistently recognized for her ability to bring technical insight to regulatory, policy, quality, and compliance challenges for global pharmaceutical manufacturers specifically focused on product development and regulatory submission processes for INDs and NDAs. She is able to provide CMC guidance for pre-IND, EOP2, pre-NDA, market approval, and post-approval life cycle management of drug products and advise how to make the operation process of drug development more intelligent and cost-effective while navigating regulatory requirements.

Mamta earned her PhD in analytical chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi and her MSc and BSc in chemistry from the University of Delhi. She also earned a post-graduate diploma in chemistry and chemical engineering from the Tokyo Insitute of Technology where she was one of two people selected from India and one of fourteen worldwide selected to participate in a UNESCO-sponsored fellowship with Japan's Ministry of Health.

Charles Goldstein

Becton Dickinson, Millipore Corp

Year Served:

2016-2018

Bio

Since retiring from Becton Dickinson (BD) in Jan 2016, Charles has been acting as a strategic advisor to large and medium companies seeking to expand further into or enter the Health Care market. Charles also serves as Board member for innovative start up companies. On the investment side, Charles is a seed stage angel investor. Overall Charles expertise covers technology, business and go to market strategy and also deep knowledge of product development for medical devices, diagnostics and life science research tools.

From October 2013 to Jan 2016 Charles was Sr. Vice President / Chief Scientific Officer Greater Asia, responsible for the strategy and global performance of BD’s regional R&D operations in Asia. The strategic goal was to enhance the companies’ growth in emerging countries via market appropriate solutions. A lucrative Regional pipeline was created, a fully functional R&D operation was created in China and the existing Singapore capability was expanded to enable product development and responsibility as the Regional R&D hub. An extensive external network was established that enabled sourcing and deal making for new opportunities from start ups, Universities and other companies. In 1997 Charles was appointed BD's Vice President, Research responsible for BD Technologies. BD Technologies engages in technology development in support of downstream product development carried out by the businesses. Some of BD Technologies accomplishments include commercialized micro needle based drug delivery, nano- technology based point of care diagnostics and novel products for stem cell growth. Extensive external networking and partnering was done to tap outside innovation.

In addition, Charles has championed and introduced new Innovation practices on a global basis. Charles established in-house incubators in NC and Singapore for collaboration with and investment in start-ups. Charles led the effort to revamp and revitalize BD's Technology Leadership Development program as part of a broader initiative to provide a pipeline of talent for the company and has served as a leaderteacher of BD leadership training courses.

Charles has been with BD since 1988. From 1988 to 1997 Charles was Vice President of R&D for BD's Hypodermic and Injection Systems business. During this period, Charles initiated and led the major product development work that was done for BD’s highly successful healthcare worker needle stick prevention safety products, IV flush platform and a market appropriate catheter for China. These projects and others Charles was instrumental in championing and leading throughout his career at BD have created billions of dollars in annual revenue for BD for many years, The China catheter has been and remains BD’s largest selling product in China.

Prior to joining BD Charles led the product development efforts for Millipore Corp in Bedford, Massachusetts.

Charles served on the Board of NC BIO the local affiliate of BIO, the national Biotechnology industry organization. NC BIO advocates on behalf of its member companies mostly locally in North Carolina. Charles served and was Chairman of the Board of Ibiliti a non-profit focused on supporting and growing the Med Tech industry in N C. Charles served as Chairman of the Board of the Singapore Bio Venture Center an incubator that was a joint venture between BD and Johns Hopkins Medical. He also served as a member of the Board of Synecor. Charles has a Ph.D and MA from Princeton University an MSE degree from Johns Hopkins University and a B Ch E degree from the City College of New York. Charles has numerous publications and has given many talks.

Charles is member of numerous professional organizations and engages in outside charitable and philanthropic efforts on behalf of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Princeton University. He served 6 years as a board member of the Eastern North Carolina chapter of the JDRF.

Charles serves on advisory committees for the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department at Princeton, the Whiting School of Engineering at Hopkins, the Chemical and BioMolecular Engineering Department also at Hopkins. He is an Annual Giving fund raiser for Princeton.

Charles received an award from the Johns Hopkins University for distinguished alumni service. Charles received several awards from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation for service to that organization as well. At BD Charles has received highest level company awards for Technology Leadership, Innovation and Lifetime Achievement.

Dan Goodman

Relativity Sciences, Lockheed Martin, University of Maryland EiR

Bio

Dan Goodman is a serial entrepreneur, consultant, advisor and educator who has founded or co-founded 14 companies and three non-profit organizations since 1970. He has held leadership roles in several fields including industrial product development, technology commercialization, renewable energy, venture capital, and organizational development.

Dan is the CEO of Relativity Sciences, Inc., a culture-change consulting and training firm he founded in 2008, focusing on intrapreneurship, innovation, and customer intimacy for Fortune 500 companies and government organizations. He has been an advisor and consultant to well over one hundred organizations, from startups to venture capital firms to Fortune 100’s on entrepreneurship/intrapreneurship, strategy, commercialization, and culture change, and is a frequent lecturer and trainer on these topics.

Dan serves as the Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EiR) and Senior Fellow for Executive Development at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. For six years he was the EiR for the university’s Division of Research, where he advised senior university leadership on innovation, entrepreneurship, and commercialization strategies. Prior to that he was the EiR Emeritus and Technology Commercialization Fellow at the Smith School, where he co-taught MBA entrepreneurship classes. Dan also served as Research Development Lead for the Lockheed Martin strategic relationship, the university’s largest corporate partnership, where he developed and managed research collaborations in medical informatics, genomics, secure wireless communications, cyber-psychology, and robotics. He is an alumnus and board member of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at UMD’s Clark School of Engineering. From 2002 to 2004, Dan was the EiR at the university’s Office of Technology Commercialization, where he developed licensing deals for the university’s intellectual property portfolio.

Among his roles in companies he has founded, Dan was Chairman and Managing Director of Zernike USA, the U.S. arm of Zernike Group, a Dutch venture capital and science park management firm; President and CEO of The Silverthorn Group, a product development firm specializing in building automation, transportation, medical and energy systems; CEO of Odexia, a university spinout company commercializing a novel micro-electromechanical sensor (MEMS) for national security applications; and Partner and chief architect of Brainchild Maryland, the State of Maryland’s public-private partnership to accelerate the creation of spinout companies from the intellectual property in the State’s university and federal lab systems, funded by the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development.

Dan was appointed by the Governor of Maryland to the board of directors of the State’s clean energy economic development authority, where he served as vice chairman, treasurer and chairman of the finance committee. He chaired Maryland’s first clean energy business incubator, and has been a board director or advisory board member on over a dozen other boards of corporations, non-profits, venture capital firms and business incubators, including the Chesapeake Innovation Center, the nation’s first homeland security business incubator (sponsored by the National Security Agency).

Dan is co-authoring the upcoming book Triumphant Teams, a best-practices guide for corporate R&D professionals collaborating with academic researchers, together with Jim Severson, former President of the Cornell Research Foundation and AUTM (The Association of University Technology Managers).

Sam Hall

Apple Tree Partners, Burke Neurological Institute

Year Served:

Bio

Sam Hall has experience in the life sciences across roles as a private equity investor, investment banker, and basic scientist.

From 2013 until October 2019, Sam was a Partner at Apple Tree Partners (ATP), a New York-based life sciences venture capital firm with $2.5 billion under management. At ATP Sam co-led the therapeutics investing practice and focused principally on the formation and growth of new biotechnology companies. During his tenure Sam served as a director of ATP portfolio companies Syntimmune (acquired by Alexion Pharmaceuticals), Elstar Therapeutics, Limelight Bio and Chinook Therapeutics and he continues to serve as a director of Stoke Therapeutics (NASDAQ: STOK). Sam also is a director of the Burke Neurological Institute, an independent neuroscience research institute affiliated with Weill Cornell Medicine.

Prior to joining ATP in 2013, Sam was a researcher at the University of Cambridge in the UK, where his work focused on novel therapeutic strategies for autoimmune diseases. Previously, Sam was a member of the investment team at Symphony Capital, a private equity firm dedicated to investments in biopharmaceutical development. Prior to Symphony, he served as a member of the healthcare investment banking team at Citigroup, where he advised leading biotechnology, medical device and healthcare services businesses on numerous completed strategic and debt and equity financing engagements.

Sam holds an A.B. in Molecular Biology from Princeton University and completed his M.Phil. and Ph.D. research at the University of Cambridge, where he was a Taylor Research Scholar and was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for his work.

Randall Kaye

Area of expertise:

Biomedical

SSI Strategy, Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson, InterMune, Pfizer, Axsome Therapeutics

Year Served:

2016-2017

Bio

Randall Kaye, MD serves as the Global Head of Medical Affairs at SSI Strategy, a boutique consulting firm focused on Medical Affairs, Pharmacovigilance and Clinical Development. In Dr. Kaye’s role at SSI Strategy, he focuses on providing a medical and scientific perspective to transformative initiatives in Medical Affairs and Pharmacovigilance. He plays a key role in SSI’s bespoke advisory services and regulatory compliance service offerings.

Most recently, Dr. Kaye was Chief Medical Officer at Axsome Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapies for the treatment of pain and other neurological diseases. While at Axsome, Dr. Kaye developed and executed all Clinical Research functional areas that resulted in the initialization of three clinical programs (IND Filing, FPI) in less than one year. Prior to joining Axsome, Dr. Kaye was Chief Medical Officer at Avanir Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Otsuka), a CNS specialty company. While at Avanir, Dr. Kaye provided leadership and vision to the clinical, regulatory and medical affairs areas, and supported the commercialization of new products from a medical, scientific, regulatory, technical and quality perspective. Prior to Avanir, Dr. Kaye served in a variety of medical affairs leadership positions at Scios Inc. (acquired by Johnson and Johnson) a cardiovascular specialty company, InterMune Inc. (acquired by Roche), a specialty company focusing on Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis and Pfizer Inc.

Dr. Kaye earned his Doctor of Medicine, Masters in Public Health and Bachelor of Science degrees at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Dr. Kaye trained in Pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and was a Research Fellow in Allergy and Immunology at Harvard Medical School.

Juan Carlos López

Haystack Science, Nature Medicine, Hoffmann-La Roche

Year Served:

Bio

Juan Carlos López is Founder of Haystack Science, a consulting firm specialized in providing editorial services and in helping academic scientists working in novel research areas fulfill the commercial potential of their work. A native of Oaxaca, Mexico, Juan Carlos obtained his Ph.D. degree from Columbia University (New York), working in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel, and carried out postdoctoral research at the Instituto Cajal (Madrid). In 2000, Juan Carlos helped launch and became Chief Editor of Nature Reviews Neuroscience in London. Four years later, he returned to New York as Chief Editor of the prestigious journal Nature Medicine. In 2014, Juan Carlos joined Hoffmann-La Roche as Global Head of Academic Relations and Collaborations, leading a team in charge of fostering scientific interactions between the company and academic institutions worldwide. Juan Carlos has served on the Boards of multiple biotechnology and non-profit organizations, most recently on the Board of Directors of Keystone Symposia.

Mahmoud Mahmoudian

Area of expertise:

Biomedical

GSK, Merck

Year Served:

2016-2018

Bio

Dr. Mahmoudian’s career spans 20 years in biotech, pharma, chemical sectors, catalyzing growth and innovation – developed 8 FDA approved drugs from discovery to patients, $15B sales. Closed 50 deals, buy/ sell side, discovery to Ph-III (cell therapy, vaccines, biologics, small molecules) in immuno-oncology, immunotherapy, inflammation, rare/ autoimmune diseases, and anti-infectives ($200B markets).

Dr. Mahmoudian joined Purdue Pharma as Vice President, Head of Innovation Hub/ Business Development Licensing worldwide to incubate, build and commercialize future pipeline. At Ferring Pharmaceuticals, he served as Vice President, Head of Innovative Medicines leading cross-functional scientific/ commercial due diligence teams to scout/ evaluate and negotiate novel products/ platforms with startups/ academia/ venture capital. At Merck he was Managing Director of External Research in vaccines, biologics and biosimilars (Merck BioVentures). At Dow he was Chief Innovation Officer/ Chair of Executive Committee for growth, overseeing all of research/ strategic alliances in five sites (US, UK, France, China, Japan) generating $600M sales. At Eastman he was Chief Biotechnology Officer responsible for R&D, partnering, managing growth and development of its BioProducts portfolio. He launched his career with GlaxoSmithKline, where he held a variety of research, development, and management roles of increasing responsibility, leading global R&D teams. Dr. Mahmoudian is an Executive In Residence at Columbia and Princeton. He earned his PhD in Biotechnology from Imperial College, London UK.

Linda Masat

Takeda Pharmaceuticals, XOMA

Bio

Linda Masat has 18 years of experience in the discovery and development of Biologics within global biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies. As a strategic leader at Takeda Pharmaceutical and XOMA Linda has built state of the art discovery and preclinical development infrastructures and assembled and led talented multidisciplinary team of scientists that discovered therapeutic-grade biologic molecules to over 60 targets across multiple therapeutic areas. Three programs led by Linda entered clinical development stage and more are in IND-enabling research activities. She was the inventor of XOMA’s Gevokizumab, an IL1b antibody that was licensed to Novartis in 2017. As member of executive teams Linda helped develop and support corporate strategies through in-house research as well as both in-licensing and out-licensing activities.

After leading Takeda’s global antibody discovery capability, Linda joined Takeda’s Center for External Innovation. In this role she identified and managed innovative therapeutic programs in collaboration with academic laboratories and early stage companies to bring novel drug concept to bear at Takeda. She also was the Takeda scientific leader in residence and Scientific Advisory Board member at the Tri-Institutional Therapeutic Discovery Institute in New York City, where she managed the Biologics collaboration between the two organizations. Here she enabled translation of early stage programs from Cornell University, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Rockefeller University, to first in class therapeutic antibodies.

Currently an independent consultant, Linda provides expertise in the area of biologics discovery and preclinical development, due diligence for novel targets concepts and novel technology platforms, primarily in the immunology and oncology therapeutic areas.

Linda received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Urbino, Italy. She did her postdoctoral training at the department of Immunology and Microbiology of the University of California, San Francisco. Her industry career includes leadership positions at Takeda Pharmaceutical, XOMA and Abgenix (now Amgen).

Arikha Moses

TyRx, Galatea Surgical

Year Served:

2016-2018

Bio

Arikha Moses, PhD, is a seasoned executive with 15+ years of experience creating and leading medtech companies. Dr. Moses started her career at a seed-stage venture firm, where she was responsible for sourcing, building, and managing early-stage life science companies including EluSys Therapeutics and TyRx. As TyRx’s Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, she was responsible for the company’s strategy and during her tenure she was involved in all aspects of the company’s business including financing, licensing, product development, corporate partnerships with Boston Scientific and Bard, and the commercialization of multiple drug-eluting devices. TyRx was sold to Medtronic for $160MM. She has also worked with the venture capital firm the Vertical Group as an EIR, where she assisted with due diligence on investments in both private and public companies. While working with Vertical, she founded and led Galatea Surgical, a plastic surgery company, through clinical studies and commercial product sales.

Arikha received a PhD in Chemistry from Yale University and a BA with Honors in Chemistry from Brandeis University.

James Pastoriza

TDF Ventures, J.P Morgan Communications, AT&T Ventures

Bio

Jim joined TDF early in 2004 and is the Managing Partner at the Fund. He has more than two decades in the Communications and Technology sector initially in operating positions and the last 17 in venture capital. Before joining TDF Ventures, Jim was a Partner at J.P. Morgan Communications Partners at their Telecom, Media and Technology Fund in San Francisco, CA. Before JPMorgan, he was a Partner at AT&T Ventures. Jim has led investments in over 15 exits via acquisition or public offerings. Prior to venture capital, Jim held operational positions at AT&T and Lucent Technologies.

At AT&T, Jim was the Product Manager for AT&T’s largest P&L, Consumer Long Distance Service. He also served as the Executive Assistant to AT&T’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Development. Previously, Jim was a Lucent Technologies Account Executive ranking in the top 1% of national sales. He received a BSEE from Columbia University and is a member of their Engineering Advisory Board.

Jim earned a Master of Science in Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

David Pompliano

Area of expertise:

Biopharmaceutical, medicine

Accelerator Life Science Partners, Lodo Therapeutics, Revolution Medicines

Bio

David Pompliano is a drug discovery entrepreneur. Working with venture-capitalists and academicians, He focuses on creating scientifically precocious, game-changing new commercial enterprises based on cutting edge science and technology discovered in academia.

Pompliano is an Operating Partner of Accelerator Life Science Partners. With Accelerator LSP and Gates Foundation backing, Pompliano co-founded Lodo Therapeutics in 2015 with Professor Sean Brady (Rockefeller University), and served as its Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) until September 2018. Lodo Therapeutics is a New York City-based company focused on metagenomics-based discovery and synthetic biological manipulation of novel secondary metabolite biosynthetic pathways to produce new medicines. Pompliano continues to work with Accelerator to ideate and build new biotechnology companies.

Pompliano has over 25 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Prior to Lodo Therapeutics, he served as CSO of Revolution Medicines, a drug discovery company he co-founded while an Entrepreneur in Residence at Third Rock Ventures. Before that, he was CEO of BioLeap, a platform technology-based biopharma company. Earlier, he served as a senior pharmaceutical executive at GlaxoSmithKline and Merck, where he led drug discovery teams that produced pre-clinical credentials for >30 development candidates and four registered anti-infective (Altabax) and oncology (Tykerb, Votrient, Promacta) drugs.

Pompliano earned the BS and PhD degrees in Chemistry from the University of Virginia and from Stanford University, respectively, and conducted research in enzymology and molecular biology as a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow in Jeremy Knowles’ laboratory at Harvard University. He also is Principal and Owner at Sanderling Consulting LLC, where he assists investors, companies and philanthropies in setting drug discovery strategy, in executing the operations of preclinical discovery and development, and in evaluating pharmaceutical assets. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of several biotechnology companies, government agencies and philanthropies. He is also Chairman of Board of Directors for ABAC Therapeutics, an antibacterials development company in Barcelona.

Pompliano has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers in the areas of infectious diseases and cancer drug discovery and mechanistic enzymology, and has presented over 50 invited lectures internationally.

Pompliano played drums for Dr Quantum and the Operators, a group of Stanford chemistry graduate students who rocked with no uncertainty.

Dennis Purcell

Aisling Capital, Chase H&Q, PaineWebber

Year Served:

2020-2022

Bio

Mr. Purcell is the Founder of Aisling Capital LLC. Previously, he served as the Senior Managing Partner. Prior to Aisling Capital, Mr. Purcell served as Managing Director of the Life Sciences Investment Banking Group at Chase H&Q (formerly Hambrecht & Quist, “H&Q”) for over five years. While at H&Q, he was directly involved with over two hundred completed transactions and supervised over $10 billion of financing and advisory assignments in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical products industries. During his tenure, BioWorld and other industry publications cited H&Q as the leading underwriter of life sciences securities. Prior to joining H&Q, Mr. Purcell was a Managing Director in the Healthcare Group at PaineWebber, Inc.

Mr. Purcell is a frequent commentator on the industry and has been honored in the “Biotech Hall of Fame” by Genetic Engineering News, named to the Biotechnology All-Stars list by Forbes ASAP, honored as one of the top 50 Irish-American businessmen and cited as one of the top 100 contributors to the biotechnology industry.

Mr. Purcell has served as a director of Aton Pharma (acquired by Merck), Bridge Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pharmaron), Cengent Therapeutics, Dynova Laboratories, Paratek Pharmaceuticals, Valentis and Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Purcell also has served as a member of the Section Governing Board at BIO (“Biotechology Innovation Organization”), the Irvington Institute and on the Board of L.E.K. Consulting. He currently sits on the Boards of Real Endpoints, Summus Global, Inc., BioScience Managers, and Ichnos Sciences. He sits on the Editorial Advisory Board at Life Science Leader Magazine; Member of the Board at NYBIO Association; Board Member at The University of Delaware Investment Visiting Committee as well as a member of the Biopharmaceutical Innovation Board at the University of Delaware.

Mr. Purcell received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and his B.S. in Accounting from the University of Delaware.

Lee Rauch

Area of expertise:

Life Science Business Development

Fortress Biotech, Global Blood Therapeutics, Third Rock Venture

Bio

Ms. Rauch is a Senior Executive and Business Advisor to public and venture backed life science companies with over 25 years of experience, including serving as CEO and in C-level positions. She is currently an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at Fortress Biotech. As EIR, she identifies acquisition or investment opportunities through her relationships with leading scientists, physicians and founders at universities, early stage biotech companies and foreign pharma companies. Previously, she was Chief Business Officer of Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT), a Third Rock Venture start up that is currently a multi-billion-dollar public company. At GBT, she helped grow the company from a few scientists doing molecular modeling to an integrated, multi-disciplinary organization with a potential block buster product in clinical development. Prior to GBT, Ms. Rauch was President and CEO of Nuon Therapeutics, a venture backed, clinical development stage company focused on inflammatory and rheumatic diseases. Ms. Rauch also held senior-level positions as Chief Business Officer at Onyx Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Amgen), SVP Corporate Development at COR Therapeutics (now part of Takeda) and Vice President of Strategic Marketing at Syntex (acquired by Hoffmann-La Roche).

Ms. Rauch’s consulting experience covers serving as managing director for Cervantes Life Science Partners and heading the Life Science Practice as a partner at the Mitchell Madison Group (acquired by US Web). She repositioned companies facing critical strategic and operational crossroads and executed successful business development, financing and M&A transactions. Her clients included Viralytics (acquired by Merck), Afferent Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Merck) and Stryker, where she worked on the multi-billion-dollar merger with Pfizer’s Howmedica Division. She was also a founding member of McKinsey & Company’s multinational pharmaceutical practice.

Ms. Rauch is an active member of the Healthcare Business Women’s Association and a Springboard Enterprises Life Science Advisor. Previously, she was an expert advisor to several California Life Science Fellows All Star Team start-ups. Three of her companies have been funded and one is now public. Ms. Rauch earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry from Arizona State University and her MBA degree from the University of Chicago.

Ms. Rauch has experience in several therapeutic areas including oncology, cardiovascular diseases, chronic cough, autoimmune diseases, CNS disorders and orphan drugs. She worked on the approved drugs Kyprolis^®, Nexavar^®, INTEGRILIN, CellCept^®, Cytovene^® and Aloxi^®.

Lisa Ricciardi

Foundation Medicine, Express Scripts, Pfizer

Year Served:

Bio

Lisa Ricciardi is a CEO and Chief Business Officer with sell-side experience with VC-backed life science companies (biotech, genomics, and medical devices) and buy-side experience with Fortune 100 pharmaceutical and pharmacy benefits companies. She has expertise in strategic partner sourcing, Series A fundraising, and M&A identification, due diligence, negotiation, and integration. Throughout her career, she has successfully developed product positioning, messaging, and collateral to support product launches and drive the path to commercialization and exit. Lisa possesses a robust network of investors across multiple life sciences and therapeutics categories and has leveraged these relationships to make introductions to accelerate company goals. Additionally, Lisa has consistently introduced operational and financial rigor to both start-up and mature organizations to optimize product development, improve workflow, leverage top-talent, and extend cash reserve.

Edward Rosen

Glendevon Life Sciences Consulting, Elucida Oncology, J&J

Bio

Ed Rosen is a serial entrepreneur with a foundation of success in multinational drug, device and diagnostic companies. Mr. Rosen is currently the founder and Principal of Glendevon Life Sciences Consulting LLC, supporting select market and technology assessment engagements and active in establishing new biotechnology companies.

Ed was the founding CEO, President, Chief Executive Officer and a Director of Elucida Oncology, Inc. and has a passion towards driving companies and the people within to fulfill their true potential. Over the last four years, he created the licensing, infrastructure, strategy and team for Elucida Oncology to thrive while attracting a world-class Board and achieving significant Series A financing.

Mr. Rosen has more than 20 years of operational and leadership experience in the life sciences industry. Prior to Elucida, he enjoyed a stellar career across a number of companies within Johnson & Johnson. As Worldwide Vice President of Marketing for a large surgical division, he developed an entirely new business model while overseeing the development of the leading direct to patient web presence in the industry. He co-led the re-birth of an immunology / oncology division setting it on a valuation journey from less than $100MM to $1.3Bn in five years. As Director of Health Economics and Reimbursement & Strategy for a large peripheral vascular division, Ed played an industry leading role in several national coverage determinations and developed a keen understanding of economic outcomes to add to his existing clinical trial design experience. As a marketer, he took a market-leading product suddenly and incorrectly facing an unheard-of level of attack from competition, regulators and clinicians and doubled revenue from the previous #1 market share position. Prior to Johnson & Johnson, Ed started his career with Smith & Nephew, plc, with roles in the United Kingdom and United States, including marketing, operations, technology transfer and sales.

Mr. Rosen holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Business from the University of Lincoln in the United Kingdom.

Adam Sharkawy

Material Impact, Medicines Company, Smith & Nephew

Year Served:

2021-2022

Bio

Dr. Sharkawy is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Material Impact, a unique venture fund that focuses on investing in and building companies with material-based technology innovations making a large impact. He serves as member of the Board of Directors for many companies including Soft Robotics, Fusion Coolant Technologies, NextGen Jane, Orbion Space Technologies, Folio Photonics, Actnano, and Lynq and as Chair of Nohbo, and BloomerTech. He also serves on the Graduate School Board at Duke University and as a Chief Mentor for NYU Stern Endless Frontiers.

Previously, Adam held a series of operating roles on the executive leadership team of publicly traded healthcare companies such as the Medicines Company where he led a number of acquisitions and ran the Surgical Care division, Smith & Nephew’s Emerging Market division, Abbott’s Medical Device division, and Guidant’s Vascular Intervention division. Prior to large corporate roles, Adam was an entrepreneur in the Silicon Valley where he helped start Ventrica (technology acquired by Medtronic), and served varying roles at Heartport (acquired by Johnson and Johnson) and Advanced Cardiovascular Systems (acquired by Eli Lilly). Dr. Sharkawy received his Ph.D. from Duke University in Biomedical Engineering, an MSME in Chaos Theory from Texas A&M and a BSME from the American University, Cairo. He is a scientific inventor and holds 23 issued U.S. patents and numerous international patents.

Angela Shen

Area of expertise:

Therapeutics

Arcellx, NKarta Therapeutics, Cell Therapy Accelerator

Bio

Dr. Angela Shen, M.D., M.B.A has extensive experience in clinical development, medical affairs, and business development, having led clinical programs in oncology in a variety of pharmaceutical settings. Angela is currently the Chief Medical Officer for Arcellx, Inc. and NKarta Therapeutics, and is the Founder of Cell Therapy Accelerator LLC which has provided clinical and strategic support for a number of immuno-oncology programs, including cell and gene therapy.

Angela previously served as Chief Medical Officer of Battersea Biotech and Arvinas, Inc. Angela spent over six years with Novartis Oncology. As a Global Clinical Program Head, she helped launch the CART-19 (CTL019; Kymriah) Cell & Gene Therapy program and built a clinical and operations team from the ground up. As Head of Clinical Evaluation for the Novartis Oncology Business Development group, she was extensively involved in licensing in new compounds to strengthen the Novartis oncology and hematology pipeline, including CTL019 (Kymriah) and SelG1 (Crizanlizumab). Previously, Angela was a Clinical Lead at Novartis for the development of new oncology assets including panobinostat (Farydak) and inhibitors of the enzyme PI3-kinase. At Exelixis, Angela served as Clinical Lead for multiple drugs in early development, including cobimetinib (Cotellic), which was subsequently developed by Genentech and obtained FDA approval. At Johnson & Johnson, she held a medical affairs role supporting Velcade, Doxil, Yondelis, and Procrit. Early in her career, Angela was a research fellow at NIH, and research assistant in the lab of Dr. Paul Lauterbur (2003 Nobel Prize Laureate).

Angela received her MD from Albany Medical College in New York, followed by general surgery residency at Staten Island University Hospital, North Shore-LIJ Health System. She obtained her MBA, with a concentration in finance and management, from NYU Stern School of Business.

Dev Shenoy

Area of expertise:

Quantum/Neuromorphic Computing, Broad technical knowledge

Naval Research Lab, DARPA/MTO, Pentagon, DOE HQ

Year Served:

2017- 2018

Bio

Dr. Dev Shenoy is currently the Chief Engineer for the Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Head Quarters. Dev is a co-author of DOE’s 2015 QTR (Quadrennial Technology Review) that serves as a blueprint for DOE’s energy technology investments. Prior to joining DOE, he served as a Senior Advisor at the Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy (MIBP) Office within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). In that role he co-led a Telecom initiative with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to explore U.S. opportunities to strengthen the supply chain for optical networks and wireless equipment.

Prior to serving at the Pentagon, Dev was a Program Manager at DARPA, (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), where he developed and managed over $100 M in cutting-edge technology programs for defense and commercial applications. Dev’s DARPA programs included one on high power UV tunable lasers for Standoff Detection of Explosives; a program for tunable Electro-Optic devices based on non-linear optical materials for RF Photonics and near IR sensor protection; a program for a Hemispherical Array Detector (that mimics the retina in the eye) for wide field of view imaging in the visible and near IR; Electron spin based non-volatile memory for next-generation radiation hardened memory, a program to develop Non-Volatile Logic for instant-on and ultra-low power computing as well as a program for an ultra-sensitive Electric Field Detector for non-invasive detection of brain electric fields. While at DARPA, Dev was also one of the judges at the DARPA Grand Challenge competition in 2007 for autonomous driving vehicles.

Prior to DARPA, Dev led several R&D projects at the Naval Research Lab (NRL) in Washington DC, where he was a Research Physicist/Project Manager. Example projects at the NRL included synthetic nanopores for DNA sequencing; photo-polymerized monolayers for non-contact photo-alignment layers in Liquid Crystal Displays; laser actuated artificial muscles based on Elastomers; Information Displays for Liquid Crystals; Acoustic Sensor for underwater applications based on Ordered Nematic Fluids; and Pyro-electric sensors based on Ferro-electrics for next-generation thermal imaging applications.

Dr. Shenoy obtained his Ph.D. in Physics from the prestigious Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India on Photon Correlation Spectroscopy of Binary Liquid Mixtures. Dev then gained postdoctoral experience in Light Scattering from Polymer Systems in the Division of Macromolecular Science from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH and prior to NRL, served as Research Faculty in the Physics Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Dev has served on National Academy of Science panels and also presented at meetings organized by the White House OSTP on next-generation technologies that impact national security and economic competitiveness. Dr. Shenoy has over 50 publications including in reputed journals such as Nature, and 5 issued patents. Dev is a Fellow of the Society for Photonics Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).

Ray Strimaitis

Area of expertise:

intellectual property, patent strategy

Yahoo! Inc., Excalibur IP LLC, and IBM

Year Served:

2017-2018

Bio

Ray Strimaitis served as vice president of intellectual property and deputy general counsel for Yahoo! Inc. and vice president of Excalibur IP, LLC. He led a global team of IP professionals and was responsible for all IP matters at Yahoo! and Excalibur. As part of his role, Mr. Strimaitis was responsible for setting patent strategy, monetizing the Yahoo! and Excalibur patent portfolios, managing patent risk, guiding patent advocacy and overseeing all trademark/copyright matters. During his tenure at Yahoo!, Mr. Strimaitis successfully established and led a program to monetize Yahoo! patents that generated $600 million in patent sales and license transactions. In 2016 he led the effort to form Excalibur IP, LLC – a wholly owned Yahoo! subsidiary that was created to further optimize patent value to Yahoo! shareholders. Under Mr. Strimaitis’s leadership, the Yahoo! IP department was recognized by the Association of Corporate Counsel as being among the industry’s top IP law departments and nominated for a Global Counsel Award in 2016. Before joining Yahoo!, Mr. Strimaitis served in various legal, management and patent monetization roles at IBM. He holds a BS in electrical engineering and a JD from Cleveland State University.

Kris Vulgan

Ferocity Capital, Cisco

Year Served:

2021-2022

Bio

Kris Vulgan is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Ferocity Capital. Ferocity's cross border fund's focus is on pre-seed, deep tech research spin outs. She is an experienced investor, executive, and entrepreneur. Previously, she co-founded a successful political party in Slovakia (8% parliamentary seats in 18 months since inception); co-founded a new global department at Cisco during 2008 recession that grew from 5 to 300 employees in just 2 years and is a co-founder of four deep tech spin outs. Kris is an advisor at UC Berkeley SkyDeck, CalTech Technology Transfer, Helmholtz Association (Germany) and a few Fortune 100 CVCs. She studied Roman Law and Psychology.

Diego Carranza

Area of expertise:

Biomedical

Forest Laboratories, Roche/Genentech

Bio

Diego is a global healthcare executive with 15+ years of progressive experience in the pharma/biotech industry. He has a diverse U.S. and international expertise in business development, commercial strategy & operations and marketing/sales execution. Diego has held positions of increasing responsibility at Roche/Genentech from 1999 to 2011 and Forest Laboratories from 2011- 2014. During his career, he has spearheaded numerous business development opportunities in a variety of deal structures including licensing/M&A/opt-ins that resulted in successful partnerships. Additionally, Diego has developed commercial strategies and coordinated operations for both for pharmaceutical & consumer health businesses, led both commercial & business development teams in a variety of disease areas/markets, integrated operations post-merger as well as directed restructurings globally. Diego holds a BA from University of Buenos Aires and a Master of Science in Industrial Administration (MBA) from Carnegie Mellon University – Tepper School of Business.

Bruce Conway

Area of expertise:

Biomedical

CPG Consulting, Pars Pharmaceutical Consulting, Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development

Year Served:

Bio

Bruce is the founder and CEO of CPG Consulting where he provides advisory services to Universities and emerging biotech/pharmaceutical companies. He serves as an independent consultant for Pars Pharmaceutical Consulting and as a Senior Advisor to several start-up companies. Bruce has over 18 years of R&D experience progressing projects from early discovery through the clinic. He has held positions of increasing responsibility at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development (1996-2006) and The Institutes for Pharmaceutical Discovery (2006-2012). At J&J, Bruce presided over numerous high-profile projects including a novel program which led to an approved therapeutic for type 2 diabetes (Invokana™). Bruce has successfully executed and managed across diverse scientific functions (in vitro biology, in vivo pharmacology and ADME/DMPK) and he possesses a deep understanding of the Drug Discovery and Early Development processes. He also has significant expertise in the identification, evaluation and vetting of novel targets and technologies for incorporation into the R&D portfolio. He has served on cross-functional compound development- and life-cycle management teams in early development and has worked closely with academic scientists and key opinion leaders to assess start-up opportunities. Bruce holds a B.S. in Toxicology from the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the Medical College of Virginia. He received postdoctoral training at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. More detailed information can be found here.

Rick D’Augustine

Area of expertise:

Biomedical

Cincytech, UMD Inc, Senmed Medical Ventures

Bio

Rick has over three decades of medical-industry experience in general management, venture capital investing and technology and business development in both public and private companies. He served as an Executive-in-Residence at Cincytech for almost four years through the end of 2011. Immediately prior to that, he served as president, CEO and a director of UMD Inc., a venture-backed drug-delivery company focusing on women’s health issues. Before joining UMD as its first employee, he spent five years as a group director at Senmed Medical Ventures, a private medical venture capital and business development firm. Rick spent 16 years with Johnson & Johnson and was a founding board member of Cincinnati-based Ethicon Endo-Surgery, initially serving as vice president of administration and CFO, and subsequently as vice president of business development. He was a founding board member of Enable Medical Corp., a private, high-technology medical device company, as well as Atricure Inc., an Enable spinoff focused on surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation, which is now a public company. He also serves or has served as a director on several company boards, including (locally)- Blue Ash Therapeutics, SpineForm, Ischemia Care and Enable Injections. He has a bachelor’s of science degree in mechanical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MBA in finance from Seton Hall University. More detailed information can be found here.

Rana K. Gupta

Area of expertise:

Biomedical

HistoRx, Navigator Technology Ventures, yet2.com

Year Served:

Bio

Rana Gupta has spent the last 12 years investing in and developing novel technologies. His passion for entrepreneurship is concentrated in entrepreneurial finance and technology development. Most recently, Mr. Gupta was CEO of HistoRx, a cancer diagnostics company and Yale University spin-out. He ran HistoRx for six years until selling it to Novartis AG in September 2012. Prior to HistoRx, Mr. Gupta was Managing Director at Navigator Technology Ventures (NTV), an early stage technology venture capital firm spun out of Draper Laboratory and based in Cambridge, MA. Six of NTV’s investments were laboratory or university spin-outs. Prior to his position with NTV, Mr. Gupta was Product Manager for Global Services with yet2.com, a B2B marketplace for technology transfer. Before yet2.com, Mr. Gupta founded IndoSine U.S. Link, Ltd., a business development company that helped clients expand international businesses between India, China, and the U.S. While running IndoSine, Mr Gupta co-founded a wireless software company, International Solutions, for which he served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Previous to IndoSine, he served as Manager, PRC Investment Strategy for Zeneca Pharmaceuticals in Beijing, China. At Zeneca, Mr Gupta was responsible for the China manufacturing strategy, for which he secured a $22M investment from the Board of Directors. For the last eight years, Mr Gupta has been teaching in BU’s entrepreneurship program in the areas of entrepreneurial finance and technology development. He holds an MBA in Finance and International Business from New York University's Stern School of Business, an MS in Operations Research from Stanford University, and a BA in Mathematics from Earlham College. More detalied information can be found here.

Barry Kappel

Area of expertise:

Biomedical

ContraFect Corporation, Sapience Therapeutics

Bio

Barry Kappel is biotechnology entrepreneur and executive. He is driven to help develop and foster the biotechnology community in New York, and actively looks for technologies from New York-based academic institution that may potentially be developed into therapeutics. Most recently, Barry was a member of the founding team of ContraFect Corporation, which he joined in 2009 as the second employee. As the Senior Vice President of Business Development at a small biotechnology company, he was involved in all aspects of the company, including financing activities, licensing of the company's key technologies, establishing scientific collaborations with academic and corporate partners, presenting to regulatory authorities, and developing corporate strategy. ContraFect Corporation is now publicly traded (NASDAQ: CFRX) and has its first drug in human clinical trials. Prior to ContraFect, Barry was a Senior Consultant at Easton Associates, LLC, a boutique life science consulting firm located in Manhattan. In this capacity, he performed a wide range of activities, including the commercial assessment of preclinical and clinical compounds for Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies. Easton Associates has since been acquired by Navigant Consulting.

Barry received his B.A. in chemistry from Emory University, his Ph.D. in immunology and pharmacology from the Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and his MBA from the S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University.

Sam Kongsamut

Area of expertise:

Biomedical

Rudder Serendip LLC, Sanofi

Year Served:

Bio

Sam has over 20 years of pharmaceutical R&D and business development experience at a succession of five different companies (Hoechst-Roussel Pharmaceuticals Inc, Hoechst Marion Roussel, Aventis, Sanofi-Aventis, now Sanofi), experiencing a company purchase, a merger of equals, a takeover, and a "transformation", all while remaining in Bridgewater, NJ. Sam managed various-sized groups of scientists in biochemical pharmacology that served multiple project teams in the neuroscience area, and was a member of the CNS Board that managed the CNS project portfolio. He led or worked on a variety of multi-disciplinary drug discovery and development projects covering a range of technologies and therapeutic indications in neuroscience and aging (OCD, anxiety-depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, sleep disorders, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, stroke, hearing loss, pain, circadian rhythm disorders, urology, musculoskeletal disorders), helping to translate animal pharmacology to human pharmacology, including being involved with two marketed drugs that are now helping patients. From 2009-2012, Sam was Director of External Innovation at Sanofi-Aventis, using his experience to identify opportunities for collaboration and licensing for broad therapeutic interests within the Aging Unit. Since leaving Sanofi in 2012, Sam founded Rudder Serendip LLC, a consulting practice that serves clients at universities, foundations and biotechnology companies with advice on R&D plans and business development. Sam obtained a PhD at the University of Chicago and received postdoctoral training at Cornell and Yale Universities. More detailed information can be found here.

Jerry Korten

Area of expertise:

Biomedical

GE, iSonea Medical, Versamed Inc

Year Served:

Bio

Jerry is a Medical Device Company Executive with expertise in product development, business development and regulatory approval planning. Previously the CEO of Versamed, Inc. which was sold to GE Healthcare where he served as GM for business development during the transition. He is now working as an advisor to investment bankers in the healthcare field and serves as a mentor to inventors in academia for the NYC Investment Fund. Jerry is a Director for iSonea Medical and has been a Director for three medical device companies. His technical expertise is in algorithm development using digital signal processing and instrumentation design with a focus on cardio-pulmonary measurements and embedded engineering design. More detailed information can be found here

Francis Lee

Area of expertise:

Biomedical

GLG, McKinsey, Sanofi-Aventis

Bio

Francis leads the life-science Strategic Projects team at Gerson Lerhrman Group (GLG). In this role he helps clients generate strategic insights leveraging GLG’s expert network to help top hedge funds and private equity firms as well Fortune 500 corporations. Prior to GLG, Francis trained and specialized in psychiatry in the UK. He began his commercial career at Sanofi-Aventis which was followed by several years McKinsey & Co. He left to explore start-up opportunities and continued consulting for the life-science industry building his own client base and was recently asked to join GLG to help build their new consulting division which has now grown to a team of 8 people in less than one year. He has significant experience in life-cycle management through more than 7 product launches (over half were blockbusters) and evaluation of loss of expiration strategies for several brands; in particular he has a key strength in understanding medical levers to achieve commercial goals. Francis holds a MD and BSc from University of Birmingham, UK and a MBA from Columbia University.

Bob Sheehy

Area of expertise:

Biomedical

Foundation Medical Partners, Genstar Capital, United Healthcare

Bio

Bob currently serves as an Executive Partner for Foundation Medical Partners and as a member of the Strategic Advisory Board for Genstar Capital. He is on the boards of Kips Bay Medical, Netsmart Technologies, Univita Health and Valence Health. He also serves as an advisor for Cognizant Technology Solutions and the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Bob began his career at Peak Health Plan, a small start-up which was acquired by United Healthcare. After progressing through a series of general management roles, he became CEO of United Healthcare in 2000. In this role, he was responsible for the strategy and results of United Health Group’s insurance and health plan operations. Bob retired from United Health Group in 2009. Bob has B.S. and M.H.S.A degrees from the University of Michigan.

Gordon Stewart

Area of expertise:

Tech, Energy

Bell-Labs / Alcatel Lucent

Bio

Gordon has 20 years of diverse experience in intellectual property licensing, business development, and patent portfolio management, in both corporate and university settings. He has training and expertize in both the physical and life sciences. Prior to entering the business of intellectual property he was a researcher in pediatric genetics at the University of Michigan.

As Director of Global IP Strategy and Portfolio Management at Bell-Labs (Alcatel-Lucent), he managed a global portfolio of over 50,000 patent assets, interacting with attorneys, inventors, technical experts, and business units to ensure the portfolio was aligned to maximize value. He developed and implemented strategies to protect the IP of the company by monitoring the most important technologies and the most relevant geographies. He led teams in evaluating the portfolio to identify patents for use against third parties, both defensively and offensively, and those to be pruned for cost-savings purposes. In this role he also worked with Finance to help secure loans against the portfolio, and with M&A when portfolios were acquired or divested. He negotiated patent swaps, sales, and other ownership transactions with third parties. He worked with the company’s New Ventures Group on the intellectual property aspects of venture spin-offs.

Prior to that role, he managed the Data Processing and Multimedia portfolio segments, supporting deals in excess of $500M with major multinational companies. Gordon has personally negotiated licenses for patents and technology transfers in the areas such as superconductivity, imaging, biological research tools, and telecommunications.

Joining Bell Labs a licensing manager in the New Business Development group, he mined the deep and diverse patent portfolio for monetization opportunities in medical and other non-core areas. Gordon started his career in Technology Transfer at the University of Michigan (UofM) as an Associate Licensing Specialist.

Prior to moving to this business role Gordon was a research scientist in the department of pediatrics at UofM where he was also an associate at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research was focused on the genetics of chromosome 21 and the development of genetic research tools. He has publications pertaining to chromosome 21, Down syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease and murine situs inversus.

Gordon has an MBA from the University of Chicago, a PhD in Medical Genetics from the University of Glasgow, and a BSc in Biological Sciences (Genetics) from the University of Edinburgh. He also received postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School.

More detailed information can be found here.

Natalie Tucker

Area of expertise:

Biomedical

MELA Sciences

Bio

Natalie Tucker specializes in medical device commercialization and business development strategies. As the Director of Business Development for MELA Sciences Imaging Technologies, she is responsible for the strategy and results of software driven imaging products. MELA Sciences, Inc. is a medical device company that focuses on innovative medical technologies for physicians. Natalie emphasizes regulatory and reimbursement policies to drive product design and commercial success. She is a co-inventor of MELA Sciences Optical Spectral 3D Dermal Imaging System and also serves as a consultant to early stage medical device companies.

Natalie entered the field of medical device commercialization through the professional sports industry where she competed globally for eight years. She started and operated her own company where she consulted on business strategy and health management for clients. She worked in over 15 countries and was the feature of national advertising campaigns promoting future leaders.

Today, Natalie enjoys the opportunity to integrate emerging medical technologies with the needs and opportunities available in professional sports. Natalie received her B.S. in Kinesiology from Indiana University.

Lee Wrubel

Area of expertise:

Biomedical

Egon Zehnder, Flare Capital Partners, Foundation Medical Partners, Highland Capital Partners, Canaan Partners

Bio

Lee brings more than two decades of venture capital experience to his role at Foundation Medical Partners and has a passion for healthcare information and medical technology companies.

Prior to co-founding FMP in 2001, Lee served as an investment professional with Highland Capital Partners and Canaan Partners where he worked closely with the management of a large number of private companies. He began his business career as a consultant at The Wilkerson Group, a healthcare-focused management consulting company.

Lee currently serves on the Translational Research Advisory Committee of the Muscular Dystrophy Association and is a member of the Commercial Advisory Board of the Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center at the Cleveland Clinic. He is also a founder of the Coalition to Cure Calpain 3, a non-profit research organization founded to fund research into a rare form of muscular dystrophy.

Representative investments include CardioMEMS, Inc., Circulite, Inc., EndoGastric Solutions, Inc., IlluminOss, Rise Health, Atricure (NASDAQ: ATRC) and CardioNet (NASDAQ: CNET).

Lee earned an A.B. from Lafayette College, an M.D. and Masters in Public Health from Tufts University, and an M.B.A. from Columbia University. Lee also completed a pediatric internship at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.

Jennifer Gabler

Area of expertise:

Tech, Energy, Biomedical

The Refinery, Marlborough Street Partners

Bio

Jennifer Gabler is a Columbia MBA, CPA and has functioned as the CFO for multiple startup and venture backed companies. Her expertise is translating business plans of entrepreneurs into financial models that can be used to drive businesses forward operationally and engage financing sources. She could be particularly helpful to those Columbia ventures that have already launched and are looking to monetize their IP in a sustainable business model. She will assist companies with modeling their revenue/gross margin, projecting their P&L and balance sheet and sizing up cash requirements under different assumptions. She can also assist Columbia ventures in locating potential sources of capital. She can assist Columbia ventures in the initial set up of their legal and accounting structure, capitalization table modeling, management reporting, internal controls and management of human resources. Her focus is to assist companies in the management of back office operations, allowing the entrepreneurs to focus on developing their IP and customer facing aspects of their business. Her industry experience spans biotech, digital ventures, software and services, engineering/hardware applications, ad/media and customer facing/retail offerings, among many others.

Jennifer has and AB from Dartmouth College, an MBA from Columbia University and has worked as an independent researcher for Harvard Business School on the topic of “Controls and Governance in Private Companies.” She has been a lecturer at Harvard and Tuck Business Schools. She is part of a CXO consulting group, Marlborough Street Partners, which helps evaluate, revitalize, operate and monetize venture-funded companies. Her most recent startup is as Co-Founder of The Refinery which is an accelerator for women owned businesses. She is well networked in the CFO, venture and angel investor communities. Jennifer loves “building it from scratch” and is eager to meet with Columbia entrepreneurs. More information can be found here.

Javier Saade

Area of expertise:

Tech, Energy, Biomedical

US Small Business Administration, GEM Group, Paradigm Ventures

Bio

Javier Saade was appointed by the President to be U.S. Small Business Administration’s Associate Administrator, Office of Investment and Innovation (“OII”). He left his post on October 30, 2015. He led the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC), Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR), Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) and the Growth Accelerator Fund Competition programs. He holds a seat on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Committee on Small & Emerging Companies appointed by Chairwoman White. His portfolio included: 1) capitalizing thousands of high-growth small businesses and entrepreneurial ecosystems, 2) investing billions of R&D dollars across a broad swath of America's STEM-driven innovation economy, 3) enhancing capital formation paths where investment gaps are widest, and 4) providing thought leadership on a broad set of economic issues which in turn drove making policy and executing agenda priorities.

Key multiagency collaborations he led or was instrumental to included USPTO’s Fast-Track Intellectual Property, Advanced Manufacturing Investment, JOBS Act Education, Diverse Asset Management, Rural Investing, Social Innovation, Impact Investing, Clean Energy Investing, and STEM Entrepreneurship. He regularly worked with Congress and the White House on policies that directly affect high growth small businesses across the country.

Before joining the Obama administration, Javier was in the private sector and has over 20 years of global principal investing, general management, strategic consulting and entrepreneurial experience. He was Managing Director at The GEM Group an emerging markets focused principal investing firm (PE|VC|HF) and a Principal at Paradigm Ventures, a venture capital firm. He was also an institutional client advisor at Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world with about $160 billion in assets. Javier spent his foundational career years as a strategy consultant at two firms, McKinsey & Company and Booz | Allen | Hamilton and held several operational, line management and engineering roles at life sciences giant Abbott Laboratories.

He enjoys building new companies, and has co-founded and been a top executive of three: a media broadcasting network, Air America Radio, a solar energy services company, Atenergy and a marketing & branding agency, Brand Maestro. Just prior to his public service, Javier advised two investment firms: Pacific Community Ventures, a $100 million double-bottom line and mission-driven impact VC firm in San Francisco and Aspen Grove Capital a $1.3 billion family office in Vail. He holds an MBA from Harvard, an MS in Operations & Technology from Illinois Institute of Technology, and a BS in Industrial Management & Manufacturing Engineering from Purdue University.

Adam Siegel

Area of expertise:

Tech, Energy

Amazon, Fluid, Google [X], Booz & Company

Year Served:

Bio

Adam is a serial entrepreneur who has spent the past 10 years developing and launching new companies focused on the interface of computing, electronics, and healthcare. His passion for entrepreneurship focuses on the "lean startup", a method that centers on early customer engagement and hypothesis-driven product development. He is currently CEO and co-founder of Fluid, a mobile health company focused on urology and infectious disease that participated in the fifth class (v5) of the Rock Health accelerator in San Francisco in 2013. Prior to Fluid, he worked at Google [X], where he directed needs assessments and business development for new projects, including Google Glass and the Smart Contact Lens projects. Before Google, he was a management consultant for Booz & Company in Europe and the US, serving Fortune 500 companies in the life sciences and consumer products industries. From 2002-2009, Adam was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellow in the George Whitesides Group at Harvard University, where he co-authored nine publications and eight patent applications, and designed devices that became the founding technologies for Claros Diagnostics (acquired by Opko in 2011) and Diagnostics-for-All, a social enterprise building medical tools for resource-limited settings. Adam hold a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Sciences from Harvard. He was a Fulbright Scholar to Germany from 2001-2002. More detalied information can be found here.

Brian P. Phillips

Area of expertise:

Tech, Energy

TechnoServe, IBM

Year Served:

Bio

Brian is a serial technology entrepreneur who now specializes in helping entrepreneurs create, build, and grow their companies. As an entrepreneur, mentor, advisor, CEO, and board member, Brian has worked across a wide range of industries including B2B and B2C software, life sciences and biotech, government / defense industry, manufacturing, supply chain / distribution, agribusiness, and retail. He has worked in 30+ countries on five continents, with strong knowledge of emerging market economies and international business development. Brian has personally been involved in the early stages of a dozen companies, five of which eventually had an exit (two went public, two were acquired, and one was sold via a management buy out). He has raised over $28 million in venture capital. In addition, he launched a new enterprise software division within IBM and was a consulting manager in the Tech practice at Arthur Young & Company (now Ernst & Young). Most recently Brian served for three years as the Global Entrepreneurship Director for TechnoServe, an international nonprofit organization that specializes in economic development in emerging markets. At TechnoServe, Brian was responsible for providing growth services and developing access to finance for over 60,000 SME entrepreneurs globally. As part of this work, Brian has played a leadership role in promoting women’s economic development and female entrepreneurship in emerging economies. Brian serves on the Aspen Institute’s ANDE women’s entrepreneurship task force, which he co-founded. He is an advisor to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), and has worked with both the U.S. and a number of international governments. He has partnered with and advised a number of multinational corporations including Goldman Sachs, Coca-Cola, Nike, MasterCard, and Walmart, and works closely with the Clinton Foundation. Brian has a passion for bringing good ideas to fruition, for making productive connections, and for leveraging his experience to help entrepreneurs succeed. More detailed information can be found here.

George Cigale

Area of expertise:

Tech, Energy

Tutor.com, Teachers College

Bio

George Cigale founded Tutor.com in 1998 and served as its CEO until 2013. Under George's leadership, Tutor.com became the leading provider of on-demand instructional solutions for students and professionals, with a proprietary technology platform that connects students and professionals to experts for on-demand and personalized help. Students have turned to Tutor.com over 10 million times and counting. Tutor.com was acquired by IAC/InteractiveCorp (NASD: IACI) in December 2012, and George became its Chairman in 2013. Before founding Tutor.com, George spent 15 years in education, software, and Internet industries, including executive positions at The Share Group, Adizes Institute, and The Princeton Review. George has raised over $35MM is venture capital. Since the acquisition of Tutor.com, George founded Abenaki Ventures, an advisory firm providing strategic services for early stage and growing education and internet companies. George serves as a Trustee on the Board of Columbia University Teachers College, and as a Member of the Advisory Council for Johns Hopkins Medicine, Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences. George previously served on the Boards of Poets House and SIIA Education Division, and Chaired the National Advisory Council for the Johns Hopkins University School of Education. George received a BA in Political Science from the State University of New York at Binghamton, and currently lives in Pleasantville, New York, with his wife and three children. His blog can be found at http://ceotutor.blogspot.com/ and tweeting @gcigale.

Robert Colao

Area of expertise:

Tech, Energy

radiusIP, Nokia, IBM

Year Served:

Bio

Robert Colao is the founder of radiusIP, Inc. - an Intellectual Property consulting and licensing services company serving a client base which includes Fortune 100 companies and individual inventors. radiusIP provides a broad set of IP services addressing client’s IP needs and issues including patent licensing, licensing program development, patent sales and acquisitions, IP negotiations, patent portfolio analysis/development, technology licensing - as well as other areas relating to effective management and monetization of IP. From 2008 to 2012 as Director of Outbound Patent Licensing at Nokia Inc., Bob led the company’s global outbound patent licensing activities/organization. Upon first joining Nokia in 2008 as Director of Patent Licensing, he also formulated and directed the business development of new opportunities expanding the licensing and monetization of the Nokia patent portfolio beyond the mobile handset space. Additionally, he drove the IP elements of numerous Nokia M&A activities (e.g. joint ventures and divestitures), which included the divestiture of Nokia’s wireless modem business. From 2000 to 2008, Bob was with IBM’s Corporate Intellectual Property Licensing organization and held the position of Director of International Licensing. His responsibilities at IBM included: the licensing of patents, technology and copyrights; IP related M&A (divestiture) activities and negotiations; patent pool participation (DVD-6C); as well as leading and establishing IBM’s patent sales process. Prior to 2000, Bob held management positions at IBM which included: hardware and software development in the area of high performance computing; marketing & business development; and strategy & planning. Bob holds a BS/MS in Electrical Engineering from Union College, as well as an MBA. More detailed information can be found here.

Siddhartha (Sid) Dalal

Area of expertise:

Tech, Energy

RAND Corporation, Xerox, Bell Laboratories

Year Served:

Bio

Siddhartha (Sid) previously served as the chief technology officer (CTO) at RAND Corporation and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. At RAND, he was responsible for creating and coordinating strategies and architecture for new technology research and platforms; and for developing potential paths to commercialization, including product licensing and development. Prior to this, Sid served as senior adviser to the RAND President on technology, launching a major initiative in “big data” research systems. He was also the principal technical architect behind a revolutionary early warning system developed by RAND for identifying toxic chemicals among tens of thousands of other compounds which resulted in a first ever spin-off from RAND. Before joining RAND in 2007, Sid was vice president of research at Xerox, in charge of Xerox's worldwide imaging and software services research. He has also worked at Bell Laboratories and at Bellcore/SAIC/Telcordia Technologies, where he served as Chief Scientist and Executive Director. Sid has coauthored over 100 peer reviewed publications and holds patents related to software and network engineering and testing, machine learning, risk analysis, data/document mining, and statistical and econometrics modeling. He is also currently on the board of a start up, Praedicat Inc. Dalal received his B.S. from the University of Bombay and his M.B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. More detailed information can be found here.

Shane Eten

Area of expertise:

Tech, Energy

Feed Resource Recovery

Year Served:

Bio

Shane Eten is a successful entrepreneur with a passion for creating and capitalizing on sustainable business opportunities. Shane has a proven track record of developing industry disruptive solutions, closing complex sales with fortune 50 clients and building teams capable of delivering customers long-term value. For the past eight years, Shane has focused his efforts on leveraging proven and efficient technologies (both CleanTech and Web-based) to create a business model capable of redefining the waste industry. Today, this profitable venture—Feed Resource Recovery, Inc—designs, deploys and operates food-waste digestion facilities for some of the largest food retailers in the world. As the majority shareholder and board of directors member, Shane is now directing his knowledge and expertise towards finding the next generation of opportunities within the space where business, technology and the environment converge. These days Shane is an active advisor/mentor to numerous start-ups and is frequently retained by VC and PE firms to consult on various projects. More detailed information can be found here.

David Murphy

Area of expertise:

Tech, Energy

HP, Mercury Interactive, Asera, Tivoli / IBN, McKinsey, Kleiner Perkins, Blue Coat Systems

Bio

David Murphy, CTV’s “Founding XIR”, returns to Columbia after completing a several year stint as Chief Operating Officer at Blue Coat Systems. David brings a diverse entrepreneurial experience and perspective that spans thirty years:

President & COO, Blue Coat Systems, acquired by Bain Capital from Thoma Bravo
BU GM Laser Jet and Enterprise Software, HP Printer Division
EVP Corp Dev and later CFO, Mercury Interactive, acquired by HP
President, Tivoli Software, after acquired by IBM
McKinsey Partner, technology, growth industry focused
MBA - Stanford
Schlumberger (field engineering)
BSCS/MSEE - U. Louisville/Florida Atlantic U.

Currently David focuses on proprietary and angel investment opportunities. He serves on several venture boards and advisories. He is particularly adept regarding technology translation, execution on product adoption and practical growth planning. David is most often seen at 30,000 feet - flying somewhere out in the marketplace to sell a new customer on enterprise technology. At sea level, David is an avid runner, and always good for a debate or competition.

William Reinisch

Area of expertise:

Tech, Energy

Paladin Capital Group, XIV River, Motorola

Bio

William Reinisch is a Venture Partner with Paladin Capital Group, a Venture Capital firm, where he is responsible for sourcing and managing venture investments and runs the firm’s New York office. Reinisch is also currently the CEO and Founder of XIV River Consulting LLC. XIV River Consulting specializes in strategy, venture capital, technology, due diligence and innovation for, among others, high tech startups and companies that are pioneering new markets, and venture capital firms. Reinisch is also an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, New York University, Fashion Institute of Technology and Stevens Institute of Technology. Reinisch previously served as the Vice President in Motorola’s strategy and technology organization. In this role, he was responsible for positioning Motorola for growth in emerging new market segments in addition to intellectual property, standards and the corporate technology portfolio. He was also part of Motorola Ventures, which is Motorola’s corporate venture capital group. Prior to that, Reinisch was vice president of strategy and new initiatives at Motorola. He joined Motorola in 2004 as a strategic advisor to the Chief Strategy Officer, working to define and develop technology, intellectual property and investment strategies for the corporation. Prior to joining Motorola, Reinisch was Senior Vice President of operations and engineering at Magnolia Broadband, where he led efforts in engineering, operations and radio frequency integrated circuit development until 2004. Before that, he led the global technology organization at Multilink Technology Corporation, a company focused on high-speed component solutions for advanced optical networks. Reinisch has also held various positions at ANADIGICS, Inc., including manager of strategic technology alliances. Prior to 1992, he worked for Analog Devices in the company’s semiconductor division. Experienced in many different aspects of the industry in both technology and operations, Reinisch has authored several publications, presentations, and six U.S. patents. He holds a master of business administration degree from Fordham University and a bachelor’s degree in microelectronic engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Wim Sweldens

Area of expertise:

Tech, Energy

Alcatel-Lucent, Bell Labs

Year Served:

Bio

Wim was most recently the President of Alcatel-Lucent’s Wireless Division, where he led the global development and deployment of LTE 4G technology and oversaw the introduction of the award-winning lightRadio small cell portfolio. Earlier in his role as VP of Network Technology, Wim took the company’s Applications Enablement strategy from paper to practice, allowing service providers to open and leverage their networks for the development of new services and applications. As founder and leader of Alcatel-Lucent Ventures, a strategic new business incubator and investment division inside of Bell Labs, Wim managed the lifecycle - from concept to commercialization - for eight ventures, ranging from enterprise and consumer applications to groundbreaking mobile innovations for operators. Wim also developed several compression algorithms including the one used in the JPEG2000 standard. He authored and co-authored several top cited technical papers, was a member of MIT Technology Review's inaugural class of top young innovators (1999 TR100), and was selected by Global Telecoms Business for its "Power 100 of 2009” list. He is a fellow of the IEEE and member of the Royal Belgian Academy of Sciences. Wim received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Leuven, Belgium. He lives with his family in New Jersey. You can follow him on twitter @wimsweldens. More detailed information can be found here.

Kathy Timko

Area of expertise:

Tech, Energy

Virendia LLC, Canoe Ventures, IDT Telecom

Year Served: