Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder and Managing Partner, The Social+Capital Partnership
Chamath founded Social+Capital, an investor collection fund that incubates and invests in breakthrough companies in healthcare, education, financial services, mobile and enterprise software. Preceding his focus as an investor, Chamath was the longest tenured member of Facebook’s senior executive team and helped drive its ascension to one of the most important companies in the world. Prior to Facebook, Chamath had leading roles at The Mayfield Fund, AOL Instant Messenger and ICQ and Winamp. In addition to his focus at the fund, Chamath is Owner and Director of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors.
James Park, Co-founder and CEO, Fitbit
James is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for creating great products and companies. Fitbit is the third startup that he has founded. Previously, James was a Director of Product Development at CNET Networks, where he led product management, engineering and design for Webshots. Before CNET, James was a co-founder of Windup Labs, which was acquired by CNET in 2005, and prior to Windup Labs, he was the co-founder and CTO of Epesi Technologies. James also worked at Morgan Stanley, where he helped develop trading strategies and software for a quantitative trading fund.
Alan Portela, CEO, AirStrip
Alan has more than 25 years of experience in bringing groundbreaking medical technology solutions to market. He originally joined AirStrip as a senior advisor and member of the Board of Directors prior to his appointment as CEO in 2011. Prior to joining AirStrip, Alan was CEO and principal of Hybrid Clinical Transformation where he developed successful EHR adoption strategies for the U.S. Military Health System and much of the Veterans Health Administration. He also served as President and Chief Strategist at CliniComp and in senior executive roles in several innovative healthcare technology and service organizations.
Bryan Roberts, Ph.D., Partner, Venrock
Bryan joined Venrock as a Kauffman Fellow in 1997 after previously holding positions in corporate finance at Kidder and Peabody & Co. He is currently Chairman of the Board of Directors of Achaogen, Castlight Health and Ironwood Pharmaceuticals in addition to serving on the Board of several other private companies. Past investments include athenahealth, Illumina and Sirna Therapeutics (acquired by Merck). Bryan was named a Henry Crown Fellow by the Aspen Institute in 2006 and has been the highest-ranking healthcare investor on Forbes’ Midas List since 2008.
Joanne Rohde, CEO, Axial Exchange
Joanne brings 30 years of relevant experience growing companies using disruptive business models. At Axial, Joanne has already led the company to national recognition, attracting the Mayo Clinic as a business partner and investor, winning the HHS/ONC Transition of Care Contest, and being selected as a company to watch at Morgenthaler’s prestigious DC to VC Conference, while building a client roster of top-tier healthcare organizations. Former COO and Director of Health IT Strategy of Red Hat, Joanne and her team created a new operational and service model that propelled Red Hat through the “J curve” of revenue growth from $100 to $500 million. As CIO of UBS Investment Banking IT, she oversaw a $1+ billion annual budget and 1,500 mission-critical systems, and helped globalize an industry that works on information and milliseconds.
Leslie Saxon, M.D., Founder and Executive Director, The USC Center for Body Computing
Leslie is a Professor of clinical medicine at the USC Keck School of Medicine, specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of arrhythmias in patients with congestive heart failure. After serving as the director of the electrophysiology laboratory and implantable device services at UC San Francisco, Leslie was recruited to serve as the Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine at USC. In 2010, Leslie formed the USC Center for Body Computing which aims to accelerate the successful development of ideas and innovative products in the wireless health space through cross-disciplinary work with various USC programs in partnership with industry leaders and venture capitalists in biotechnology, telecommunications, entertainment and design. Leslie has completed over 180 publications in various medical journals and is an active member of a multitude of organizations, including The American Heart Association.
Beth Seidenberg, M.D., Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Beth focuses on life science investing and works with entrepreneurs to develop companies with breakthrough technology for treating patients and improving health. Since joining KPCB in 2005, Beth has incubated five companies and was the founding CEO of two. She currently serves on the board of directors of 3-V Biosciences, Auxogyn, Breathe Technologies, Epizyme, iPierian, Redbrick Health and TESARO. Before KPCB, Beth was senior vice president of development and chief medical officer of Amgen. Earlier in her career, she was a senior executive in research and development at Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck.
Tomer Shoval, Co-founder and CEO, Simplee
Prior to Simplee, Tomer was the managing director of Shopping.com North America (an eBay company). He accelerated the growth of his business unit through distribution deals with key content and commerce publishers. Tomer helped revolutionize Shopping’s business model and content operation to better serve online merchants and create the largest e-commerce catalog at the time. Prior to that, Tomer led a global content operation unit, with over 150 content specialists in various locations.
Susan Siegel, Corporate Vice President and CEO, healthymagination GE
Sue is a 25-year industry leader with corporate and venture capital experience in growing companies that bring key enabling technologies to the forefront of biomedical research and healthcare. Prior to joining GE, she was a General Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures and President and Director of Affymetrix. Sue’s other industry experience includes senior leadership positions with Amersham International, now part of GE Healthcare, E.I. DuPont & Co., Eastman Kodak and Bio-Rad. Sue served on corporate boards including Affymetrix, Pacific Biosciences, Crescendo Biosciences, RainDance Technologies, Personalis, Analyte Health, Corventis, Navigenics, On-Q-ity and Didimi. Sue was named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and was featured in the bestselling business book: Multipliers: How The Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter and was recognized as one of “The 100 Most Influential Women in Silicon Valley.”
Patrick Soon-Shiong, M.D., Founder, Nant Health
A physician, surgeon and scientist, Patrick has pioneered treatments for both diabetes and cancer, published over 100 scientific papers and holds 50 US patents on groundbreaking advancements across myriad fields. Patrick serves as Chairman of the Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation; Chairman and CEO of the Chan Soon-Shiong Institute for Advanced Health (the CSS Institute); the Healthcare Transformation Institute; National LambdaRail; and NANTWORKS. Over the course of his celebrated career, Patrick has developed and sold two multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies. Among his many positions, Patrick is the Executive Director of the UCLA Wireless Health Institute and a board member of the California Telehealth Network. In 2010 the Los Angeles Business Journal recognized him as their Business Person of the Year, and the National Library of Medicine honored him with their Distinguished Medical Science Award.
Leah Sparks, Co-founder and CEO, Wildflower Health
Leah has more than a decade of experience in the healthcare industry, with a focus on creating new strategies and business models. Prior to founding Wildflower, Leah was the VP Strategy at DNA Direct by Medco (acquired by Express Scripts) after serving as the VP Business Development at DNA Direct where she sourced and structured the company’s first contracts with healthcare payors, negotiated a successful acquisition by Medco and developed new strategies to help scale the personalized medicine offering to Medco members. Leah began her career at McKesson, moving her way from Director Strategy and Business Development to VP Oncology Services.
Lisa Suennen, Co-Founder and Managing Member, Psilos Group
Lisa has headed Psilos’ West Coast office since the firm’s founding in 1998 and focuses on the healthcare information technology, healthcare services and medical technology sectors. She currently serves as a Director on the Board of several Psilos portfolio companies, including AngioScore, PatientSafe Solutions, OmniGuide and VeraLight. She is also a board member of Miraculins. Prior to Psilos, Lisa was at Merit Behavioral Care (formerly American Biodyne) where she held various senior executive roles including Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Senior Vice President/General Manager of the Public Sector Division and Senior Vice President of Pacific Region Operations. Lisa has served as a member of the Advisory Board of the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of the National Coordinator Investing in Innovations program.
Bill Taranto, President, Merck GHI Fund
Bill is responsible for building the GHI capability for Merck. He works across the strategy office, other divisional and employee groups and with external input to scout out new business opportunities outside traditional pharmaceutical and vaccine projects. Bill is also a member of the Innovative Ventures Board and serves on the leadership team with the Strategy Development Group, Strategy Realization Office and Enterprise Wide Portfolio Management leaders. Prior to joining Merck, Bill spent 18 years at Johnson & Johnson in various marketing, sales and business development roles. Bill started his career as a sales representative for Janssen Pharmaceutical and progressed through various sales and marketing positions. Prior to joining J&J, Bill spent eight years in investment banking.
Andrew Thompson, Co-founder and CEO, Proteus
A veteran of Silicon Valley bio-medical startups, Andrew was President, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of FemRx (NASDAQ IPO, acquired by JNJ) and Chief Financial Officer of CardioRhythm (acquired by Medtronic). As a consultant and venture capital investor he contributed to several successful healthcare companies including Cell Genesys, Cytotherapeutics, Northstar Neuroscience and QRx Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Thompson began his career as an industrial trainee at Metal Box PLC, and then as a management consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton specializing in operations management. Andrew was a founding board member and Foundation President of Summit Preparatory High School, a leading charter school, featured in the Davis Guggenheim movie Waiting for Superman.
