Who we are

Steven Collens is CEO of MATTER, the premier healthcare incubator and innovation hub. MATTER opened in February 2015 and nurtures entrepreneurs and innovators building next-generation health IT, medical device, diagnostic and biopharma technologies. MATTER has worked with more than 1,000 healthcare technology ventures and the company partners with dozens of industry-leading companies, health systems and universities.

Prior to assuming his current role, Steven was senior vice president at Pritzker Group, the investment firm led by Tony and J.B. Pritzker. In that capacity, he led the team that created 1871, Chicago’s center for digital startups, which became the top-ranked business incubator in the world in 2018. He previously worked at Abbott in a variety of domestic and international functions, including product management, policy and public affairs. In 2005, Steven helped found ConstantWellness.com to give patients control over their health data and allow healthcare providers to coordinate care of their patients. Prior to Abbott, Steven served as legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Carol Moseley-Braun.

Steven holds an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and a BA from Washington University in St. Louis. He chairs the board of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and serves on the boards of 1871 and the Chicago High School for the Arts. He is a member of ChicagoNEXT, the Chicago mayor’s council on technology and innovation, a Leadership Greater Chicago fellow, and a member of the Economic Club of Chicago and the Commercial Club of Chicago.

Amanda is MATTER’s technology product lead. In this role she works collaboratively across departments, developing new internal technology products to drive efficiency. She’s a self-proclaimed ops and data geek, with experience in fintech startups. Her last role was at AM Money, a Chicago-based startup building social impact financial products to make college more affordable and accessible to low-income students and their families. Amanda holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Illinois in Mathematics, and teaches yoga after work.

As a partnerships manager, Casey supports our corporate partners as they expand innovation within their organizations. Prior to joining the partnerships team, Casey was the events manager at MATTER – in that role she led the production and execution of MATTER’s many events. Before joining the MATTER team, she worked in marketing and communications at the Dermatology Foundation for two years, furthering her affinity for the healthcare space. Casey graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a bachelor of arts in journalism and a certificate in gender and women’s studies. There she excelled in multiple internships with Madison area nonprofits, fostering her love for bettering the world and helping others.

Charlene is the VP of operations at MATTER. In this role, she champions MATTER’s company-wide strategic initiatives and finds ways for MATTER to continuously improve and evolve. She works to align the MATTER organization and promotes operational process effectiveness, enabling our teams to focus on delivering value to the MATTER community.

Coming from a management consulting background, Charlene brings experience managing cross-functional programs and leading teams from planning through to execution. Prior to joining MATTER, she spent four years guiding clients through performing due diligence and executing complex merger and acquisition deals. In this capacity, she has represented clients from both the buy side and sell side of transactions. Charlene also brings deep operations and supply chain expertise, and previously also spent four years advising on end-to-end operational excellence for both manufacturing and service companies. She is an APICS Certified Supply Chain Professional.

Colleen is the director of marketing. She leads the strategy behind intentional, meaningful experiences for every MATTER venture, partner and community member. Previously, she managed marketing and operations for Advocate Health Enterprises (AHE), a subsidiary of Advocate Health that strategically invests in and acquires consumer health and wellness companies to advance innovative solutions that go beyond traditional clinical care. Colleen led marketing diligence and integration for two acquisitions, developed and launched go-to-market strategies for internal startups and streamlined AHE’s brand to strategically align with the broader organization. She also consulted with AHE’s portfolio companies on key marketing initiatives and collaborated across service lines and companies to stand up pilots, marketing campaigns and new product and service offerings.

Prior to her experience in healthcare, Colleen worked in a variety of industries including hospitality, events, travel and consumer packaged goods. She has also spent time in marketing agencies and as an independent consultant. She received her bachelor of arts in advertising from Marquette University.

Elle is the venture acceleration program associate at MATTER. She is responsible for helping our startup companies take advantage of our resources and network. Striving to drive our community of startups toward success, Elle will work closely with our startups to facilitate connections between our corporate partners, network of mentors, advisors and investors.

Prior to MATTER, Elle graduated from the University of Missouri - Columbia earning a degree in Health Science with an emphasis in Leadership & Policy. Her passion for healthcare and innovation brought her to MATTER as a summer 2019 intern. Since then Elle has worked with Chicago-based behavioral health startups.

When she is not working with our startups, Elle enjoys spending time with her dog, baking bread, and reading.

Garrison is a marketer and communication professional focused on seeking out and meeting audiences where they are. As associate communications manager, Garrison is responsible for developing and delivering engaging content to the MATTER community.

Prior to joining MATTER, Garrison spent three years in the federal government. He held a variety of roles with the U.S. Small Business Administration and U.S. Census Bureau while completing the federal government’s flagship leadership development program, the Presidential Management Fellowship. During this time, he worked on a number of projects including email marketing for the 2020 Census and outreach driving small business participation in federal contracting.

Garrison graduated from Colorado State University with an M.A. in communication studies. He also holds a B.A. from Ripon College in communication studies.

While he is not working on content, Garrison enjoys numerous hobbies including running, cooking and spending time with his dog Penny.

Jeana is the senior director of partner engagement at MATTER. Her work focuses on successful programs at the intersection of healthcare and innovation. She has been central to the development of the MATTER accelerator framework and has deployed over 45 separate programs since 2018. She also led the marketing team, and has a strong background in multi-channel promotion.

Prior to MATTER, she ran her own consulting services company with clients throughout the tech and healthcare sectors. Jeana served as the operational lead at a San Francisco based agency working on programs for remote patient monitoring, telehealth products and robotic surgical systems. She also directed cross-functional teams at Meredith’s marketing division, MXM (formerly Big Communications), on more than 26 pharmaceutical and payer launches.

Jeana holds a bachelor of arts in sociology from the University of Maryland, College Park and is a member of the Healthcare Businesswoman’s Association.

Kaitlyn is the venture acceleration program associate at MATTER. She is responsible for providing daily oversight of administrative and operational tasks of the venture acceleration team. Prior to joining the venture acceleration team, Kaitlyn was a spring 2022 intern at MATTER. In this role, she collaborated across all MATTER departments to complete a variety of tasks and projects to support the MATTER team and their goals.

Kaitlyn graduated from Loyola University Chicago with a Bachelor of Science in Healthcare Administration. In her free time, Kaitlyn likes to read, refurbish thrifted furniture and try new TikTok recipes.

Joe joins MATTER as VP of Strategic Partnerships- working to expand the MATTER community through engagement with established businesses and organizations. Prior to joining MATTER, Joe was SVP of Client Solutions at machine-learning pioneer Ditto Labs. There, he worked with MIT-trained engineers to integrate cutting edge computer visioning solutions with leading technology from partners such as Oracle, Teradata and IBM. Joe was the first industry expert hired by healthcare and direct marketing agency BIG Communications, now part of media giant Meredith Corporation, to run global sales efforts and expand BIG’s offerings. Joe has launched over 30 products and devices over his career, gaining valuable insights on the most effective ways to commercialize. Joe began his career at Pfizer, working in sales and marketing for some of the world’s most recognized brands, such as Lipitor and Viagra. An entrepreneur himself, Joe co-founded San Francisco-based BrandForce Health- a company that launched some of the first connected, wireless health products in conjunction with AT&T, CVS and NantHealth.

As the partnerships manager at MATTER, Katie is responsible for building strategic relationships with partners that create reciprocal value. She works to help partners source new technologies, build innovation capacity and solve complex problems. Prior to MATTER, Katie worked in corporate partnership development at mHUB, an innovation center for manufacturing and hardtech. Prior to mHUB, Katie managed national sponsorships at Tribune Publishing and was part of the team at Jack Morton Worldwide where she coordinated experiential marketing campaigns for General Motors. Katie graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in Marketing.

Kay is the events associate at MATTER. She oversees the development, coordination and execution of MATTER’s diverse events.

Since joining MATTER in 2020, Kay has led virtual, hybrid and in-person events for the MATTER community. From showcases, panels and demo days, Kay runs events to bridge the gap between partners and entrepreneurs in the healthcare ecosystem.

Prior to joining MATTER, Kay was a corporate events intern at MxD. She has also worked in the outdoor recreation industry for five years, leading challenge course and group development programs that challenged participants’ perspectives with an emphasis on group cohesion.

Kay graduated from Loyola University Chicago with a B.A. in advertising and public relations and a marketing minor. In her free time, Kay likes to draw, hike, read and travel.

Mike is the SVP, Venture Acceleration at MATTER working to create value for member companies and accelerate their success in the market. Mike has dedicated his career to improving health outcomes for individuals and our communities. He is a seasoned executive with over 25 years of health industry experience in strategy, growth, operations, product development, clinical research and regulatory. He’s held leadership positions for both health systems and health tech focussed startups and has provided a deep understanding of the challenges, requirements and opportunities in bringing innovative solutions to market. Mike has a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University, a MBA from Indiana University Kelley School of Business and has several published patents and publications.

Noelle is a Chicago native who graduated from Kalamazoo College in 2012 with a major in biology and a minor in art. During her junior year, she studied and lived abroad in Ecuador for 6 months. While in college she held a leadership role on the Student Activities Committee and was a senior resident assistant. After college, she learned HTML/CSS and UX Design at The Starter League, later becoming Start League’s office manager. Before joining The Starter League team, she worked at The University of Chicago Survey Lab administering surveys via phone in English and Spanish.

As a partnerships manager, Olyvia supports our corporate partners as they expand innovation within their organizations. Olyvia has a focus on advancing health equity within the health innovation space.

Prior to joining MATTER, Olyvia was the Manager of Public Health Activities at the Illinois Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics (ICAAP), where she developed and implemented state-level and local initiatives to improve the health and lives of children and families in Illinois. In addition to a public health background, Olyvia also has extensive experience in the community/social justice field and was a past Albert Schweitzer Fellowship recipient.

She remains active in and outside of work, being heavily involved in community-centered programming to increase health equity and equality.

Olyvia graduated from DePaul University with a B.S. in Health Sciences and minors in Sociology and Communication Studies. Olyvia continued her education at Benedictine University graduating with a Master’s in Public Health and a Master’s in Business Administration (MPH/MBA).

When not working Olyvia loves traveling and exploring new places.

Pete is a product developer currently helping maintain and improve MATTER’s website and online offering. Prior to working with MATTER, Pete helped engineer & manage software products at Helpful Human, a Seattle based digital agency. Among a variety of retail and marketing sites, he helped build a platform designed to help Seattle area doctors and their patients find healthy resources in their communities. Pete loves building simple and intuitive software that solves meaningful problems. Pete previously studied music at the University of Southern California and product development at Chicago’s Starter League.

Sam is a senior partnerships manager at MATTER. She is responsible for bridging the gap between partners and entrepreneurs in the MATTER workspace. Working with the partnership team, she strives to help partners get the most out of their relationship with MATTER to help with new technology, facilitate different programs and build innovation within organizations.

Sam’s background in the healthcare field started with a health sciences degree from Ohio State. While in college, she worked at a physical therapy clinic as an office coordinator and exercise technician. She used this experience to transition to the health tech world and worked for four years on the training team for Allscripts’ Ambulatory Product TouchWorks. She also ran the GiveBack Program at Allscripts for their headquarters office, planning the philanthropic and fundraising events the company took part in each year.

Schnaude joins MATTER as the venture acceleration manager, working closely with startups to support their overall experience. She is responsible for connecting startups to the appropriate resources necessary to gain traction in the market and helps drive startups to success by facilitating connections with MATTER’s network of mentors, investors and corporate partners. She aims to lead and grow business relationships within the organization as well as across entities to create value and garner a competitive advantage. Using the appropriate strategic approach, Schnaude manages alliances, ecosystems and other collaborations to effectively reach the goals of the alliance and to produce key deliverables. She hopes to dislodge the bottleneck of innovation from academia to market and is committed to building the Midwest healthcare ecosystem in an inclusive and diverse way by increasing access through mentorship and advocacy.

Schnaude earned her PhD in neuroscience from Northwestern University in 2022. She began her career outside of academia as a life sciences entrepreneur who leveraged her scientific expertise and strong analytical skills to identify, evaluate and prioritize translational biomedical technologies based on their scientific merit and commercial potential.

Prior to MATTER, Schnaude was an entrepreneurial fellow with the Chicago Biomedical Consortium where she evaluated 20+ candidate technologies across biomedical platforms from Chicagoland universities for potential commercialization opportunities and worked closely with university faculty to develop, refine and implement non-dilutive awards focused on accelerating the translation of these transformative biomedical technologies.

When Schnaude is not advocating for health equity initiatives, she loves to dance, do martial arts and watch anime.

Shannon (she/they) is a marketing communications professional who believes that meaningful storytelling and relationship building are the building blocks of a successful brand. As an Associate Content Marketing Manager at MATTER, Shannon is dedicated to nurturing MATTER’s ever-expanding digital presence.

Before joining MATTER, Shannon worked as a psychotherapist and mental health educator, specializing in counseling those who have experienced grief and loss, providing support for service and arts industry workers and addressing LGBTQIA+ issues. Prior to transitioning into the healthcare sector, Shannon held various digital marketing positions in the hospitality and music industries, accumulating a diverse skill set in content creation, social media management, public relations and email marketing. Currently, Shannon is focused on broadening their expertise in user experience design to become a more inclusive marketer.

Shannon holds an M.A. in forensic psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology and a double-B.A. from DePaul University, with majors in journalism and media/cinema studies.

Outside of work, Shannon enjoys captivating books, well-made negronis and lengthy bike rides.

Adam Hanina is the CEO and founder of Dandelion, a neurocoding company creating the world’s first Programmable Therapeutics™ platform to treat the brain. Previously, Adam founded AiCure, a venture and NIH-funded advanced data analytics and computer vision company selling to the top 30 life sciences companies. As CEO, he grew the team to 100 people and sales into eight digits.

Adam has invented platform technologies ranging from AI-patient monitoring to fractal barcodes and holds over 70 awarded patents where he is listed as the primary inventor. He has raised over $52M in capital in addition to $7.3M in NIH funding. In parallel to multiple scientific publications in the field of artificial intelligence and patient monitoring, Adam has been invited to speak in the U.S. and globally at CES, BIO, DIA, WHO, Wharton, FT, Cooper Union, MIT, etc. His contributions to the life sciences have been recognized by multiple awards, including the PharmaVOICE 100.

He holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MPhil from Cambridge University and a BA with honors in physics and economics from Brown University.

Jason Smith is a leading-edge technologist and executive with more than 20 years of industry experience. He has held positions in early stage companies, large multinational corporations and venture capital incubators yielding a rich professional background. In his roles such as CEO, chief product officer, VP of corporate development, VP of product and chief architect, he has been responsible for the management of various functional areas including strategy, product development, technology and operations. Jason has successfully built and sold multiple early stage companies and services firms to large global organizations.

Jason has successfully driven the licensing of technologies and intellectual property to companies ranging from medium-size enterprises to the Fortune 500. The licensing includes his own IP contributions, which have been granted multiple domestic and international patents in the fields of bioinformatics, high-speed computation, video, graphics architecture and security.

Jason brings extensive experience in building and growing startups, technology service firms and product development organizations. He helps focus companies to understand who their customers are, what products should be built to meet their customers’ needs and how to get the product into customers’ hands.

Jason is an angel investor and active startup mentor.

Pamela York is a serial entrepreneur, venture capital investor, and business executive, with extensive success from launch to exit in healthcare and technology companies. She is a co-founder and managing partner of Capita3, an early stage venture capital firm focused on healthcare innovations.

Previously Pam was a co-founder of two VC-backed startups each with exits, and an inventor on a dozen patents commercialized in three technology platforms. Pam then shifted her focus from entrepreneur to investor and has helped build innovation pipelines and drive capital formation across the U.S. As part of this transition, she managed a large life sciences intellectual property portfolio and led or invested in 100 deals with 15 exits to date, including 4 IPOs. She’s also helped launch several venture funds and is a mentor for Revolution Ventures and an advisor to Medical Alley. Pam was named mentor of the year for UnitedHealthcare Techstars and serves on numerous boards.

Additionally, Pam has 20 years of experience in transformational leadership development and she’s featured on TED Talks and the Audible Motivated to Lead channel for her novel startup CEO accelerator work. She’s been adjunct faculty teaching the NSF I-CorpsTM lean startup programs to faculty and graduate students and taught lean startup principles to Saudi Arabian women leaders. She has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from University of Illinois and completed a private equity financing program at Wharton.

David Leonard is an accomplished company builder and growth executive with 20 years of experience across healthcare, life sciences and multiple service industries. With experience at three venture-backed healthcare companies, David specializes in helping early-stage companies introduce and commercialize complex new products and install the right company operations to enable success.

David is currently the Chief Administrative Officer and Head of Corporate Development at Endpoint Health, a venture-backed precision medicine company combining AI and diagnostics with therapeutics to develop precision therapies for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. David leads Endpoint’s business operations and oversees Endpoint’s business development, acquisition and licensing strategy with health system, diagnostic and therapeutic partners.

Prior to joining Endpoint, David was SVP of Growth at a venture-backed early-stage digital health. David is also a partner at Gallup Consulting, he managed a global consulting team and client portfolio of Fortune 500 companies across the healthcare, pharmaceutical, medical device and financial services industries.

David received his MBA from Cornell University and his BS from Vanderbilt University.

David is an accomplished global business leader, board member, investor and executive coach with 30 years of experience in the technology and healthcare industries. He has led strategy, innovation, operations, product marketing, sales, partnerships, M&As and joint ventures. David has held various P&L responsibilities at large publicly traded corporations, VC-funded startups and not-for-profit institutions. He has traveled to many countries around the world, working with healthcare clients and business partners.

David currently serves as the Corporate Officer and Global VP for Joint Commission Resources and Joint Commission International, a global leader in healthcare quality and patient safety with clients in 72 countries. Prior to this role, David was a senior executive and market segment leader at Allscripts Healthcare Solutions (NASDAQ: MDRX). Additionally, he served as the CEO of two VC-backed healthcare technology startups, both of which were successfully exited.

David is a fellow of American College of Healthcare Executives, a fellow of American College of Health Data Management, a frequent writer to the Forbes Business Council and a member of Private Director Association. He has served as a board director or advisor to many healthcare organizations and is an investor in Purple Arch Venture Fund. David received his Executive MBA from the Kellogg Business School of Northwestern University in 2003 and a master’s degree of Computer Science from the University of North Carolina in 1993.

Drew Turitz has spent the last 20 years helping healthcare companies grow as an operator, advisor, entrepreneur and investor. Drew’s background is in strategy and finance. He has led M&A, partnerships and integration activities for Teladoc for 10 years. Prior to that, Drew helped launch Healthagen at Aetna and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Venture Fund at Sandbox.

Hassan has over 25 years of experience driving innovation within employer health benefits plans and advocating for the connection between the health of the workforce and the performance of a business. Passionate about disrupting the status quo in how employers deliver healthcare benefits to their workforce, Hassan has led the transformation of health benefits strategies at multiple Fortune 500 companies, including US Foods, Kraft, Mondelez and Ford. In those roles, Hassan drove innovative solutions by being the first to implement many new benefit design features and digital health solutions, all of which are now broadly used by employers across the globe.

Today Hassan is focused on building new high-value digital healthcare solutions for employers in an effort to improve the health of their employees, reduce health expenses and improve the patient experience. He serves as a consultant to numerous digital healthcare companies, providing guidance on the design and development of new employer-facing healthcare products as well as tools to ensure their success, including commercial strategy, channel development, marketing, pricing and partnerships. He also serves as an advisor to the Employer Health Innovation Roundtable (EHIR), a coalition of large employers seeking innovation in the global health benefits space. In that role, he provides guidance to employers seeking new solutions as well as to innovators seeking to enter the employer benefits market.

Hassan’s deep understanding of the healthcare system began when he was working at both a provider and payer, first by managing outpatient clinics at Ascension St. John Hospital in Detroit followed by a position developing provider network strategies at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. After serving in those roles, he worked as a benefits consultant at WillisTowersWatson assisting employers develop strategic approaches to their healthcare benefits.

Hassan has an MPH, MHA, MBA, MA and BA from the University of Michigan. He also has a JD from the University of Detroit School of Law.

John Achoukian is an experienced healthcare strategist with a track record of developing and implementing successful provider and payer solutions for interoperability, quality improvement, risk adjustment and patient engagement. He has worked with large healthcare organizations such as Dignity Health and UnitedHealth Group as well as health tech startups to help improve patient outcomes, increase efficiency, reduce costs and ensure regulatory compliance. John’s passion is working collaboratively with stakeholders across the healthcare industry to achieve common goals.

Dr. Khan Siddiqui is a world-renowned clinical radiologist, pioneer in the field of AI and a serial entrepreneur. He holds dozens of patents in deep learning, AI, image processing, data visualization, MR imaging and secure patient information handling. His work at Microsoft in the early 2000’s included the first multimodal AI model in medical imaging and developing the necessary infrastructure and training for the large AI model behind Xbox Kinect. Dr. Siddiqui is a serial entrepreneur with a track record of success. He took Hyperfine, Inc., the creator of the world’s first FDA 510(k) cleared, portable MRI scanner, public via a SPAC process. He also founded higi, Inc., a consumer health technology company, which was acquired by a technology company in a $4.2 billion SPAC transaction.

Dr. Siddiqui has held significant roles at Microsoft, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland. He was the founding chair of the American College of Radiology’s Imaging and Informatics Commission and has demonstrated his leadership and expertise throughout the field of radiology. He contributed to dozens of academic radiology informatics programs in the U.S. and is a frequent lecturer on building highly scalable technology companies, building data driven digital health companies and the rapid commercialization of medical and digital health technologies, particularly, AI in radiology and medical imaging startups.

Dr. Siddiqui is a member of various boards and advisory committees for startups around the world, and he has given hundreds of invited talks. His work has been recognized globally, further solidifying his reputation as a leader in healthcare technology.

Dr. Lukasz Kowalczyk is a practicing gastroenterologist and seasoned tech entrepreneur, who bridges the gap between clinical medicine and healthcare innovation. In 2019, he helped expand his gastroenterology practice from five to 40 physicians, leading to a successful exit in 2019. He subsequently founded a surgical automation company that he successfully exited in 2021. He continues to practice in Colorado, bringing firsthand insights into the practical applications of digital health solutions.

At the Mayo Clinic’s AI Accelerator first graduating cohort, he learned first hand practical and regulatory challenges to building and implementing AI in the healthcare setting. Dr. Kowalczyk holds certifications from Standford University in evaluating AI healthcare apps and the fundamentals of machine learning, as well as a certification in AI product management.

Dr. Kowalczyk provides strategic guidance to startups on building health tech products and AI to deliver clinical and financial value. He enjoys working with teams on go-to-market launches, market segmentation, and building messages of value that resonate with decision makers.

Dr. Kowalczyk earned his BS in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Florida finishing in three years. He earned his MD, Residency and GI fellowship at the University of Florida. He enjoys skiing, tennis and spending time with his wife and three kids.

Marco is heading acceleration, insights and open innovation at Roche Diabetes. He leads a team that is responsible for insights discovery and validation of customer opportunities across patients, healthcare professionals and payers. After establishing Roche’s customer opportunity portfolio, Marco has implemented a lean strategy process and led the development of several business unit strategies.

After establishing a lean strategy as a competency to inform investment decisions, Marco has led the design and implementation of an internal accelerator program to validate strategies by enabling corporate venture teams to incubate and accelerate business models.

In 2018, Marco led Roche’s ambition to establish open innovation with the goal to accelerate value creation for patients together with startups. Prior to his current role, Marco held various positions at Roche in the R&D organization in Switzerland and Germany developing and launching drug delivery devices. He spent six years in San Francisco, building up Roche’s corporate incubator team with the objective to identify new growth opportunities in Type 2 diabetes. Marco’s areas of expertise include insights discovery, customer opportunity development, lean strategy development, corporate venture design and acceleration, product development, organizational development, training, coaching and mentoring.

Mark’s career in healthcare has taken him from a combined MD-PhD concentrating on applied mathematical applications in cardiology, to private practice as a clinical cardiac electrophysiologist, elected medical staff leadership roles, the Chief of Quality of the Piedmont Heart Institute and most recently the Chief Medical Officer of Piedmont Atlanta Hospital, from which he recently retired.

His particular focus during his time as a medical administrator has been to understand the environment of healthcare delivery, whether in the office, the hospital or with the patient at home, and work to engineer that environment to better deliver the care that will result in higher value: improved outcomes, efficiency and satisfaction, with reduced errors and reduced cost.

Michelle Hoffmann, PhD has been serving since August of 2021 as the executive director of the Chicago Biomedical Consortium (CBC), a consortium of biomedical researchers across Northwestern, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Chicago that is generously supported by the Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust. The CBC’s mission is to stimulate collaboration among scientists to accelerate discovery that will transform biomedical research and improve the health of humankind. Prior to this role, from 2019-2021, Dr. Hoffmann was the senior vice president of deep tech at P33, a privately funded nonprofit charged with elevating Chicagoland’s innovation economy and driving inclusive economic growth.

Prior to P33, Dr. Hoffmann spent 15 years helping life sciences companies grow, most recently as a senior vice president at Boston-based Back Bay Life Science Advisors, an integrated strategy and investment firm to global life sciences companies and their investors. During her eight years at Back Bay, Dr. Hoffmann led projects for large, publicly traded companies, as well as small, private, venture-backed healthcare and life sciences companies. Dr. Hoffmann also worked closely with Back Bay’s investment team on two large transactions: an epigenetics platform that was sold to Gilead Pharmaceuticals for $65 million and an agent to combat acute kidney injury that was acquired by AbbVie for $110 million. Previously, she was senior manager, Center for Health Solutions and pharmaceutical market lead, at Deloitte Research.

Dr. Hoffmann also worked for Leerink Swan Strategic Advisors as a consultant/project manager, Capgemini/LECG as a consultant in their life sciences healthcare practice and at Fuld+Company as a senior analyst in Fuld’s healthcare practice.

Dr. Hoffmann earned a PhD in molecular and cellular biology from the University of California Berkeley with Professor Joshua Kaplan and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Brandeis University in the laboratory of Professor Gina Turrigiano.

Mike Abbadessa is an Executive of Medical Affairs, with experience in business and product development utilizing AI solutions for business challenges in the life science industry. His passion for using data to solve real problems coupled with Mike’s medical and scientific training, has enabled a career that spans, health care, pharma and tech.

The journey began in acute-care hospitals, as a pharmacist, director and chief operating officer. He transitioned to pharma as an MSL, Director of field teams, and then Sr. Director of Innovation/ Analytics for medical affairs at Takeda. After his career in pharma and before joining rMark Bio and Within3, Mike expanded his knowledge of field medical’s success factors as a consultant for Tardis (Amplity) and various pharma companies.

He has earned a reputation as a developer of ideas, people, and organizations. Mike’s value proposition is leading and developing teams and organizations to optimize performance to the highest level through quality improvement, continuous learning, and constant innovation.

Mindy most recently served as Chief Marketing Officer at SonderMind, a growth-stage behavioral health company. Prior to SonderMind, Mindy served as Chief Growth Officer at MDLIVE, where she was responsible for sales, account management and marketing and provided leadership on matters related to partnerships, pricing and product strategy, along with responsibility for industry and consumer insights.

Prior to MDLIVE, Mindy was a Group Vice President at Walgreens where she was responsible for driving customer behavior among Walgreens’ 90 million Balance Rewards loyalty program members, as well as the associated sales and profit impacts. Mindy joined Walgreens at the director level in 2011 as a leader on a newly established loyalty team, responsible for launching the program’s ‘points currency’ and for launching B2B and B2C direct marketing and insights functions. Under Mindy’s leadership, the loyalty program impact drove approximately $1BN in revenue (~4% of Walgreens retail sales), while insights and direct marketing businesses delivered over $100M in revenue annually.

Before joining Walgreens, Mindy spent most of her career focused on customer loyalty, insights and personalization; primarily working with retail and consumer goods companies.

Monique Smith is the founding executive director of Health DesignED: The Acute Care Design + Innovation Center at Emory University, an emergency physician at Grady Memorial Hospital and a thought leader on design thinking in healthcare. With expertise nationally and across the globe in service design and systems strengthening, Monique leverages design to reimagine the spectrum of acute care within a large health system from the moment patients experience symptoms to long after they walk out of the hospital’s sliding glass doors. Monique has appeared in the New York Times and CNN and currently serves as a health equity and innovation advisor for Fortune 100 companies as well as on the White House’s Health Equity Roundtable. Prior to joining Emory, she advised early stage companies on tech-enabled care for seniors, digital vaccines and virtual care platforms.

Ms. Nicole Walker has over 30 years of experience in capital raising, market access, global growth, product and market development and company formation. Originally trained as an engineer, Nicole’s career has been evenly weighted between operating roles (Guidant Corporation and Abbott) and venture investing.

In 2023, Nicole retired from Arboretum Ventures where she co-managed the firm’s healthcare investments with a particular interest in pharma tech/services, devices and drug/device combinations. Prior to joining Arboretum, she was the first African American female managing director at Robert W Baird (Baird Capital) and a founding director of Abbott Biotech Ventures.

Nicole holds a BS from Stanford University and a MS and MBA from Northwestern’s McCormick Engineering and Kellogg Schools. Additionally, she also current sites on the board of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, and the national boards of the Alzheimer’s Association and Venture Forward.

Paul is a healthcare technologist and strategist specializing in life sciences research and development and digital health. His decade-long journey spans drug discovery through late-stage clinical development, embodying a blend of innovation, process improvements, go-to-market strategies and technology evaluations. These experiences have developed a strong knowledge base of industry limitations and developmental pain points.

Currently at Medable, Paul is a senior director of growth and strategy with financial operational oversight responsibilities. Paul supports internal operational improvements and standardization, commercial market positioning, board reporting and client expansion strategies. Formally at Accenture, Paul spearheaded transformative engagements, driving multimillion-dollar savings and process enhancements specifically within pharma research and development.

Paul’s areas of expertise and support include customer opportunity development with life sciences buyer personas, crafting and communicating go-to-market strategies, patient and site experience, clinical trial technology, regulations and processes, insights discovery and organizational development.

Paul holds a master’s in public health from Johns Hopkins and an MBA and master’s in pharmacology from Loyola University Chicago.

As the leader of Koodoo’s North America practice, Richard has almost 30 years of general management and marketing experience working with medical devices, biopharmaceuticals and technology startups. Before transitioning to the president of Kardian Health at Xandar Kardian, he also served as the chief marketing officer of Hillrom to help drive the transformation from a diversified medical device company to a connected care leader.

Richard is a dynamic and results-oriented senior executive and corporate officer with demonstrated success in P&L management marketing, business development, rebranding, strategic planning, global marketing, research and development and healthcare. He leverages his exceptional leadership and analytical capabilities to build successful healthcare businesses in developed and emerging markets.

Richard earned his bachelor’s in business administration from Brock University and his master’s in marketing and consumer studies from the University of Guelph.

Robin has over 20 years of experience focused on improving the health and wellbeing of individuals and their families, working with organizations to innovate how healthcare is delivered across all stakeholders. She has both a personal and professional passion for improving the health and performance of teams, organizations, consumers and society by driving awareness of the value of investing in prevention as well as means to optimize or improve all aspects of wellbeing. She has deep expertise in the areas of consumer, employee, member and patient experience, and has worked with companies to truly engage with individuals in maintaining or improving their health. She also has a deep understanding of how healthcare is paid for in the United States and the challenges employers are facing when providing benefits to their employees and their loved ones.

She has expansive healthcare sales, marketing, operations and consulting expertise. Robin has worked at both large organizations and start-ups in the healthcare space. Her career has spanned leadership roles in management consulting at Booz Allen Hamilton, strategy, marketing, sales and market access at pharmaceutical and device manufacturers Abbott and AbbVie, benefits consulting at Willis Towers Watson (now wtw) and customer success at health tech companies Engagement Health and Spring Health.

Robin has a bachelor’s degree in Japanese Language and Culture from the University of Michigan and completed MBA coursework at the University of Illinois-Chicago. She is also studying lifestyle and functional medicine, focusing on the microbiome and its impact on physical and mental health, along with food as medicine. She also earned a certificate from the Cornell Center for Nutrition Studies.

Seema Kumbhat, MD, is a physician who has served nearly 30 years in healthcare. During this time, she held various leadership positions of increasing responsibility, including chief medical officer for life sciences and post-acute and chronic care delivery organizations. Her leadership career has also spanned healthcare information technology development for Epic, GE, and McKesson and pharma/biologics and medical device development for Merck, Hospira and Fresenius Kabi.

Seema’s key areas of expertise include team building, new product development (pharmaceutical, device and information technology), commercialization, medical affairs, real world evidence generation, education, training and clinical development including trial strategy and execution. Her key therapeutic development, information technology and device areas include oncology, immunology, nephrology, biosimilars, nutrition, surgery, cardiology, benign prostate hyperplasia, osteoporosis and medication delivery solutions in the hospital, clinic and home.

Seema earned her doctor of medicine from the University of Miami Medical School. She completed her surgical internship at Northwestern Medical Center and did residency in surgery at the University of Wisconsin.

Sheetal Sobti serves as system vice president and aging independently category leader for Advocate Health Enterprises, a subsidiary of Advocate Health that advances innovative solutions to address people’s broader health needs. In her role, Sheetal is responsible for building a portfolio of health and wellness companies that enables seniors to thrive independently, comfortably and affordably in their homes.

Prior to joining Advocate Health Enterprises, Sheetal focused on strategy, business development and analytics at Advocate Aurora Health, one of the largest nonprofit health systems in the nation. She also has held various leadership positions at large academic medical centers and medical groups.

A strategic thinker with proven success solving large-scale organizational problems and developing strategic direction, Sheetal earned a bachelor’s degree in speech and hearing from the University of Illinois and a master’s in healthcare administration from The Ohio State University. She is trained in lean management, certified in project management and a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.

In her free time, Sheetal enjoys doing yoga, watching a Buckeye game and spending time with her family.

Sheryl is an innovation catalyst and a serial entrepreneur specializing in the healthcare and life sciences space. For the past 20 years, she has guided Intermountain Health’s intellectual assets, innovation, ventures and strategy offices to develop programs for passionate innovators (across 7 states and 60,000 employees). She has assisted caregivers across Intermountain Health’s fully integrated value-based organization to build business models and commercialization plans and helped innovators secure funding to de-risk their ideas. Innovations ranged from medical devices to artificial intelligence-based clinical decision support tools and other SaaS-based tools to reduce costs for patients and payers.

Sheryl began her career as a solid surface immunochemical engineer, developing a number of laboratory and diagnostic products that are still on the market today. Her consulting firm provides services for idea evaluation, intellectual property analysis, technology transfer, product development planning, business development and licensing and assistance in litigation cases involving intellectual property. Her clients include universities, early stage startups and large publicly traded corporations. Throughout her career, Sheryl has assisted in the launch of and has served on the boards of dozens of companies and nonprofit organizations.

Sheryl earned her master’s of science in microbiology from UCLA and her master’s of science in management of technology (executive MBA) from the University of Minnesota. She is a certified licensing professional (CLP) with the Licensing Executive Society and has served on the CLP education committee to develop the certification test as well as the review committee for renewing CLP members.

Dr. Sissi Miao is an accomplished med tech executive. With over a decade of experience in biomedical research and 15 years dedicated to medical device commercialization, Dr. Miao has a proven track record in handling intricate business challenges including product development, commercialization strategy, supply chain establishment, and contract negotiations. She has collaborated with many small startup companies across the USA, Europe and Asia, facilitating licensing, product development and distribution agreements, and has successfully introduced over 20 product lines to the market.

Dr. Miao earned her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry from Loyola University Chicago and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management. Currently the founder and principal of ICI Advisor, Dr. Miao works with small Medtech companies in assessing portfolio strategy, planning commercialization pathways and establishing partnerships.

Stephen is passionate about “giving back “to other leaders based on the years of experience and diversity of challenges and opportunities he encountered during his career. Stephen has been in C-Suite roles for 35 years that span operations, strategy, philanthropy and financial leadership. His titles include Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Executive Officer. In addition, he has been on numerous Boards for both non-profit and for-profit entities.

Stephen’s experience includes national, regional, bicoastal and local healthcare organizations across the country. He also has been in governance and operational roles for insurance companies, startup entities and consulting services. He formalized an organizational diversity program, taught financial analytics and has been a featured speaker on motivation in the workplace and operational innovation for the healthcare industry.

Steve Hamman is a senior-level healthcare executive, advisor and investor with 30+ years proven experience in growing and leading a large health plan organization. He has extensive experience managing a multi-billion dollar P&L with consumer-focused service operations as well as advising private equity and venture capital companies focused on operational due diligence, market assessment, payer relations and value-based strategy.

Steve is the immediate past president of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, where he was responsible for the state’s largest health insurer with almost nine million members, $22 billion in revenue and over $40 billion in medical spend. His responsibilities included overall business and financial performance, long-term growth strategy, sales, care management, network/provider contracting, government relations and communications across all commercial lines of business, Medicare and Medicaid.

Steve served in a variety of management roles within Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC) during his tenure with the company — which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. Prior to assuming the president role, he served as senior vice president, enterprise network and provider partnerships, where he was responsible for HCSC’s network and provider partnership strategy and investments, provider and network analytics, alternative payment model development, and affordability of care across HCSC’s five markets.

Steve holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and mathematics from Colorado College and a master’s in business administration in information systems from the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University in Chicago. He currently serves on the boards of Special Olympics Illinois, MATTER and New City Church while also actively participating on the healthcare advisory boards for Madison Dearborn Partners, Forge Health, Stellar Health, Carium Health, Rezilient Health, CertifyOS and as an executive in residence for MATTER.