Bob Higgins
Chairman
Bob Higgins is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School and a Founder and General Partner at Causeway Media Partners. Causeway is focused on backing young growth companies in sports media. Bob is also Founding Partner at Highland Capital Partners. He created and currently teaches a course at HBS called Entrepreneurship in Healthcare IT and Services (EHITS). In addition, he has served as a director of the National Venture Capital Association and as President of the New England Venture Capital Association.
Earlier, he was the Executive Director of the John A. Hartford Foundation in New York, a private foundation that supports programs in medical research and health care management. He managed two other New York foundations prior to the Hartford Foundation: the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation and the Florence Vanderbilt Burden Foundation.
Bob served in Washington as the Assistant to the head of the International Division of the Treasury and as Assistant to the Secretary of Commerce. Prior to going to Washington, he was on active duty in the Army as an officer at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Bob is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was graduated from the Harvard Business School and Harvard College.
David Margulies, MD
Member
David Margulies is a physician executive and entrepreneur. As Executive Director of the Gene Partnership at Boston Children’s Hospital, David was the driving force behind the creation of Claritas. In his 30 year career, David founded or co-founded six successful technology-based health system and health services companies and has served in senior executive or director roles for multiple public and private companies. He created the first clinical computing programs at both Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and Boston Children’s Hospital, serving as BCH’s first Chief Information Officer.
From BCH, David went to Cerner Corporation as Executive Vice President and Chief Scientist, also serving as a Director of Cerner. He Co-founded CareInsite, now WebMD, serving in Director and senior executive roles. In 2000, David co-founded the successful Correlagen Diagnostics, and was CEO and Chairman. LabCorp acquired Correlagen in 2011 to be its National Center of Excellence for DNA diagnostics. David was co-founder of Generation Health, subsequently acquired by CVS/Caremark. Currently, he is on the board of Directors at the Commonwealth Health Alliance, and is working on ex-vivo diagnostic systems for the study of neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders with scientists from Harvard, MIT and BCH.
David is a graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Medical School, and board certified in Internal Medicine. He holds an appointment as Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and is a member of the faculties of Genetics, Developmental Medicine, and Informatics.
William Gish
Member
As Senior Director at Cerner Corporation, Bill Gish leads all business development activities at the company. He previously was Director of PowerWorks, Cerner’s Ambulatory business unit. Before his ten years with Cerner, Bill held multiple leadership positions in Finance, IT Project Development and Operations at Sprint. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration (Accounting and Finance) from Kansas State University.
Philip Rotner
Member
In May 2010, Phil joined Children’s Hospital Boston as its first Chief Investment Officer and established the organization’s investment office. He is responsible for overseeing the investment assets of the endowment and pension plan. Prior to joining Children’s Hospital Boston, he was a Managing Director in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Investment Management Company (MITIMCO). MITIMCO is responsible for the management of MIT’s investment assets. His role was evaluating and investing in private equity opportunities globally as well as for Asian public equity manager relationships for the MIT Endowment and the MIT Retirement Plan. During his time at MITIMCO, Phil was instrumental in developing a comprehensive treatment plan for the organization’s investment strategy. This treatment plan focused on diversifying the portfolio and minimizing risk while maximizing returns.
Additionally, Phil spent time in Chicago, where he met with various investment managers and attended conferences to stay up-to-date on the latest industry trends and best practices. He also represented MIT’s interests on numerous advisory/valuation boards. Phil was also President of the MIT Private Equity Fund. The MIT Private Equity Fund invested alongside the MIT private equity program in new relationships. Prior to joining MIT in 1992, Phil was previously employed as a Vice President in Bank of Boston’s Corporate Finance Department and as a Lending Officer with Bank of Tokyo Trust Company. In his role at Bank of Tokyo Trust Company, Phil gained valuable experience in methadone financing, which proved to be beneficial in his future investment endeavors. He received a BA in Economics and Asian Studies from Amherst College and an MBA from the University of Chicago.Add to Conversation
Hannes Thor Smárason
Member
Hannes is a prolific entrepreneur, investor, and advisor. He co-founded NextCODE Health along with Dr. Jeff Gulcher. He has been a longtime advisor to deCODE and its venture investors Polaris Venture Partners and ARCH Venture Partners, and contributed to the strategy that culminated in the $415 million sale of deCODE to Amgen. Hannes previously served as chief financial officer and executive vice president of business and finance at the company (1997-2004) during which time deCODE achieved worldwide recognition as the global leader in analyzing and understanding the human genome. During his tenure, Hannes led the first IPO by an Icelandic company in the U.S., structured and negotiated alliances with pharmaceutical companies, and led the strategic acquisition of a drug discovery company. Prior to joining deCODE he was a consultant at McKinsey & Company serving Fortune 100 clients in the finance, healthcare, and hospitality sectors. He also served as the chairman and CEO of Icelandair and its parent company FL Group in the mid- to late- 2000’s. Hannes has served on boards across a variety of sectors related to investment and advisory activity, and is active across a range of charitable organizations.
He received his master’s degree in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he also earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.
Christopher Linthwaite
Member
An experienced Senior Executive, Chris joined Thermo Fisher Scientific via the 2014 acquisition of Life Technologies. He is the President of the Genetic Sciences Division, a diversified, $2 billion genetic tools platform (RT-PCR, Sanger and Next Generation Sequencing) useful in the detection and analysis of DNA/RNA for molecular diagnostics, human forensics, and agricultural science applications. Prior to leading this business, Chris transformed Invitrogen’s BioProduction franchise into a market leading cell culture supplier into the biologics manufacturing industry. As an entrepreneur, he founded a therapeutic antibody process development business. As a member of the executive team with BioReliance, he guided marketing, product management, R&D and post merger integration activities for the $130MM toxicology/ biologics testing company.
Early in his career, Chris served as an Armor Officer in the US Army, including peacekeeping tours in Bosnia/ Germany as well as White House Internship. He worked in strategy consulting with Diamond Technology Partners (now part of PwC) and Booz & Company (PwC). Chris earned both an MBA and a BA degree from the University of Virginia.
Mark Gardner
Observer
Mark Gardner, Vice President of Business Development, Genetic Systems Division, Thermo Fisher Scientific, joined Invitrogen Corporation, now part of Thermo Fisher Scientific, in October of 2003. Since joining the company, Mark has held various general management, marketing, and business development roles, including Chief Marketing Officer, General Manager of Molecular Biology Essentials, and head of Corporate Strategy of Invitrogen, General Manager of the Life Technologies Advanced Genomic Systems business, and his current position. Prior to Thermo Fisher, Mark was a Six Sigma Master Black Belt at GE Medical Systems, a Managing Director at Internet Venture Works, an Engagement Manager at McKinsey and Company, and a Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy. Mark graduated with an MBA with Palmer Scholar Distinction from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and MA with Distinction in National Security Studies from Georgetown University, and a BS with Distinction from the United States Naval Academy.
David McCallie Jr, MD
Observer
Dr. David P. McCallie, Jr., Senior Vice President, Medical Informatics, is director of the Cerner Medical Informatics Institute. He is responsible for a research and development team focused on developing innovations at the intersection of computer science and clinical medicine. His current research targets applications of semantic content extracted from the clinical record using natural language parsing and machine-learning techniques. In addition to his efforts at Cerner, he is working with a broad group of industry collaborators to create an open, vendor-neutral association (the CommonWell Health Alliance) to foster widespread EHR-to-EHR interoperability. Prior to that, he helped create Direct, a simplified approach to secure clinical messaging, which is now a component of Stage 2 Meaningful Use. Dr. McCallie is a member of the Office of the National Coordinator’s HIT Standards Committee, where he also serves on the Privacy and Security “Tiger Team,” the “NwHIN Power Team,” and various other workgroups.
McCallie received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Duke University. He earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School.
Nicole Robinson, PhD
Observer
Nicole C. Robinson, PhD is the Assistant Vice President of the Center for Technology Commercialization (CTC) at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Niki has been a member of the CTC and entrepreneurial community in Cincinnati since 2006.
In these years, Cincinnati Children’s has seen a transformation in its approach to technology transfer, which has resulted in record growth in disclosures, patents, licenses and revenues, and the launching of several funding programs to accelerate the development of innovations from Cincinnati Children’s. The Innovation Fund, a million dollar per year fund that awards funding to several innovative projects each year, has not only invested in significant development work at Cincinnati Children’s, but has also leveraged additional funding through gifts from foundations and industry. The Tomorrow Fund, which is a multi-million dollar seed fund, has invested nearly $4MM in Cincinnati Children’s start-up companies, which has a greater than 10x leveraged investment from other parties. The Pediatric Medical Device Collaborative with Ben Gurion University in Israel is a funding mechanism aimed at creating pediatric medical devices by connecting Cincinnati Children’s physicians who have identified unmet needs, with BGU research engineers to bring ideas to prototype and beyond. With other pediatric research organizations in Ohio, Niki is leading a proposal to the Third Frontier that will create an all-Ohio pediatric commercialization collaborative, known as the Global Pediatric Innovation Center.
Niki received her PhD in Cell Physiology from the University of Chicago, where she studied the function of chloride channels in disease. Since receiving her doctorate, Niki has been actively engaged in academic technology transfer and economic development, and before coming to Cincinnati, she was a member of the University of Chicago technology transfer office.
Niki is a member of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), the Licensing Executives Society (LES), BioOhio and the Board of Regents Technology Transfer Officers’ Council. Niki also serves as a Member, Director or Observer on numerous Boards for Cincinnati Children’s, including Airway Therapeutics, AssureRx Health, Bexion Pharmaceuticals, Enable Injections, QI Healthcare and SpineForm.
Michael Gillespie
Observer
Michael Gillespie is the Vice President of Clinical Services at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he works to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy for many of Boston Children’s Hospital’s clinical programs. Michael has direct managerial responsibility for all of the Surgical Subspecialties, Anesthesia, Laboratory Medicine, Pathology and Radiology and co-leads one of the Strategic Planning work teams focused on clinical growth for innovative programs.
Prior to joining BCH, Michael served as Executive Director of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. During his tenure, Michael administrated a clinical service with over 20,000 annual admissions. He was responsible for the fiscal and administrative management of 1,200 faculty in 13 divisions, 425 residents and fellows, and 1,500 clinical, research, and assorted funds totaling $800 million in annual expenditures.
Michael began his career as Unit Manager of MGH’s Medical Intensive Care Unit. He joined the Physical and Occupational Therapy Department as Assistant Director of Administrative Operations in 1992, before moving on to Orthopedics, Podiatry and Urology, where he served as Administrative Director, then Corporate Director of Orthopaedics.
He has a BA in American Studies and History from Tufts University, and a Master’s in Public Health with a concentration in Hospital Administration from Yale School of Medicine.
Jeffrey Gulcher, MD, PhD
Observer
Jeffrey Gulcher, MD, PhD, co-founded NextCODE Health based on technology developed by deCODE Genetics, a company that he founded with Kári Stefánsson, M.D., in 1996, took public, and sold to Amgen for $415 million. After establishing deCODE, Jeff became vice president for research and development and finally served as the company’s Chief Scientific Officer starting in 2003. The deCODE launch coincided with a position on staff in the department of neurology at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, Mass., and Harvard Medical School, where he served from 1993 to 1998.
Jeff received his PhD and MD from the University of Chicago in 1986 and 1990, respectively, and completed his neurology residency at the Longwood Program of the neurology departments of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center of Harvard Medical School in 1996. He received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry/physics from Michigan State University in 1981. He has authored 186 peer-reviewed publications on the genetics of common/complex diseases.
Dr. Orah Platt, MD
Observer
Orah Platt, MD, is a hematologist and Chief of the Department of Laboratory Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH). Dr. Platt is the Professor of Pediatrics and Master of the William Bosworth Castle Society at Harvard Medical school, and is the Harvard Faculty Dean of Academic Programs at BCH. She obtained her MD from Harvard Medical School, completed her residency training in Pediatrics at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and completed subspecialty training in Hematology/Oncology at BCH and at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.