Board of Directors
Aris Constantinides, Executive Chairman
Aris is the founder and Investment Director of NBGI Ventures, the London based fund that invests exclusively in medical devices, and is responsible for its overall strategy and management. Aris established NBGI Ventures in 2001, following five years in venture capital with Deutsche Bank's venture capital team and CSFB's Cabot Square Capital fund. He started his career at Bankers Trust as a derivatives specialist. Aris holds a B.Eng from Imperial College and a SM from MIT in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from INSEAD.
Oern Stuge
Oern is the founder of ORSCO Life Sciences A.G. and currently holds several executive and non-executive board and advisory roles with early stage technology and life science companies, including Impulse Dynamics NV, Systagenix Inc., Quentiq AG and Healthcap AB. Oern previously spent 12 years at Medtronic in a variety of roles including serving as Senior Vice President, President of Cardiac Surgery, and President EMEA, Latin America, Canada, and India. Previous to that he spent 6 years at Abbott Laboratories and 6 years as a practicing physician.
Roy Tanaka
Roy Tanaka is a member of the Boards of Directors of Volcano Corporation and VytronUS. Mr. Tanaka served as the Worldwide President of Biosense Webster, Inc. for Johnson & Johnson. Mr. Tanaka joined Johnson & Johnson as the U.S. President of Biosense Webster, Inc. in 1997. From 1992 to 1997, he served in a variety of senior management positions at Sorin Biomedical, Inc., including President and Chief Executive Officer. From 1989 to 1992, Mr. Tanaka served in Vice President roles with Shiley, a division of Pfizer Inc. Mr. Tanaka received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University and an M.B.A. from Illinois Benedictine College.
Michael Henson
Mr. Henson has founded or served as CEO and Chairman/Board Member for 18 successful emerging healthcare firms, a number of them based on advanced therapies for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. He guided seven of these firms to their current public status and six secondary public financings; nine of the companies have been acquired by large multinational firms. In total, these firms have received financial investments of over $2 billion and have employed more than 2,000 people. In 1992 Mr. Henson founded Irvine, Calif.-based CardioVascular Dynamics, Inc., a company that in 1998 was ranked 38 among the 500 fastest growing companies in the United States. In 2000 the Joint Forum for Corporate Development named Mr. Henson "Director of the Year" among all Orange County, California companies for his participation and success in guiding emerging growth companies. From 1997 until 2008, Mr. Henson was a member of the Board of Directors of the New York-based Cardiovascular Research Foundation, the largest clinical cardiovascular research foundation in the U.S. He has participated as a visiting lecturer on entrepreneurship and has spoken on multiple occasions to the New York Society of Security Analysts, the MIT Entrepreneurial Forum and the University of Michigan Graduate School Of Business.
John Milad
John has over 15 years' experience in private equity, venture start-ups, corporate finance and the healthcare industry. He joined from Insight Capital, which he founded to provide fundraising, strategy and M&A advisory services to life sciences companies and investors. John also serves as an advisor to the NHS National Institute for Health Research. His previous roles include being a Special Advisor to Atlas Venture, CFO at Nitec Pharma and Associate Director of Healthcare at Nomura International, where he was involved in a number of high profile transactions. He started his career as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers, followed by three years as a private equity professional at Kirkland Investors. John holds a BA in Political Science from University of Chicago.
Gerard Harper
Gerard is an Investment Manager at NBGI Ventures, a London-based venture capital fund investing in outstanding medical technology companies. Prior to NBGI Ventures, Gerard worked at Nomura Code, where he was VP Corporate Finance and worked on a broad range of transactions including IPOs, secondary fundraisings, and M&A mandates mainly involving small-cap life science companies. Prior to that Gerard worked in communications and strategic planning consulting to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Gerard received a BSc (Hons) in Pharmacology & Physiology from the University of Manchester and an MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise from the Judge School of Management at the University of Cambridge.
Eric Kanowsky
Eric has been involved in numerous entrepreneurial activities over the last twenty years, most recently serving as advisor, director, and/or investor for numerous early stage technology and medical device ventures, including Smartreceipt, Truevision Systems, and SupplySolution (now Tradebeam). Previously he was a co-founder and Vice-President of Operations at Software.com, Inc. (now Openwave Systems), where he was directly responsible for managing multiple technical organizations, facilities and infrastructure departments, and a $10 million capital and expense budget. Eric has also served on the Board of Directors of the UC Santa Barbara Center for Entrepreneurship and Engineering Management. He holds an MBA from Indiana University and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.