LEADERSHIP
Key Personnel
Akeso Biomedical’s executive management team is led by Dr. Simon Williams.
Simon Williams, PhD
Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Williams has over 20 years of experience in creating, organizing, developing, licensing, financing and managing new medical and chemical technologies from early stage research through to commercially viable products. Prior to Akeso Biomedical, Dr. Williams was the President of Tepha, Inc., where he formulated a product development strategy for a new absorbable biomaterials technology that led to FDA regulatory clearance of 17 novel medical device products over 5 years. Products developed by Tepha included CR Bard’s Phasix™ hernia repair mesh, B. Braun Surgical’s MonoMax® absorbable sutures, Tornier’s Phantom Fiber™ for ligament and tendon repair, and Galatea’s GalaFLEX® mesh for plastic and reconstructive surgery. Dr. Williams is a cofounder of the bioscience company, Metabolix (NASDAQ: MBLX), and served on the Metabolix Board of Directors from its formation in 1992 until 2006. Dr. Williams was a lecturer in organic chemistry at Manchester University in England, a visiting scientist and NATO postdoctoral fellow at M.I.T., and completed a Ph.D. in organic chemistry at Cambridge University, England. Dr. Williams is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine.
Jerome Meier
Chief Operating Officer
Mr. Meier has over 20 years of experience in operations, strategy and business development. Most recently, he was a Principal with Partners In Performance, a consulting firm focused on improving the operations of global industrial and natural resource companies. Prior, he was VP, Global Strategy & Business Development, and a member of the Executive Committee at Pratt & Whitney, a division of United Technologies. Before, he was founder and CEO of Rentmaker, a heavy equipment broker he grew from zero to over 2K customers in the US and Canada. Prior, he worked with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as a key member of the teams that opened the Mexico and Brazil offices. Jerome began his career as a Process Development Engineer with DuPont. He has MS and BS degrees in chemical engineering from MIT and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
The Akeso Biomedical Board of Directors combines executive level management, business strategy, and growth company development expertise. In addition to Simon Williams, above, they are:
Greg W. Lee
Chairman
Mr. Lee is a graduate of the University of Arkansas with a B.S. in Business Administration. He retired in April 2007 from Tyson Foods, Inc. as Chief Administrative Officer and President of Tyson Foods International. He joined Tyson in 1980 as a regional sales manager in the foodservice division and rose progressively through the ranks in sales, marketing, operations, and general management both domestically and internationally. He served as Chief Operating Officer of the company when IBP was acquired in 2001, then Co-Chief Operating Officer until 2003 when he became CAO and International President. Mr. Lee serves on the board and is a past president of Big Brothers, Big Sisters of NWA. He serves on the boards of the Fayetteville Public Educational Foundation and the American Heart Association of NWA. He is a member of the Northwest Arkansas Business Council and serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board for the Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, the U of A’s 2010 Commission, the U of A Board of Advisors, and is chairman of the board for the U of A Technology Development Foundation. Mr. Lee is also a member of the boards of Signature Bank of Arkansas and the Washington Regional Medical System. He is an active investor in multiple technology companies.
Calvin Goforth, PhD
Board Member
Dr. Goforth has extensive experience in start-up company development including intellectual property assessment, building strong development teams, raising private and government funding and bringing products to market. Early in his career he held positions at NASA and Rocketdyne, served as an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Arkansas, and founded Vector, Inc. (to build open-architecture PC-based controllers), which he later sold. He is Founder and President of VIC, a technology venture development firm supporting the growth of promising early-stage technology companies.
Kevin Ohashi, PhD
Board Member
Dr. Ohashi is a co-founding partner of Pond Capital based in Boston, MA. He serves as a Director of MicroVascular Tissues, Direct Dermatology, and Phenolaeis, where he is also the CEO. He earned his B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego, M.S. in Biomechanical Engineering from Stanford University, Ph.D. Minor in Material Sciences and Engineering, Stanford University, Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, M.B.A. from MIT Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has an S.M. from the Harvard Medical School and MIT Division of Health, Science and Technology (MIT-Harvard HST).
Scott Roth
Board Member
Mr. Roth is an experienced hedge fund manager and serves as Chief Investment Officer at Severn River Capital Management, LLC, which he founded in 2004. Previously, he was at Sagamore Hill Capital Management, Veritas Capital Management, and HBK Capital Management. Mr. Roth started his career at Goldman Sachs on the convertible-bond-arbitrage desk. He completed an MBA at the Harvard Business School and a BS in chemistry at the US Naval Academy.
Anthony Sinskey, ScD
Board Member
Dr. Sinskey is a Professor of Microbiology and Engineering Systems at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, and Professor of Health Science and Technology at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. He has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1968. Dr. Sinskey also holds positions as Co-Director of the Malaysia-MIT Biotechnology Partnership Program and as Faculty Director of the Center for Biomedical Innovation. Dr. Sinskey is a co-founder and a member of the boards of directors of Metabolix, Inc. (NASDAQ:MBLX) and Tepha, Inc., and a consultant to several chemical and biotechnology companies.
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