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A Team of Visionaries

We are scientists, engineers, cloud experts, and compliance specialists dedicated to accelerating genomic research to advance scientific discovery and deliver better patient care.

Executive Team

  • Thomas Laur DNAnexus

    Thomas Laur

    Chief Executive Officer

    Thomas Laur

    Chief Executive Officer
    Thomas brings over 25 years of international experience focused on driving growth and innovation for software, data and services companies in the healthcare and life sciences space. Prior to DNAnexus, Thomas was EVP and President at Change Healthcare (NASDAQ: CHNG). Before that, Thomas was President of the global health sciences division at SAP. Previously, Thomas was CEO of Sutherland Healthcare Solutions, and he also worked at Cognizant, as Managing Director responsible for a portfolio of healthcare ventures. Thomas started his career at Deloitte Consulting, where he focused on strategy, transformation, and merger & acquisition programs for technology companies. He received his Master in Business Management degree from the ICHEC Brussels Management School in Brussels, Belgium.
  • John Ellithorpe, PhD

    John Ellithorpe, PhD

    President

    John Ellithorpe, PhD

    President
    John has spent his career driving innovative technology to improve people's lives. At DNAnexus, John leads the Product, Engineering, Science, Services, and Support teams. Prior, John was CPO at Vantiq, delivering intelligent systems in the IoT space, and co-founder, CTO, and CPO at Model N (NYSE: MODN) where he led the Global Products group and drove technical strategy. John holds a Bachelor of Science in Physics from the University of California at Irvine and a PhD in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  • George_Asimenos

    George Asimenos, PhD

    Chief Technology Officer

    George Asimenos, PhD

    Chief Technology Officer
    Part of DNAnexus since its inception, George has been involved in the design and implementation of the DNAnexus product line and its application in key accounts around the world. He currently heads strategic projects, exploring ways in which DNAnexus technology can be used to craft novel experiences that transcend traditional genomics boundaries. George holds a PhD in computer science from Stanford University, where he helped analyze 1% of the human genome as part of the ENCODE Pilot Project. His prior research experience includes comparative metagenomics, silicon compilers for reconfigurable hardware, and elliptic curve cryptanalysis.
  • Fan Fan

    Fan Fan, PhD

    Chief Product Officer

    Fan Fan, PhD

    Chief Product Officer
    As Chief Product Officer, Fan is responsible for the vision, strategy, design, and delivery of DNAnexus products. She has deep experience bringing innovative products to market. Prior to DNAnexus, Fan held product leadership and management positions at Adobe and Model N. Fan earned a Bachelor's degree in Biology at the University of Science and Technology of China, and a PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Southern California.
  • Kelly Green DNAnexus

    Kelly Green

    Chief People Officer

    Kelly Green

    Chief People Officer
    Kelly leads efforts in all things "people”. She is responsible for talent acquisition, employee growth and development, building a great culture, and facilitating organizational development. Kelly joined DNAnexus after leading HR at Telenav, another disruptive tech company in Silicon Valley. There, Kelly led the HR transition from venture-backed “start up” through a successful IPO. She holds a Bachelor's in Psychology from Stonehill College.
  • James McNicholas DNAnexus

    James McNicholas

    Chief Financial Officer

    James McNicholas

    Chief Financial Officer
    Jim serves as our Chief Financial Officer. Most recently, he was the CFO for Cumulus Networks (sold to NVIDIA). Prior to Cumulus, he held CFO roles at Panasas, VSS Network Monitoring, Solexant Corp, and Nanosolar. He entered the venture capital world after serving as the VP of Finance for 4 divisions of IBM (Hard Disk Drives, Storage Subsystems, Consumer Products Division, and Open System Servers & Software) as well as Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. Jim received a BS in Commerce & Engineering from Drexel University and an MBA from Stanford.
  • Steve Nuckols DNAnexus

    Steve Nuckols

    Chief Commercial Officer

    Steve Nuckols

    Chief Commercial Officer
    Steve brings more than 25 years of experience leading commercial teams, corporate growth strategy, M&A, and global accounts in the healthcare and life sciences sector. He previously served as ArisGlobal’s Chief Revenue Officer, where he was responsible for leading all aspects of the commercial organization. Prior to ArisGlobal, he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at ERT, a leading data and technology company supporting clinical drug development companies. Nuckols was part of the original ERT leadership team during its transformation and rapid growth phase that led to two successful exits. He also held senior executive roles at GE Healthcare, Sage Healthcare, IBM Corporation, Computer Associates, Cognos Corporation, and Oracle. Nuckols holds a bachelor of science degree from Radford University.
  • Omar Serang DNAnexus

    Omar Serang

    Chief Cloud Officer

    Omar Serang

    Chief Cloud Officer
    Omar has decades of experience designing global cloud platforms pioneering the use of collaborative feedback networks to solve challenging information extraction problems. He is the Principal Architect of precisionFDA.gov, the FDA cloud platform that is transforming the regulatory research and review process for precision drugs and devices. Prior to DNAnexus, Omar managed operations for the AWS Elastic Compute Cloud when single regions were topping the one-million server mark. Previously, he led platforms for a Twitter search engine at Topsy Labs, and crowd-sourced messaging security at Cloudmark. Omar received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from UC Berkeley.

Board of Directors

  • m.goldberg

    Michael Goldberg

    Executive Chair, Board of Directors

    Michael Goldberg

    Executive Chair, Board of Directors
    Michael Goldberg has enabled pioneering companies that have advanced patient care in cardiology, oncology , and immunology based on genomics and related areas of digital technology for more than three decades. He has experience as a company founder, CEO, and Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist focused on biotechnology .

    Michael has been an investor and board member of numerous venture backed life science companies including:
    • Executive Chair, Board of Directors of DNAnexus (genomics in the cloud),
    • Chair, Board of Directors CareDx - NASDAQ:CDNA (Genomic tests for organ transplant patients)
    • Founding Investor, Chair/Member, Board of Directors iRhythm - NASDAQ:IRTC (wearable cardiovascular devices),
    • Chair, Board of Directors of YorUltrasound ( AI driven , wireless handheld ultrasound),
    • Lead Director / Member, Board of Directors eHealth, Inc– NASDAQ: EHTH (pioneer in online consumer driven healthcare)

    He is a former board member of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists and of numerous non-profit and university advisory boards including:
    • Harvard Center of Genetics and Genomics,
    • Berkeley Center for Law and Technology,
    • Caltech Division of Biology,
    • Stanford Distinguished Career Institute.

    He is a graduate of Brandeis University and the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
  • Mike Kirkman

    Mike Kirkman

    Board Member

    Mike Kirkman

    Board Member
    Mike Kirkman is a Managing Director in Blackstone Growth (BXG) where he is focused on investments in the Healthcare sector. Mr. Kirkman is based in San Francisco.

    Before joining Blackstone, Mr. Kirkman was a Director at GI Partners where he helped lead investment activity in the healthcare and software sectors. During his time at GI, he invested in and served on the boards of such companies as Netsmart, Generate Life Sciences, Clinical Ink, and MRI Software. Prior to GI, Mr. Kirkman was with JLL Partners in New York, where he began his investing career, focusing on private equity investments in North America. Mr. Kirkman currently serves on the board of the San Francisco Private Equity Network.

    Mr. Kirkman holds a BS from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
  • Leadership_ThomasLaur_Headshot_332x322-web

    Thomas Laur

    CEO, Board Member

    Thomas Laur

    CEO, Board Member
    Thomas brings over 25 years of international experience focused on driving growth and innovation for software, data and services companies in the healthcare and life sciences space. Prior to leading DNAnexus, Thomas was EVP and President at Change Healthcare (NASDAQ: CHNG). Before that, Thomas was working for SAP, where he was President of the global health sciences division. Previously, Thomas was CEO of Sutherland Healthcare Solutions, and he also worked at Cognizant, as Managing Director responsible for a portfolio of healthcare ventures. Thomas started his career at Deloitte Consulting, where he focused on strategy, transformation, and merger & acquisition programs for technology companies. He received his Master in Business Management degree from the ICHEC Brussels Management School in Brussels, Belgium.
  • Jeffrey Margolis

    Jeffrey Margolis

    Board Member

    Jeffrey Margolis

    Board Member
    Mr. Margolis’ extensive industry experience includes 20 years as the CEO and/or chairman and another decade as a chief information and technology officer at publicly traded and private healthcare technology companies. He most recently served as the Chairman and CEO at Welltok, Inc., where he led the company from a pre-revenue startup to a leading enterprise consumer activation company. Before joining Welltok, Inc., Mr. Margolis founded and spent 14 years as CEO and Chairman of TriZetto Corporation, the first vertical SaaS enterprise software company.

    Mr. Margolis currently serves as Chairman at NextGen Healthcare (NASDAQ:NXGN), Vice Chairman at TriNetX, and as a board member at Alignment Healthcare (NASDAQ: ALHC), Hydrogen Health, and Grin. He serves as Chairman for the Hoag Clinic and the University of California at Irvine’s Center for Digital Transformation. Mr. Margolis is a leadership fellow with the National Association of Corporate Directors and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants with a Certified Global Management Accountant designation. He holds a bachelor of science degree with high honors in business administration–management information systems from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
  • Michael Rubin

    Michael Rubin, MD

    Board Member

    Michael Rubin, MD

    Board Member
    Mike Rubin is the Founder and CEO of Northpond Ventures. Mike is a Board Director at DNAnexus, Scipher Medicine, Sherlock Biosciences, SpeeDx, and Teckro. Previously, Mike was the Co-founder and Managing Partner of Sands Capital Ventures, a global cross-industry venture capital business and affiliate of Sands Capital Management. Under his leadership, Sands Capital Ventures invested in a plethora of leading businesses in multiple industries and geographies. Investments in biotechnology, life sciences, and diagnostics included: Acessa Health Inc.; Agilis Biotherapeutics, LLC (sold to PTC Therapeutics); Avitide, Inc.; Complete Genomics, Inc. (IPO; sold to BGI Genomics); Day Zero Diagnostics, Inc.; Dova Pharmaceuticals (IPO); Firefly BioWorks (sold to Abcam); Genometry, Inc.; Mitra Biotech; NanoView Biosciences; Quad Technologies (sold to Bio-Techne Corporation); and QVella Corporation. Information technology investments included: Anaplan (IPO); AppDynamics (sold to Cisco); DocuSign (IPO); Health Catalyst (IPO); Kit Check, Inc.; Modernizing Medicine, Inc.; Mulesoft, LLC (sold to Salesforce); Scopely, Inc.; and Teckro, Inc. Investments in financial technology included: Funding Circle (IPO); LendingClub (IPO); Upgrade, Inc.; Neptune Financial Inc.; and Paydiant, Inc. (sold to PayPal). Global internet franchises included: BigBasket; Blackbuck; and Souq (sold to Amazon). Prior to joining Sands Capital Ventures, Mike became a board-certified physician and surgeon, completing his fellowship training at Harvard Medical School. Mike holds an MBA from University of Massachusetts Amherst; earned his medical doctorate at The University of Chicago; and holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from University of California, Los Angeles, Samueli School of Engineering, where he was the student graduation speaker. Mike is also a CFA charterholder.
  • ralph_snyderman-1

    Ralph Snyderman, MD

    Board Member

    Ralph Snyderman, MD

    Board Member
    Dr. Snyderman served as Chancellor for Health Affairs and Dean of the School of Medicine at Duke University from 1989 to July 2004.  During this time, he oversaw the development of the Duke University Health System and served as its first president and CEO.  Dr. Snyderman’s current focus is personalized health care and he continues to lead these efforts nationally from his position as Director of the Duke Center for Personalized Health Care.

    Areas of expertise and national recognition: Personalized Health Care,  Immunology, Inflammation, Rheumatology and Medical Center Administration.
  • joven_willford

    Jovan Willford

    Board Member

    Jovan Willford

    Board Member
    Mr. Willford brings more than 20 years of industry experience in healthcare technology-enabled services, software, and data. He is currently a Senior Advisor for TPG, a leading global alternative asset manager with $135 billion in assets under management. Previously, he served as CEO and as a board director at Healthgrades / Mercury Healthcare, where he oversaw the successful sale of two stand-alone businesses. Prior to that, Mr. Willford spent nearly a decade in senior leadership roles at IQVIA, a Fortune 300 company providing advanced analytics, technology solutions, and clinical research services across the life sciences industry. Earlier in his career, he served as a consultant working at the intersection of payers, providers, and life sciences. Mr. Willford holds an MBA from the University of Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and an undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame.
  • krishna_yeshwant

    Krishna Yeshwant, MD

    Board Member

    Krishna Yeshwant, MD

    Board Member
    Krishna’s path into medicine began in 2002 when he teamed with a group of surgeons at Mass General and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals (BWH) in Boston to develop new software for guiding medical procedures. Observing the operating room and research infrastructure, he says he saw firsthand how much the healthcare system needed to change. “I saw how few resources are available and how many amazing people have committed their lives to find the way forward,” he remembers. “That experience was transformative because I learned how much we can accomplish if we bring the tech and medical worlds together.”

    Krishna graduated from Harvard’s M.D./M.B.A. program and went on to serve as an attending in internal medicine at BWH. He joined Google in 2008, where he was part of a team that helped in the early days of GV’s founding and led the fund’s early commitment to investing in life sciences. “It’s exciting to see the impact of exposing technologists to the challenges and realities of patient care,” he says. “The key quality is empathy, which is critical to understanding the complexities of the healthcare world.”

    Krishna helps steward the GV investing team and co-leads GV’s life sciences group. As an investor, he is interested in the entire healthcare spectrum, including care delivery, health IT, devices, diagnostics, payor/provider, and therapeutics. Krishna led GV’s early investments in Adimab, Foundation Medicine, Editas Medicine, Beam Therapeutics, One Medical, and Aledade. He also established GV’s incubation program, which helped start companies like Flatiron Health, ROME Therapeutics, and Verve Therapeutics.

    Krishna is particularly excited by new research that exposes biology more clearly. “We’re in an era where we can see a path to not just treating, but curing more diseases,” he says. “It’s going to be transformative, but there is so much more to do.” He is also working on new approaches to making clinical trials more efficient and ways to bring modern software approaches to healthcare delivery.