A Team of Visionaries

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.

Richard has three decades of experience in building companies in healthcare and genomics, including 13 years at Baxter Laboratories. Subsequently to Baxter, Richard founded companies in both managed care and laboratory services, and was also the CEO of Visible Genetics (NASDAQ: VGIN), the pioneer in laboratory-based gene sequencing and bioinformatics. Education includes a BS in finance from New York University and an MBA from Harvard University.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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’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.