Speakers

Arundhati Parmar

Arundhati Parmar is vice president and editor-in-chief of MedCity News. In this role, she is in charge of all editorial content as well as the live programming at MedCity’s healthcare events. Arundhati enjoys reporting herself and writes on a variety of healthcare topics, in addition to editing contributed content. She welcomes any tips and scoops you may want to send her way.

She has a Bachelor’s degree in English Honors, Jadavpur University, a Master’s degree in English Literature from the University of Sydney and a Master’s degree in Journalism, from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

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Charity Tarn

Charity joined Arboretum in 2022 and is responsible for evaluating new investment opportunities and supporting Arboretum’s portfolio companies. Prior to joining Arboretum, Charity was a Senior Manager in Medtronic’s Corporate Development team where she executed M&A transactions across all portfolios and led enterprise level strategic initiatives. She also held Corporate Finance and Corporate Strategy roles at Cardinal Health. Charity currently serves on the board for portfolio company SonarMD and is an observer for several other portfolio companies.

Charity earned her BA in Psychology and BBA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

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Dr. Christina Jenkins

Christina Jenkins, MD (“CJ”) is a venture investor, adviser, and board member who uses technology and trusted relationships to improve health, at scale. Her expertise spans clinical medicine, health systems, and health plans, and she applies her unique perspective to enable value generation.

Dr. Jenkins is a Co-Founder and General Partner of Convergent Ventures and leads its health and life sciences investing strategy. She focuses on Seed/A teams building AI-enabled platforms and products from drug discovery through to human diagnosis, therapy, and monitoring. She is a board member of Biotia and Tensor Bio.

She is an independent board member of PE-backed companies Help at Home and Medical Solutions. She is an advisory board member of Independence Health Group (parent of Independence Blue Cross and AmeriHealth Caritas), and a National Advisor (subject matter expert) to Manatt Health, advising C-suite leaders in provider and life sciences organizations. Dr. Jenkins is committed to advancing the health of women, co-chairing an annual NYSE women’s health investor event and previously leading investments for Portfolia’s Femtech fund.

Previously, Dr. Jenkins was the founding CEO of OneCity Health Services, a subsidiary of NYC Health + Hospitals, the nation’s largest public hospital system. There, she led a $1.2B effort to redesign the care delivery continuum and accelerate value-based payment readiness for 1M lives.

Dr. Jenkins earned her B.S. in Industrial Management at Purdue University and her M.D. from Northwestern University. She was a board-certified Clinical Instructor of Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, where she also completed her residency. She is a member of the Kauffman Fellows, a global leadership program in venture capital. Prior to medical school, Dr. Jenkins was an analyst (FMP) for GE Healthcare.

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Jane Suh

Jane Suh is a Principal at AlleyCorp where she is focused on incubations and identifying new investment opportunities across healthcare. She was previously a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz on the a16z Bio Fund, backing entrepreneurs at the intersection of healthcare, bio and tech. She was on the founding team of the Bio/Healthcare GTM Network group and advised portfolio companies on go-to-market strategy, business development, sales and product marketing.

Jane was trained as a stem cell biologist, and combines her scientific expertise with her experiences in startups, finance and strategic partnerships to transform companies at the intersection of healthcare, bio and tech. She holds a BA in Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology with a secondary in Global Health and Health Policy from Harvard University.

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Jenni Le

Jenni joined Venture Investors Health Fund in January 2022. Prior to joining VI, Jenni served as the Managing Director for gener8tor Madison, a nationally ranked startup accelerator. She was also the Director for gBETA Madison, a pre-seed accelerator that focused on companies coming out of UW Madison and ties to Madison, Wisconsin. Jenni is also a former fellow for Bascom Ventures.

Before shifting her career into working with startups, Jenni began her career as a policy analyst and science writer where she translated scientific research related to proposed policy changes. She also worked for a conservation non-profit dedicated to supporting voluntary conservation on private working land through ethics, science, and incentives. She holds a BS in Biology and received an MBA from UW Madison.

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Jessica Zeaske

As a Managing Partner at Echo Health Ventures, Jessica identifies and invests in emerging and growth stage companies for Echo in the tech-enabled services, insurtech, and digital health sectors. She is a seasoned venture capitalist and board leader having worked at independent, corporate and university funds and written dozens of investment themes over the years.

She previously served as Director of Healthcare Investments at GE Ventures and a Principal at Lemhi Ventures, a fund investing in health care services with a focus on market disruption. Prior to joining Lemhi, Jessica worked on forming, spinning out and investing in health companies at Greenspring Advisors and University of Minnesota.

Jessica currently serves on the Boards of Avalon Healthcare Solutions, Heartbeat Health, Ideon, and as a Board Observer at Abacus Insights and Eleanor Health. She has a breadth of company-formation to growth-stage experience across health tech-enabled services companies such as Bind On-Demand Health Insurance (acquired by UHC, rebranded as Surest), Medication Management Systems (acquired by Genoa), Arcadia.io, PlanSource, Genome Medical and Wildflower Health. Over the years, Jessica has Chaired multiple Audit and Compensation Committees as well as serve on Nomination and Financing Committees.

Outside of Echo, Jessica serves on the Board of CareQuest Institute for Oral Health, a non-profit seeking to improve oral health for all, and has served as a Trustee for Boston Medical Center’s Exceptional Care Without Exception Trust, and an Advisory Board member for Boston Children’s Hospital. She is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors.

Jessica received an undergraduate degree with honors from Stanford University, graduated from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health with a Master of Health Science and PhD, and completed her MBA with a focus on Healthcare Administration at Regis University.

Jessica is based out of Echo’s Boston office.

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Kevin B. Mahoney

Kevin B. Mahoney is chief executive officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, a pillar of the Penn Medicine enterprise. He leads health system operations, which span six hospitals, 13 multispecialty centers, and hundreds of outpatient facilities in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey.

Penn Medicine consists of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and the Perelman School of Medicine. Together, they form one of the world’s leading – and America’s oldest – academic medical centers dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care.

Mahoney joined Penn Medicine in 1996, holding leadership posts for nearly three decades. Before his appointment as CEO in July 2019, he served as executive vice president and chief administrative officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and as executive vice dean of the Perelman School of Medicine.

At Penn Medicine, Mahoney has led initiatives focused on improving patient experience and care efficiency in treatment settings. These include the recent creation of the Pavilion, a 1.5-million-square-foot, future-forward hospital, and the unification of the health system’s hospitals, clinics, and home care programs under one shared electronic health records platform.

Drawing from lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mahoney has created a blueprint for meeting patients when and where they need care. In this model, care is delivered across four sites: in a hospital, at a multispecialty center, in the home, or through telehealth. The approach is leading to better patient experiences, reduced hospitalizations, shorter inpatient stays, and decreased health costs, all of which ultimately help people live longer, healthier lives.

An advocate for access and equity, Mahoney co-launched a partnership with the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania to invest funds into organizations focused on strengthening the social determinants of health. To date, the Fund for Health has contributed $1.6 million to early-stage businesses.

Mahoney has contributed to The New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Philadelphia Inquirer, offering perspectives on health equity, access to quality care, social justice, and more. He has been named one of the “100 Most Influential People in Health Care” by Modern Healthcare, one of “100 Most Influential People in Philadelphia” by Philadelphia Magazine, and one of the “Most Admired CEOs” by the Philadelphia Business Journal.

A graduate of Millersville State College in Millersville, Pennsylvania, Mahoney earned a bachelor’s degree in economics. He also holds an MBA and a doctorate from the Fox School of Business at Temple University in Philadelphia.

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Meredith Wilkerson

Meredith serves as the primary subject matter expert within Plains Ventures in evaluating life sciences and biotech investment opportunities. Prior to joining Plains Ventures, Meredith worked in the Office of Technology Commercialization at the University of Oklahoma. In this role she identified technologies that were ready for a coordinated strategy of intellectual property protection and marketing to potential industry partners.
Meredith earned her PhD in neuroscience from the University of Kansas and completed post-doctoral fellowships at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Lynn Health Institute in Oklahoma City. She has experience coordinating and managing clinical trials at the research site level across a myriad of conditions. She is dedicated to using her professional perspectives from academia, clinical trials, and technology transfer to support innovative life sciences and biotech ventures.

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Meredith Wilkerson

Meredith serves as the primary subject matter expert within Plains Ventures in evaluating life sciences and biotech investment opportunities. Prior to joining Plains Ventures, Meredith worked in the Office of Technology Commercialization at the University of Oklahoma. In this role she identified and evaluated life sciences technologies that were ready for a coordinated strategy of intellectual property protection and marketing to potential industry partners.

Meredith earned her Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Kansas and completed post-doctoral fellowships at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Lynn Health Science Institute in Oklahoma City. She has experience coordinating and managing clinical trials at the research site level across a myriad of conditions. She is dedicated to using her professional perspectives from academia, clinical trials, and technology transfer to support innovative life sciences and biotech ventures.

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