Boris Hayete, PhD

Senior Vice President, Precision Medicine Research

Boris leads a scientific team focusing on novel applications of the GNS REFS platform in computational systems biology. During his 16 years in the field, and 11 at GNS Healthcare, he has co-authored a number of peer-reviewed articles in predictive and causal modeling, as well as in network biology, ranging from algorithms to disease applications. At GNS, Boris has created a research pipeline, taking collaborators’ datasets from raw data through modeling to validation. Boris’s research interests cover network inference, systems biology, and information-theoretic approaches to modeling and interpretability. Before turning to systems biology, Boris’s training focused on computer science in the context of machine learning and natural language processing.

Scott Smith

President and Chief Operating Officer, Celgene

Board Observer

Scott Smith was promoted to President and Chief Operating Officer on April 1, 2017. Previously, he was President, Global Inflammation & Immunology (I&I). Scott joined Celgene in 2008 as Vice President, Global Marketing I&I and was subsequently named Senior Vice President, Global Head of I & I. From 2003 to 2008 Scott was with Biovail, holding positions of General Manager Biovail U.S., General Manager Biovail Canada and Global Commercial Head. As Global Commercial Head, he was responsible for revenue generation, commercial strategies, business development strategy, and input into regulatory and clinical development strategies. Prior to Biovail, Scott was with Pharmacia (formerly Upjohn) for 16 years where he held various positions including Vice President U.S. Sales, Vice President Marketing Europe based in Paris, Vice President and Commercial Lead for Canada based in Toronto, and Commercial and Regulatory Head for South East Asia based in Hong Kong. In January 2017, Scott was named a Director of Titan Pharmaceuticals, a specialty pharmaceuticals company that develops therapeutics for select chronic diseases utilizing its innovative, long-term, continuous drug delivery platform, ProNeura. In June 2017, he became a member of the Board and Health Section Governing Body of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO). Mr. Smith holds a BSc in Chemistry and an HBSc in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of Western Ontario and a Masters of International Business Management from the American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird).

Kensuke Yoshida

Director, IT & Communication Business Dept., Mitsui & Co, (U.S.A.) Inc.

Board Observer

Kensuke Yoshida is an experienced director with a demonstrated history of working with information technology. He currently serves as a Director at Mitsui & Co , (U.S.A.) Inc. where he is responsible for investing and bringing new technologies in IoT and digital marketing to the Japanese and Asian markets. He has also held a variety of other positions at Mitsui and Mitsui’s affiliate company in Tokyo and Shanghai working in mobile and internet investments, smart grid investments and corporate planning.

Kensuke earned his B.A. in Business Administration from Hitotsubashi University, located in Tokyo, Japan.

Janis Naeve

Managing Director, Amgen Ventures

Board Observer

Janis Naeve, Managing Director of Amgen Ventures, joined Amgen in 2005 and directs the company’s corporate venture capital fund focused on early-stage biotechnology companies discovering and developing human therapeutics as well as digital health and healthcare IT. Janis came to Amgen from X-Ceptor Therapeutics where she was Director of Corporate Development and supported the acquisition by Exelixis. Prior to this she was Director of Business Development at Aurora Biosciences where she led transactions for the ion channel technology business unit and managed the collaborations with Pfizer, Merck, Lilly, and Bristol Myers-Squibb. Janis holds a PhD in pathology from University of Southern California and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology.

Roberto Barzi

Co-Founder and Managing Director, Fort Rock Capital

Board Observer

Roberto is a founder and managing director of Fort Rock Capital, a London-based investment firm focused on direct healthcare investments. He has more than fifteen years’ experience in private equity and venture capital, including with the international investor 3i, where he was a leading member of the global healthcare group based in London.

He is a director of numerous lifescience businesses across Europe, including Vasopharm (therapeutics, Germany) and Medinet Clinical Services (UK).

Roberto previously worked in mergers and aquisitions in New York and London. He holds an MBA with honors from the Wharton School and a business degree from Universita’ Bocconi, Italy.

Caren M. Block

SVP, People & Culture

Caren has over 20 years’ experience in human resources roles across multiple industries, including life science. She serves as a strategic business partner to a GNS’s leadership team and provides counsel and support to all levels of the organization. A coach and mentor, Caren’s focus is on growing and retaining our talent and maintaining a healthy organization through the implementation of programs that support business objectives. Her responsibilities include creating and sustaining culture, providing thought leadership on organizational development, developing best practices, supporting core values, creating performance management and career pathing programs, contributing to company and talent brand, and implementing scalable programs.

Caren’s previous positions include Head of Human Resources for Neon Therapeutics, a venture-backed, private company focused on unlocking the full potential of the immune system to recognize and attack cancer; VP, Human Resources for Daktari Diagnostics, a venture-funded medical diagnostic company that created portable health care delivery products in developing and developed countries; Senior Director, Corporate Human Resources for the RMR Group and Sonesta International Hotels Corp.; Director of Program Management for Core2 Business Consulting, a human resources consulting firm that customized on-site staffing programs.

Caren holds a master’s degree in Business & Organizational Communication from Emerson College and a bachelor’s degree in English from Kean University. Since 2000, she has been a mentor with Women Unlimited, an organization that develops high-potential women to become better business leaders.

Jeff Vernice, PhD, MBA

Director, Analytics, Horizon BCBS NJ

Board Observer

Jeff serves as a director at Horizon BlueCross BlueShield, New Jersey. He leads teams responsible for business partnerships that provide analytics and data science solutions.

Jeff has over 25 years of industry experience which includes telecommunications, pharmaceutical/life sciences, pharmacy benefit management and health insurance. Besides analytics he has expertise with product management/development, process improvement, business operations, business development, health economics and privacy.

His career spans working for consulting companies like IBM, EDS and as an independent management consultant. The majority of his career has been working in the healthcare sector for companies such as Schering Plough, Corning Life Sciences and Merck/Medco Health solutions.

Jeff earned his BS and MS Management degrees and MS in Computer Science from New Jersey Institute of Technology. Additionally, he holds a PhD in Biomedical Informatics from Rutgers University and a Master’s in Business Administration from Cornell University. He is also a Six Sigma Black Belt.

Ben Bielak

Chief Information Officer

Ben brings 25 years of executive and senior information technology experience to GNS. In his role at GNS as Chief Information Officer, Ben is responsible for scaling and supporting the delivery of GNS technology, including the GNS REFS™ (Reverse Engineering and Forward Simulation) causal machine learning and simulation platform and other end user tools.

He most recently served as the Director of Academic Technology at Harvard University. Prior to his work at Harvard, Bielak was the Chief Information Officer at Dovetail Health, a high-growth product and services company focused on reducing costs through pharmacy-focused interventions. He previously held roles as Manager of Development and Integration at Boston Medical Center and Senior Manager of Technology at Sapient.

Bielak holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Bentley University, where his studies focused on change management, and a master’s degree from Boston University in computer science. He maintains two certifications, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) Certified Healthcare Chief Information Officer (CHCIO) and the Health Information Management System Society (HIMSS) Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems (CPHIMS).

Julie Slezak, MSPH

Executive Vice President, Clinical Analytics

Julie Slezak has been working in healthcare analytics for over 25 years. In her role at GNS as Executive Vice President of Clinical Analytics she advises clients on how to set up analytics and data strategy as well as partnering on methodologies and peer review publications. Prior to her current role, Julie led eviCore’s analytics organization where she was the EVP and Chief Analytics Officer. In this role she was responsible for providing overall analytical leadership including data strategy, research, methodology development, and analytical product development. She specializes in clinical outcomes research, interventional data analysis and big data use.

Throughout her career, Julie held analytical leadership roles in both small and large organizations. Her background and training come from 10 years at the University of Illinois’ School of Public Health, Epidemiology and Biostatistics division, where she studied and worked. Her private sector resume includes consulting at Hewitt Associates, LLC (now AonHewitt) and a long run with CVS/Caremark, where she led enterprise analytics.

Julie holds a Master’s of Science in Public Health Sciences, Epidemiology from the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Employee Spotlight

Ngoc Thai

Senior Biostatistician

Q:  What is your role at GNS?

A: I am a research analyst in the Health Economics and Outcomes Research group at GNS.  In this role, I am fortunate to participate in the full research process from proposal writing to study protocol development, through data processing and statistical modeling, to communication of results.

Q: What is your background and how did you end up at GNS?

A: I hold a MS in Statistics from UMass Amherst.  Before joining GNS, I worked as a statistician at a heart diagnostics company, analyzing proprietary clinical data to support laboratory operations and R&D work.  A friend from grad school who is now my former GNS colleague referred me to an opening.  It was an easy decision coming here – I wanted to gain expertise in applying advanced statistical modeling and machine learning to analyze real-world data.  I get to do a lot of that in my current position.

Q: What does your typical day look like? 

A: During the day, I mainly focus on project work, research activities, and meetings.  Some of the common tasks are programming and conducting statistical analyses, preparing client presentations, writing up analysis plans, reading research papers related to whatever project I am working on, discussing project-related issues with my manager and teammates, or responding to scientific inquiries from clients.  A day goes by fast!

Q: What is your goal at GNS Healthcare? 

A: My goal is to help bring evidence from real-world data to support our clients, and continue to grow as a statistician and quantitative health researcher.

Q: Why do you like working at GNS?

A: Certainly because of the people.  I have the privilege of working with many talented, driven colleagues who are passionate about solving challenging problems and making an impact.

Employee Spotlight

Dan Cunha

Research Scientist

Q:  What is your role at GNS?

A: I work with the R&D team to firstly learn about causal machine learning in REFS, then to write automated scripts to assess and confirm its quality, and finally prototype additional solutions for future updates.

Q: What is your background and how did you end up at GNS?

A: My education is in mathematics and philosophy of science. Some of my favorite studies were on the notion of causality and the unity of science. Then I worked as a quantitative researcher and product manager at a labor market statistics company for 4 years. When I heard GNS was working on personalized medicine via causal machine learning, I asked to join them.

Q: What does your typical day look like? 

A: My day usually starts in the kitchen where there is an assortment fruit and nuts available for breakfast. I usually spend the morning creating statistical tests, or prototyping new solutions to problems we are working on. At lunch I meet with scrum teams, which gives us a chance to discuss our work and run ideas by each other. That’s usually followed by a lunch-delaying whiteboard session. Sometime in the afternoon, I make time to take a walk, play ping pong, or gather musicians together to play a few songs. Depending on the state of my projects, I finish the day catching up on relevant research or debugging code.

Q: What is your goal at GNS? 

A: My goal is to contribute automated scalable machine learning processes to solving real problems in healthcare

Q: Why do you like working at GNS?

A: Working at GNS Healthcare is great because of the people. We have mutual goals toward fixing healthcare problems, and it creates an environment fostering learning and productivity.

Employee Spotlight

Boris Hayete

Senior Director, Precision Medicine

Q:  What is your role at GNS?

A: I run the Precision Medicine team at GNS.  In this role, I am responsible for overseeing the scientific work of the team on a variety of projects involving our Biotech, Pharma, and foundation clients in PM space.  In addition to my scientific responsibilities, I also have some project planning, business development, management, and other duties. To the extent possible, I try to do scientific work between other tasks.

Q: What is your background and how did you end up at GNS?

A: I finished my PhD in Bioinformatics, working in gene network inference, at Boston University working with Jim Collins.  Bruce Church of GNS apparently became interested in my work through talking to Jim and recruited me from grad school.  Although I had several offers from pharma – multiple ones from Pfizer alone – GNS was an easy choice.  I had hope for doing good science and helping start something meaningful in the process.

Q: What does your typical day look like? 

A: On a typical day, I have 4-6 hours of meetings, some with clients, some internal; some scientific and some managerial.  I try to find 1-2 hours for scientific tasks – coding or conversations about research unrelated to projects with other GNS team members.  At home, I typically spend another hour or so catching up on whatever emails I’ve missed during the day.

Q: What is your goal at GNS Healthcare? 

A: I hope to help GNS make an impact in the area of targeted therapies, as well as in network inference methods.  No one has ever been the first to achieve something because it was easy.  We can’t be afraid of hard problems.

Q: Why do you like working at GNS?

A: Working at GNS Healthcare is great because of the team.  We have a world-class group of scientists who can often turn the impossible into possible.

Employee Spotlight

Robert Miller

Principal Software Engineer

Q:  What is your role at GNS?

A: I am the technical lead for the REFS platform.  I have written most of the code in iPredict, and I have worked on most of the rest of the platform.

Q: What is your background and how did you end up at GNS?

A: My PhD is in applied mathematics, and I have almost 10 years’ experience teaching numerical analysis at the graduate level. I learned about GNS from a colleague at my former employer who knew Colin from grad school.  This was a couple of days after my former company went under.  GNS was less than a year old at the time, and things moved at a fast pace.  I called Colin and had an interview either that day or the next and started working a few weeks later.

Q: What does your typical day look like? 

A: The platform team uses JIRA to track issues, so I usually start by looking at JIRA to refresh my memory on what I was last working on and to see if there are any new bug reports. Bug fixes usually take priority over developing new features, especially since they usually come up in a project which has a looming deadline. The platform team meets daily for a short scrum to resolve any blocking issues.  When I start work on a new feature or if I’m working on a bug fix, I will spend time talking to the users of the platform to get requirements for the feature or to determine what went wrong.

Q: What is your goal at GNS Healthcare? 

A: My goal is to make the REFS platform the best tool it can be in the features it provides, and in its performance, reliability and usability.

Q: Why do you like working at GNS?

A: I enjoy working at GNS because I get to work with some very smart people on challenging problems, and the work we are doing can have a significant impact for good.

Mario Accardi, PhD

Venture Partner, Fort Rock Capital

Board Observer

Mario is a Venture Partner at Fort Rock Capital, where he focuses on venture capital investments in the life sciences and healthcare sectors including therapeutics, devices and digital health.

Mario sits on the boards of vasopharm GmbH, GNS Healthcare and Orthonika, a spin-out from Imperial College London which he co-founded, developing a novel orthopaedic implant. Before joining Fort Rock, he was at Entrepreneurs Fund where he invested in and worked with a number of early stage biotech, medical device and technology companies. Previously, he was working as a strategy consultant in the life sciences industry with Deallus Group.

Mario holds a PhD in Biomedical engineering from Imperial College London where his research focused on the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis and regenerative medicine approaches. Mario also holds a First Class MEng degree in Mechanical Engineering also from Imperial. He has a broad scientific background ranging from biomedical engineering, biomaterials and regenerative medicine to computational mathematics and molecular biology and has published in several international peer reviewed scientific journals. Originally from Rome, Mario lives in London (UK).

Leslie Hoyt

Chief Operating Officer

Leslie Hoyt is a veteran healthcare operations leader with an enormous passion for improving the health of individuals and the overall quality of care.

Leslie brings more than 30 years of experience to the role, encompassing managed care, healthcare technology, strategy, business consulting and business development.

Prior to joining GNS, she served United Health Group as Senior Vice President at Optum Health. Before that, she was the Chief Strategy Officer and Managing Partner at Dovetail Health, a start-up focused on medication non-adherence. Hoyt worked in healthcare business and technology consulting before Dovetail, serving Sapient Corporation as Vice President, US Healthcare Practice Lead, where her client roster included payers, providers and pharmaceutical companies. Prior to Sapient, Hoyt worked for a decade building and leading provider organizations focused on managing the cost and quality of care.

Hoyt holds a Master’s degree from Boston University.

Stacey Wasserman, MBA

Vice President, Pharma Sales

Stacey Wasserman has a proven track record as a senior sales executive with more than 20 years’ experience in the healthcare technology industry. Currently, Stacey serves as the Vice President of Business Development, Pharmaceutical Market for GNS Healthcare, a leading provider of analytic solutions to pharmaceutical and health plan customers. Prior to that, she was the Senior Sales Director at Activate Networks, which provides a social network analytics platform.  Before that, Stacey spent 12 years with Truven Health Analytics (formerly Thomson Reuters) where she was a top performer, selling data and consulting services to pharmaceutical companies. Other former roles include Consultant for Skila and Account Director for IMS Health. Stacey started her career working in Public Relations for Johnson & Johnson.

Outside of work, Stacey lives in Princeton Junction, NJ with her two children and is involved in many local organizations. Stacey holds a BA in Biopsychology from the University of Pennsylvania and a MBA from the Rutgers University School of Business.

Gabriel Eichler, PhD

Vice President, Product Strategy

Gabriel Eichler is responsible for overseeing the growth of GNS’ emerging product solutions portfolio. His focus is primarily on applications of REFS to personalized medicine.

Gabriel has spent most of the last decade working on big-data healthcare applications to opportunities in the pharmaceutical/biotech industry and healthcare delivery. Formerly he managed several global client programs at PatientsLikeMe focusing on patient-centered research and outcomes. Gabriel was also responsible for establishing that company’s oncology product strategy and portfolio. Prior to PatientsLikeMe, Gabriel worked at Relay Technology Management (acquired by Decision Resources Group), McKinsey and Harvard Medical School.

Gabriel completed his MSc. and PhD in Bioinformatics at Boston University and the National Cancer Institute’s Laboratory of Molecular Pharmacology, jointly. His BSE is in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania. He has authored over 30 scholarly manuscripts and book chapters.  He is an investor and advisor to numerous early-stage startup companies in the bioinformatics and digital health space. Gabriel also enjoys public speaking and has given over 100 lectures both nationally and internationally on personalized medicine, genomics, patient centricity, open innovation and medical informatics.

Randall Krakauer, MD, MBA

Chief, Medical Strategy

Dr. Krakauer has more than 30 years of experience in medicine and medical management, and has held senior medical management positions in several major organizations. He formerly was responsible for medical management planning and implementation nationally for Aetna Medicare members, including program development and administration.

Dr. Krakauer graduated from Albany Medical College in 1972 and is board-certified in internal medicine and rheumatology. He received training in internal medicine at the University of Minnesota Hospitals, in Rheumatology at the National Institutes of Health and Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, and received an MBA from Rutgers. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Rheumatology, and professor of medicine at Seton Hall University Graduate School of Medicine. He is past chairman of the American College of Managed Care Medicine.

Mark Pottle, MBA

Chief Financial Officer

Mark Pottle is responsible for the finance, accounting, legal, and human resource functions of GNS Healthcare.

Before joining GNS Healthcare, Mark was CFO of N-of-One Therapeutics, which provides analysis and interpretation of a tumor’s genome so that providers can personalize cancer treatments for patients. Prior to N-of-One, Mark worked at Picis Inc., which provides EMRs for emergency departments, ICUs, and ORs. After Picis was sold to United Healthcare/Optum in 2010, Mark became the CFO of Optum’s Accountable Care Organization division. Mark has also previously worked at several start-up to mid-level companies and has helped raise over $50 million of venture-backed funding, as well as over $150 million in private equity funding.

Mark is also a veteran of the U.S. Army. He graduated from University of New Hampshire with a degree in economics and holds an MBA from Southern New Hampshire University.

Bruce Church, PhD

Chief Mathematics Officer

Bruce Church is responsible for developing algorithms for REFS and leading projects for the development of new products and technologies. Bruce is a member of the founding team of GNS Healthcare.

An expert in statistical physics, machine learning, parallel computing, and causal modeling, Bruce helped develop the original REFS platform. Previously, he spent ten years at Cornell University, developing global optimization methods for computational protein folding, the results of which have been published in several peer-reviewed journals.

Bruce has served as the principal investigator on several major grants, including a $2.5 million award from the Department of Energy. He has served on the Board of Directors for U.S. Rugby and coached the under-23 women’s Northeast rugby team. Bruce received a BS in applied and engineering physics and a PhD in applied physics from Cornell University.

Iya Khalil, PhD

Chief Commercial Officer and Co-Founder

Dr. Iya Khalil is a technology entrepreneur and physicist with a vision of transforming medicine into a discipline that is quantitative, predictive, and patient-centric via big data analytic approaches. She co-founded two big data companies, Via Science and GNS Healthcare, and is the co-inventor of the proprietary computational engine that underpins both entities. Dr. Khalil’s expertise spans applications in drug discovery, drug development all the way to treatment algorithms that can be applied at the point of care.

She is a frequent speaker at industry events and conferences and was recognized by President Obama at a White House dinner as a leading entrepreneur in genomic medicine. She was named to the PharmaVOICE 100 list of the most inspiring people in the life sciences industry and was recognized for her ability to build bridges across the life science and healthcare industries, bringing people together to harness the power of predictive modeling to change the lives of patients. Dr. Khalil serves on the board of the Accelerated Cure Project and the Scientific Advisory Board of Biocentury Innovations. Recently, she was appointed to the Massachusetts Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA) Oversight Council by Governor Baker.

Kazuhiko Sogabe

General Manager, IT & Communication Business dept. Mitsui & Co., (U.S.A.) Inc.

Board Observer

Sogabe has 15 years of experience in the software license and IT service business and has forged partnerships with a variety of companies in the US, China and Japan. Currently, he is responsible for Mitsui & Co., (U.S.A.), Inc.’s business development in the IoT and Healthcare IT area.

Sogabe earned an MBA from Waseda Business School and BA in economics from Kwansei Gakuin University.

Scott Musch

Vice President, Corporate Development, Cambia Health

Board Observer

Scott serves as Vice President of Corporate Development at Cambia Health Solutions.

He helps to lead all health plan related M&A, divestitures, and strategic partnerships for Cambia Health Solutions. Prior to joining Cambia in April 2011, Scott worked in investment banking for over twelve years, covering a wide variety of companies, both inside and outside the healthcare industry. He was formerly a Senior Vice President for healthcare services-focused investment bank Shattuck Hammond Partners and prior to that, he worked as a Vice President in the North American Mergers and Acquisitions Department at J.P. Morgan Securities, Inc.

Scott earned an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, where he was a Tuck Scholar. He graduated with honors from the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a BS in Finance from the Wharton School and a BA in Economics from the College of Arts and Sciences. He is currently studying for his Doctorate of Health Administration at Central Michigan University.

Winston Kung

Vice President, Business Development and Global Alliances
Celgene

Board Observer

Winston Kung is the Vice President of Business Development and Global Alliances for Celgene Corp.

Prior to joining Celgene, he worked at Citigroup in its Global Healthcare Corporate and Investment Banking Division where he focused on biotech and pharmaceutical companies. Prior to Citigroup, he worked at Barclays (formerly Lehman Brothers) in its Global Mergers and Acquisitions group focused on healthcare companies. Winston also worked on the business and corporate development teams at Genentech and Amgen.

Winston earned his MBA from Harvard Business School and received his Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Brown University.

Irina Haivas, MD

Principal, Life Sciences/ Healthcare, GHO Capital

Board Observer

Irina is a healthcare specialist with a background in medicine and management consulting. She serves as Principal at GHO Capital Partners investing across healthcare sectors (pharma, biotech, med tech, health tech, consumer health, pharma B2B services). Irina has a special interest in precision medicine and digital health.

Prior to GHO, Irina spent 7 years with Bain & Company as a leader in the European healthcare practice, and has a wealth of experience across Europe, US and emerging markets. At Bain Irina was an advisor on healthcare due diligence and post-acquisition projects, and has worked directly with pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and healthcare services companies on strategic initiatives including growth, business models, R&D and innovation, M&A, organizational development and operational improvement.

Irina has a first-in-class degree in Medicine, and studied at Iasi Medical University in Romania, Freiburg University in Germany as a Rotary Scholar, and Harvard Medical School. She also holds a MSc with distinction in International Health Policy from London School of Economics. A native Romanian speaker, Irina is fluent in English and German and is conversational in French and Italian.

Jason Cooper

Chief Analytics Officer, Strategy & Analytics, Horizon BCBS NJ

Board Observer

Jason serves as Chief Analytics Officer at Horizon BlueCross BlueShield, New Jersey. He is responsible for enterprise-wide data analytics and informatics, including both commercial and government lines of business.

Jason has more than 20 years of experience in analytics and informatics covering for-profit, nonprofit and government domains, including leading teams at Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, Cigna and CVS Health, as well as experience with NASA spaceflight software analyses.

Jason is a well-published author, experienced public speaker and prior funded researcher. As well as a member of the International Institute for Analytics, the American Medical Informatics Association, the Healthcare Financial Management Association, Sentrian’s Advisory Board, Cognizant’s Chief Data Officer Advisory Council and board member of NJs American Diabetes Association.

Jason received his Master’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering with specialization in Healthcare Informatics from Duke University. He earned his BS and MS degrees in Computer Science from West Virginia University.

Adrian Weller, PhD

Senior Research Fellow, University of Cambridge
Programme Director, Artificial Intelligence, The Alan Turing Institute

Board Member

Adrian is a Senior Research Fellow in the Machine Learning Group at the University of Cambridge, in the Computational and Biological Learning Lab, and also serves as a Faculty Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute, the United Kingdom’s national institute for data science. Most of his academic research relates to graphical models, but he is also very interested in other areas including finance, anything on intelligence (natural or artificial), deep learning, reinforcement learning, evolution, Bayesian methods, time series analysis, ethics, music and methods for big data.

Prior to his current roles, Adrian served as a Managing Director at Citadel Investment Group where he ran US and European interest rate trading. Earlier, Adrian was in the fixed income proprietary trading group at Salomon Brothers, and previously ran the fixed income options desk at Goldman Sachs.

Adrian completed his PhD in Computer Science from Columbia University, and holds a BA and MA in Mathematics from Trinity College, Cambridge. He is an active angel investor, board member and advisor to many companies and charities apart from GNS including Simplex, Cambridge in America, and the Coexist Foundation.

Jared Short

Chief Operation Officer, Cambia Health Solutions

Board Member

Jared leads the accelerated pace of innovation and performance across the Cambia organization to ensure consumer focused solutions. As COO, Jared leverages his commitment and insight into consumer needs to execute against the company’s Cause of transforming health care to be person focused and economically sustainable.

Jared also fills the role of president of Cambia’s Health Insurance Services division, which serves 2.4 million members covered by seven health plans in Idaho, Oregon, Utah and Washington. He successfully drives award-winning service, facilitates collaborative partnerships between providers and patients, and helps create innovative new solutions meeting the needs of a rapidly changing marketplace.

Jared’s career with Cambia began in 1999, when he joined the company in a Finance role with cross-functional responsibilities across the organization. He moved briefly to BlueCross BlueShield of Montana, where he served as chief marketing and underwriting officer. Jared returned to Cambia in 2009 as president of Cambia’s regional health plan in Oregon, responsible for sales, provider contracting, and government and community relations.

Jared serves on the Board of Directors for TriWest Healthcare Alliance and GNS Healthcare. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the Portland Metropolitan Area Boys and Girls Clubs.

He received his Bachelor of Science degree in economics and history from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.

Rob Coppedge

Chief Executive Officer, Echo Health Ventures

Board Member

As CEO of Echo Health Ventures, Rob leads the company’s efforts to identify, invest in and grow innovative companies that enable and deliver a transformed experience to health care consumers nationwide. As part of Echo’s unique partnership with its parents, Rob works closely with the senior management teams and board of Cambia Health Solutions and Mosaic Health Solutions to support collaboration with Echo’s portfolio companies, accelerate Cambia and Mosaic’s strategies and more quickly bring health care innovation to national scale.

Rob has more than 20 years of experience in health care venture capital and business building. Before founding Echo, Rob served as the President of Cambia Health Solutions’ diversified business unit (Direct Health Solutions). In this role, Rob oversaw Cambia’s wholly-owned operating companies (including cost and quality transparency market leader HealthSparq; ancillary benefits provider LifeMap) as well as its venture and private equity investing activities. Rob joined Cambia in 2010 to launch and build the company’s diversification and corporate venture investment efforts. Under Rob’s leadership, Cambia invested in nearly 20 companies.

In 2015, Rob cofounded the Cambia Grove – an innovation hub focused on catalyzing and supporting the Pacific Northwest’s emerging health care economic cluster. At the Cambia Grove, innovators and entrepreneurs work closely with regional stakeholders to find solutions to pressing health care challenges.

Before joining Cambia, Rob was the founding partner of Faultline Ventures, where he worked with numerous early stage companies and strategic investors. Previously, he was a Partner at Capitol Health Partners, a Washington, D.C., and New York City-based venture capital firm specializing in early-stage health services and health care information technology.

Active in industry and community organizations, Rob serves on the boards of several health care companies and is a founder and former director of the Nashville-based largest network of young health care executives, Leadership Health Care. Rob also serves on the board of directors at Life Science Washington (formerly Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association) and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) and is a member of the American Leadership Forum.

Rob is a graduate of Georgetown University with a degree in history and is a Chartered Financial Analyst, charter holder.

Jan Berger, MD, MJ

President & Chief Executive Officer,
Health Intelligence Partners

Vice Chair of GNS Board of Directors

Jan founded Health Intelligence Partners six years ago as a health care consultancy that blends more than thirty years of business and clinical experience. Health Intelligence Partners has a global focus, working with clients on both short -term and long-term healthcare business strategies and solutions. Jan and Health Intelligence Partners help clients navigate the healthcare environment in order to identify and articulate value opportunities. A great deal of Jan’s focus is on consumer engagement and how it affects the decisions that the consumer makes and the actions that they take.

Prior to founding Health Intelligence Partners, Jan served as Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer for CVS Caremark. During that time, she had Executive Management, P & L, Operations, Innovation and Strategy responsibilities. Before going to CVS Caremark, Jan had 15 years’ experience in healthcare administration within the health plan and academic arenas and lead operations for two population health companies.

As a veteran healthcare executive, Jan’s leadership has delivered results in a variety of settings. Jan offers her experiences and insights through her consulting agency as well as through her participation on healthcare and consumer product boards. She presently sits on healthcare focused boards including AccentCare (Chair; Compliance Committee, Compensation Committee), GNS Healthcare, The University of Arizona School of Pharmacy, Harvard Patient Safety Board, Midwest Business Group on Health and Population Health Alliance (Chair: Government Affairs Committee). Jan’s consumer focused boards include Meals to Heal and Whiskerdocs. Jan previously sat on two boards; Care Core National (Committees: Chari: Finance Past Chairperson, Compensation, Search, M&A and Strategic Directions) and Rx-Ante, which were recently sold. She also sits on numerous business and healthcare committees.

As the author of the books “Leveraging Health” and “Thirteen Common Pitfalls in Consumer Engagement” and “Medical Liability for Pediatricians”, the Editor in Chief of American Journal of Pharmacy Benefit and on the editorial boards of a number of healthcare journals, Jan is considered a national health care thought leader. Jan speaks and writes on a broad range of health care issues.

Jan holds both a Doctor of Medicine degree and a Master’s degree in Jurisprudence from Loyola University in Chicago and a Certificate in Healthcare Business Administration from University of South Florida. She also holds a black belt in Six Sigma. Jan is an assistant professor at Northwestern University School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois.

Colin Hill, MS

Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder

Colin Hill is a leading voice in healthcare technology and precision medicine and brings impressive leadership experience in commercializing machine learning technologies in the biopharmaceutical and managed care industries. He co-founded GNS Healthcare in 2000 and has since served as Chairman & CEO.

Colin sits on board of Biotelemetry Inc. (NASDAQ: BEAT), the leading mobile health information company, and PPD, a leading global contract research organization. He is also a founding board member of TMed (Transforming Medicine: The Elizabeth Kauffman Institute), a non-profit foundation (501c3) dedicated to the advancement of personalized medicine. In 2016, he was appointed by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker to the Massachusetts Digital Health Council.

Colin was a founding member of the Board of Directors of AesRx, a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of new treatments for sickle cell disease (acquired by Baxter in 2014). He was the founding chairman of O’Reilly Media’s Strata Rx in 2012, the first healthcare big data conference in the industry.In 2004, Colin was named to MIT Technology Review’s TR100 list of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35.

He is a frequent speaker at national and international scientific and industry conferences and has appeared in numerous publications and television programs, including The Wall Street Journal, CNBC Morning Call & SquawkBox, Nature, Boston Globe, Politico, Forbes, Wired, and The Economist.

He graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in physics and earned Master’s degrees in physics from both McGill University and Cornell University.