Jose E. Cabrera is a 20 year veteran of the medical device industry. His focus has been in Regulatory Affairs, Clinical Affairs, and Quality Assurance. During his career, he has successfully created regulatory strategies for start-ups to find the quickest path to commercialization and reimbursement. From De Novo Petitions and Q-Subs with face to face meetings with the FDA to 510(k) clearances and routine change management and regulatory reporting. Jose has also lead teams in Latin American with regulatory, quality, and clinical compliance for Bausch and Lomb, and Zimmer Biomet Globally. He has an undergraduate in cellular biology and was a double-major in philosophy. He is currently acting as a VP of RA/QA and Clinical Affairs for a subsidiary of a $20 billion multi-national company headquartered in Germany, overseeing eight (8) global manufacturing sites for cardiovascular and neuromodulation devices. He also leads the company’s efforts to conduct due diligence activity for potential merger/acquisitions. He also served as an Army medic and trained West Point cadets while he was enlisted with the 101st Airborne Division, in Ft. Campbell KY. Jose currently resides in St. Paul Minnesota but he calls South Florida his home, having grown up in Miami and born in Havana Cuba.

Federico Acosta is the CEO and Co-founder of Custom Surgical UG, a Startup based in Munich that is developing medical imaging devices with smartphones. After 7 years of working in several countries in Latin America, with companies such as Abbott Medical Optics, Leica, Quantel, and Dutch Research Center, Federico decided to start his own project with an idea he developed while working in Chile. Ever since, Custom Surgical has won several entrepreneurship grants, launched his first product on Kickstarter in 2019, the MicroREC, and has been selling devices in more than 20 countries. Currently, Custom Surgical UG is developing a smartphone-based platform to screen retinal diseases using a patented optical system and Artificial Intelligence, a project specially focused on the Latin American market.

Federico was granted a scholarship and graduated from the National University of Colombia as a mechatronics engineer. He is currently finishing his master’s degree at the Technical University of Munich in Biomedical Computing and is taking part in the Start Munich community and the Xpreneurs program of the Technical University of Munich.

Nicolas Poutrain-Royer is the General Manager Americas of EDAP Technomed Inc, the US subsidiary of a Medical Device French Manufacturing Company, EDAP TMS, specialized in innovation in Non-Invasive Therapies through Therapeutic Ultrasounds (Shockwaves, HIFU) and Lasers. 

After spending nearly a decade working in Technical Industrial Assets Companies in positions of International Business Developer, with global coverage and a Focus on LATAM countries, Nicolas joined EDAP TMS and the Medical Industry as the VP of Sales of Europe, LATAM and Canada from 2008 to 2019.  Among his missions, he had to open unexplored markets in his territory starting with the selection of the right partners, distributors in these countries, and dealing with the Regulatory Hurdles to get the products locally approved, easy process in Europe, but quite difficult and time-consuming in LATAM countries. This was only the first step to commercialization, as the main difficulty laid in convincing the physicians and Medical Associations about the needs and benefits to the use of innovative and new technologies. Nicolas has a Master in Business Administration from the Rennes Business School in France and TEC Monterrey Campus Guadalajara in Mexico and speaks fluent French, English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Héctor Padilla is Vice President at Covalon Technologies, Strategic Markets focusing on developing commercial and go-to-market strategies for new and existing markets globally. He has more than twenty-seven years of experience in marketing, sales, and business development for Fortune 100 companies and, small and medium enterprises. 

Héctor built a large network of partner distributors across Latin America to commercialize Covalon’s portfolio of advanced wound care and infection prevention unique products while developing strong relationships with key opinion leaders and experts. 

Héctor holds a BA in Business administration from the Jose Maria Vargas University in Caracas, Venezuela, and a Master in Business Administration, with a concentration in marketing from the Sawyer Business School at Suffolk University in Boston, MA.

Robert serves as the CEO for medAppraise Inc., a health technology startup focused on transforming the health and wellness of employees in large industrial corporations through the use of a state-of-the-art musculoskeletal health evaluation solution. In addition, Robert currently serves as president of RNB Ventures Consulting Inc, which is a medical device/technology consultancy firm. RNB Ventures Consulting aim is to provide medical/clinical affairs consulting expertise to medical device and IVD manufacturers on medical risk determinations and pre-submission expertise for new IVD assays. 
Prior to that, Robert served in medical leadership roles at Becton Dickinson in the Corporate Clinical Development organization; at Abbott Laboratories Molecular Diagnostics division, GE Healthcare – Lifecare Solutions and Hospira. 

Robert graduated with a Doctor of Medicine from Rosalind Franklin University/The Chicago Medical School, completed residency training in emergency medicine at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, MI (served as Chief Resident) and graduated with a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame. Robert holds an active license to practice medicine in the United States.

Ram is a serial entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in the ophthalmic pharmaceutical and device industry. Ramgopal is Inventor, Founder, and Chief Executive Officer of LensGen, Inc., a clinical-stage medical device company that is developing a novel intraocular lens for presbyopia. The Company has received support from one of the largest medical device companies in the world, and this led to LensGen closing a $28.0 million Series A Financing in May 2018.

Currently, he is also Chairman of the Board of 2C Tech Corporation, Inc., an emerging medical device company that is developing a novel nanotechnology application for preservation of vision for patients with degenerative retinal diseases. 2C Tech Completed Series B Financing in 2016 and 2019.

Ram co-developed an innovative corneal implant device for presbyopia and licensed the technology to (venture funded) Acufocus, Inc. The company is now commercializing the product on a global scale.

Prior to that, Ram founded Tomey Technology Inc., which pioneered the corneal topography imaging technology that is now a standard of care in eye care for LASIK and cataract surgery. This joint venture company was acquired by Tomey Corporation of Japan.

Laura Minarsch, R.T. RCIS, CVT, is a senior clinical affairs strategist and President of MMC Medical International Services. She consults for several novel innovative device companies in the MedTech space and has facilitated numerous acquisitions over her career spanning more than 25 years. Her track record is based on successful and strategically planned “First in Human” submissions and clinical studies in Europe, Canada, South America, New Zealand, and Australia. She has been instrumental in defining key scientific relationships with opinion leaders and strategic partners. Additionally, she has achieved several record critical project timelines resulting in optimized operations and realized corporate objectives.

Laura began her career as a Registered Cardiovascular Invasive Specialist, and Interventional Cardiovascular Specialist implementing several first interventional device programs in Europe. Laura has served as a Principal Clinical Affairs Advisor of several medical device companies acquired by Covidien, Boston Scientific, Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson Interventional Systems. 

Guy Vinograd is CEO at bio-T, a seasoned high-tech executive and an expert software architect of cloud platforms for medical devices. As an industry leader he is a popular speaker and the organizer of the meet-up group: Smart IoMT Product Experts of Israel.

Guy has co-founded bio-T, the first and leading medical IoT cloud platform designed to enable medical device vendors to fully realize the potential of the data collected by their devices.

Guy is considered a leading expert of Amazon Web Services and a creator of best practices for efficient software development in the cloud.

Dr. Aklog is an adult heart surgeon/entrepreneur and Chairman & CEO of PAVmed Inc. (Nasdaq: PAVM), a multi-product medical device company which he co-founded based in 2014 on a portfolio of five of his own inventions. He previously co-founded Pavilion Holdings Group LLC which created four medical device companies including venture-backed Vortex Medical which developed and commercialized his life- saving invention AngioVac® and was sold in 2012 to Angiodynamics (Nasdaq: ANGO).

Dr. Aklog received his AB from Harvard College, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude in Physics and his MD, cum laude, from Harvard Medical School. He completed his general and cardiothoracic surgical training along with a laboratory research fellowship under Dr. Lawrence H. Cohn at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital, serving as Chief Resident in Cardiac Surgery at both institutions.

Throughout his career Dr. Aklog has been deeply involved in medical device innovation, serving on the advisory boards of many leading medical device companies, including Guidant, Medtronic, St. Jude Medical, and startups. 

James F. Jordan is President/CEO at Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse and a healthcare professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Mr. Jordan is an accomplished Fortune 20-level executive with strong experience in the industry, consulting, and academia and is a recognized expert in market development and guiding the successful formation of entrepreneurial start-up businesses in the life sciences and healthcare industries. Prior to joining the PLSG, Mr. Jordan served as Senior Vice President of a $3 billion division of McKesson Corporation and at Johnson & Johnson. He has leveraged this experience in several startup ventures and is active on several boards of directors. His experience also includes consulting engagements with numerous companies, including Medtronic, Frost & Sullivan, and Otsuka Pharmaceutical.

Most recently, Mr. Jordan published his second book, The Intellectual Property Pyramid Assessment: A Novel Method for Creating a Sustainable Competitive Advantage. This is a complement to his first book, Innovation, Commercialization, and Start-Ups in Life Sciences, which provides expert guidance for start-up life sciences companies, from initiation to exit. His third book, to be published in 2019, is titled, Health Systems: an Overview. This book details the U.S. healthcare system, market, and business models.

Robert M. Traynor is a board certified audiologist with 45 years of clinical practice in audiology. He is a hearing industry consultant, trainer, professor, conference speaker, practice manager and author. He has 45 years experience teaching courses and training clinicians within the field of audiology with specific emphasis in hearing and tinnitus rehabilitation.

Adjunct Faculty in Audiology at the University of Florida, University of Northern Colorado, University of Colorado and The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

He is President of GTCI Corp., a company specializing in assisting small and medium-size companies with market access planning, regulatory affairs, channel partner selection and training in Brazil.

Mike is an experienced business development and marketing executive with global experience in healthcare, life sciences, and diagnostics. He delivers sales growth, profitability and market share by selecting the proper partners and distributors to enter new markets, expand coverage in current markets, promote brand awareness and identify KOLs.

Mike began his career at Baxter Healthcare market analysis and research, operations, and sales for the US domestic market before being promoted to Baxter's Intercontinental division to manage strategic planning, marketing and new product launches for the Medication Delivery division. In 2003, he moved to Sao Paulo, Brazil to head Baxter's Hospital division.

Mike also worked for Thermo Fisher Scientific in the Global Export division as Director of Sales and Marketing for Latin America. Here, he selected and managed new channel partners to increase sales to labs in a variety of market segments, and focused on training and customized marketing catalogs.

Most recently he was with Nova Biomedical as a Regional Manager for LATAM where he established new partnerships and launched five new products into the healthcare and veterinary market.

Kirk has 25 years of medical device industry experience in sales and marketing, market development, and business development. Kirk has led and executed the launch of medical devices for neuro, cardiac, vascular, spine, and pulmonary. Kirk built the Micrus business in Asia and successfully launched many medical devices in that region.  Kirk has spent much of his career-launching devices developed by Silicon Valley start-ups. He has studied business in seven countries including Japan, China, and India and spent 10 years of his life working and studying in Japan.

Kirk has a Doctorate of Business Administration from the International School of Management (Paris) and an MBA from Imperial College London (London) focused on Health Technology Entrepreneurship. His doctoral dissertation and masters thesis were focused on the medical device industry and the topics were respectively, “European Market Entry Strategies for Venture Capital Financed Medical Device Companies” and “Financing and Beyond: The Role of Venture Capital in Silicon Valley Based Medical Device Companies.” Kirk completed his undergraduate studies at Nanzan University (Nagoya), Senshu University (Tokyo), and University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Lincoln, Nebraska - US).

Guillaume Corpart is the Founder and CEO of Global Health Intelligence. With over 20 years’ business consulting experience, Mr. Corpart supports life-science companies in their growth plans throughout emerging markets.

Global Health Intelligence developed HospiScope – the world’s largest hospital database focused on Latin America, with profiles on over 18,000 hospitals in the region. Through HospiScope medical equipment manufacturers can increase visibility into market opportunities and key accounts.

Through ShareScope clients can determine market size & share of both medical equipment and medical devices with over 90% accuracy. In 2018, Global Health Intelligence launched SurgiScope – detailing procedure volumes by hospital and thus enabling device manufacturers to identify targeted opportunities by account.

In 2011, Mr. Corpart was awarded the Prix Releve Excellence from l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales and in 2014 Mr. Corpart received the Outstanding Business Award from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Mexico. Mr. Corpart has a B.A. in Marketing and Entrepreneurship from l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (Montreal, Canada) and in 2017 pursued a degree in Scaling Businesses at the Stanford School of Business (California, USA). Mr. Corpart is fluent in English, French and Spanish.

Mr. Hendrick has over three decades of executive experience, building both early-stage medical device companies as well as large divisions in medical device corporations. Currently, Mr. Hendrick is president of Safeco a medical device consulting company. Previously, he was CEO of Mynosys Cellular Devices —an ophthalmic company. Prior to that, he was CEO at NeoVista Inc. —a company in the field of age-related macular degeneration. Prior to that, he created the medical division at Sanmina-Sci. Mr. Hendrick has been through a successful IPO of VidaMed; which led eventually to Medtronic acquiring the company. Prior to VidaMed, Mr. Hendrick held executive positions at Allergan Medical Optics, Baxter, and American Hospital Supply along with several board positions.

Rahul is a health-tech optimist, serial entrepreneur, and biomedical engineer. His affinity for (sensible) innovation is only challenged by his predilection for building customer-obsessed companies. He's a dream-catcher with unbridled curiosity and a strong operator who enjoys delivering value in large markets ripe for change. Humble beginnings not only keep him anchored, but shape the distinct perspective he brings to the table.

More recently, Rahul was the director and founding member of EyeNetra – an MIT Media Lab spinout recognized worldwide for pioneering smartphone-powered refractions to serve the 4.5B individuals in need of vision correction. It's commonly cited that more than half of said populace remains uncorrected to this day. At EyeNetra, he contributed to the development of 4 products from inception, honed their go-to-market strategy, and architected a successful platform for global growth. Thousands of units were both sold and shipped to eye care professionals in over 90 countries within a span of 36 months. By maintaining lean operations, the company eventually became cash flow positive – a rarity at the intersection of hardware, software, and healthcare in an overcapitalized climate. The team also explored a first of its kind model for teleoptometry and spent years in deep R&D, clinical trials, regulatory approvals, and manufacturing prior to commercialization. Confronted along the way were countless moments fraught with uncertainty including an abundance of failures. To-date, this technology suite has facilitated 5 million refractions and a quarter-million connected exams (and counting). It would be remiss not to mention the smiles conjured of millions more from the friends, families, and caretakers of patients.

Jonathan (Jon) is co-founder & CEO at MitraSpan —a medical device development company that is exploring minimally invasive mitral valve repair techniques for treating type IIIb functional mitral regurgitation in heart failure patients. 

Jon's career in medical devices and cardiology began in 1991 in the ultrasound imaging business at Hewlett-Packard Medical Products (now owned by Philips). He worked on engineering challenges related to manufacturing high-frequency ultrasound transducers for both TTE and TEE devices. In 1995, he led the IVUS catheter program, a joint venture first with Boston Scientific and later Guidant. This business was later spun out to Volcano and then recently acquired back by Philips. In 1999, Jon moved to the venture-backed startup world where he has remained for now 20 years first as VP of R&D at Endotex where he focused on the development of a carotid stent. He led this program through successful feasibility studies and pivotal study launch. Following that and FDA-PMA approval, Endotex was acquired by BSX. In 2001, Jon joined TransMedics as VP of R&D and lead development efforts through the successful completion of the first full venture round. Transmedics recently filed for an IPO and is a pioneering company focused on the normothermic, sanguineous, functional preservation of organs for transplantation. 

Since 2002, Jon has led a succession of development and clinical trial efforts in the structural heart and mitral repair fields. First, at Viacor he served as both VP of R&D and CEO; and later at Harpoon, he helped arrange for the spinout of IP and the securement of initial program funding. Now, at MitraSpan he continues to innovate on potential breakthrough structural techniques.  

Michael has extensive experience in various advisory, mentorship and leadership roles combined with his educational background in human behavior and cognition; this has enabled him to become a successful turnaround specialist in the life sciences industry.
He is the former acting-chairman and CEO of the Nubenco and PharmeuRopea group —a marketplace providing medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and  medical equipment to distributors, NGOs, major multinationals, and government agencies worldwide. Michael has been involved in international markets since 2011 since he first stared his global role first at Nubenco's international business director. At Nubenco, Michael —among other notable accomplishments— expanded the company's foothold to over 12 new markets —including Latin America— and doubled the company's customer base.

Michael has recently co-founded Mist Medical —an early stage medical device company with a mission to gradually replace the demand for high consumption medical disposables, beginning with his first target: to replace the old syringe. Michael has a BA in Behavioral Neuroscience (pre-medicine) and Biological Foundations of Behavior from Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania. Read more. 

Lloyd is the CEO of Pixium Vision S.A., —a company with the mission to create a world of bionic vision for those who have lost their sight, enabling them to regain partial visual perception and greater autonomy. Prior to that, he was the President & CEO of Precise Light Surgical —a company that developed a disruptive surgical resection platform that has tissue differentiating capabilities. 

Lloyd has 25 years of disruptive technology commercialization experience in the life science industry. Prior to Precise Light Surgical, he served as the CEO of BONESUPPORT AB, a European orthobiologic company, where he drove rapid market penetration in Europe and the US for their disruptive orthopedic scaffold. He has commercialized many other disruptive technology platforms at Kyphon and Laserscope where he served as the VP of Marketing for the Greenlight Laser system. 

Throughout his career, Lloyd has been Instrumental in bringing life science technologies in the major markets in Latin America, including Mexico and Brazil, and established commercial infrastructures in the region. 

Lloyd received a dual degree in Biochemsitry and Marketing from Florida Atlantic University and an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management at ASU. 

Michael is principal at Medaron Consulting and director at Med Market Access. Michael assists early-stage life sciences companies with global expansion initiatives and foreign companies expanding into the US and beyond. Michael has held senior management roles in large blue-chip and early-stage companies and has established and grown medical device markets globally. Prior to that, he was Director - Europe, Middle East, Africa, Canada & Latin America for Misonix, a US company that specializes in the development and commercialization of ultrasonic surgical devices for neurosurgical, spinal, advanced wound care, and general surgery procedures. Prior to that, he was Region Director, General Manager - Latin America for Smith & Nephew where he managed an $80M P&L and 200 direct employees. Michael was also the Region Director - LatAm for Johnson & Johnson, and Director for Spinal & Guided Surgery - LatAm for Medtronic.

Michael has expertise in different areas of the medical device business in Latin America including regulatory, clinical research, financial, legal, compliance, and human resources. Throughout his years of experience, Michael has accumulated a broad network of surgeons, researchers, administrators, trade organizations and in-country specialists that he can quickly leverage to execute cost-effective go-to-market strategies in Latin America.

Francisco is a global business executive with over 20 years of experience in the medical device industry. He is a top sales performer establishing record growth and managing market leadership for several medical device companies. He is a proven leader in the development of comprehensive business strategies that result in new markets for emerging medical device companies. Francisco is the principal at Ethos Consulting; an international market development consultancy specializing in the medical device industry. Through Ethos Consulting, Francisco is currently working on reorganizing distribution networks in Spain, Argentina, and Brazil. He is also establishing new distributors in Mexico, Central America, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Colombia, and Venezuela. Under this capacity, he is also managing business objectives, regulatory process, cost structure, and marketing programs. Current and past clients of Ethos Consulting include: Synthes, Arthrosurface, Parcus, Innovasis, STDMED, MedicalVision, SyncMedical, Finceramica, Rhausler, Orteq, and Cannuflow. 

Alejandro is President of Procursum Medical; a company that helps manufacturers of medical devices looking to launch and commercialize their products in Latin America.  Alejandro is a global senior executive with over 30 years of experience in healthcare including P&L management, go to market strategy, setting up new operations and building organizations overseas. He has a unique background in international markets for pharmaceuticals, generics, medical devices, and nutritional products. 
Prior to founding Procursum Medical, he held the position of President of International with Hill-Rom where, as a member of the executive leadership team, he managed a $500M business with a focus on improving profitability in Europe and driving sustained and profitable growth in emerging markets. 
Before joining Hill-Rom, Alejandro had several executive positions with Hospira including President of the Americas where he was responsible for the medical device and specialty pharmaceutical segments with a total revenue of $2.5B; he also held the positions of Vice President and General Manager of International Commercial Operations and Regional Director for Hospira in Latin America. Prior to joining Hospira, at the time of the spin-off from Abbott Laboratories, he held numerous management roles within Abbott, including General Manager in Mexico and Poland. 

Armin is an entrepreneurial medical device executive with a broad, multi-disciplinary background. His extensive work with start-up companies has resulted in many successful worldwide product launches. His broad medical device background includes implantable devices, disposables, diagnostic and biotech products. He is a leader and builder of R&D, quality, regulatory, clinical affairs & operations structures within organizations. Armin is the CEO of SunTrix Medical; a clinical, regulatory and quality medical device consulting company. He is also the co-founder and chief operations officer of VasoFlow Medical; a medical device company focusing on innovative products for the vascular surgery and interventional radiology market. Armin earned his M.B.A in economics and M.S. in engineering, regulatory and quality from the Rheinische Fachhochschule-Koeln university in Germany. Armin is based in Northern California.