Alasdair Milton, PhD is a Principal at KPMG US and leads the firm’s Precision & Advanced Therapies practice. Based in Boston, he advises global biopharmaceutical companies, investors, and health systems on strategy, commercial due diligence, and the commercialization of cell and gene therapies and precision medicine.

Born on a remote Scottish island with a population of 400, Alasdair was the first in his family to attend university. He earned his Ph.D. in cancer research from the University of Glasgow in 2003 and later built his career in Boston after an early setback when his division was shut down in 2007. He rose rapidly at KPMG, becoming Principal in the firm’s 2024 partner class.

A recognized thought leader, Alasdair speaks at major conferences including BIO and the Milken Institute. He is known for bridging deep science with capital strategy and helping clients navigate the shift from treating disease to proactive, lifelong wellness.

Over the last two decades, Eric Ries’s ideas about continuous innovation, long-term thinking, governance, and market reform have reshaped company building and management practices. He is the creator of the Lean Startup method, and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup; The Leader’s Guide; and The Startup Way. 

As a founder, he has put his own ideas into practice with The Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE); Answer.AI, an AI R&D lab; the Lean Startup Co, which teaches and supports the implementation of Lean Startup; Virgil, a legal services startup; and IMVU, where the ideas that became the Lean Startup method were forged. On his podcast, The Eric Ries Show, he talks to guests including world-class technologists, thought leaders, and executives working to build profitable companies for the long-term benefit of society. Eric has served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Harvard Business School. 

Marie Schroeder is a Principal on the Seed Investments team at Novo Holdings, the investment company owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. She backs cardiometabolic therapeutics at the earliest stage, often before a company exists, and works hands on with academics and founders to build them.

She joined Novo Holdings in 2023 from Novo Nordisk, where she spent five years as a principal scientist in cardiovascular drug development. Her research career ran through a doctorate at the University of Oxford and postdoctoral work in Toronto, with fellowships from Oxford, the Wellcome Trust and the National Institutes of Health, and a first degree in biomedical and electrical engineering from Duke University. She is a Fulbright scholar.

Recent work includes the Series A extension for AnaCardio, the Swedish heart failure company her team followed for three years before investing, and Orbis Medicines, which is building oral versions of biologics.