John D. Balian, MD is a physician-turned-executive who co-founded ClinChoice, one of the world's larger full-service contract research organizations, and serves as its CEO, International. He spent years inside the FDA, then ran drug safety and regulatory operations at Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson before building a global CRO spanning the US, Europe and Southeast Asia. He is also a published novelist whose debut, Gray Wolves and White Doves, draws on his Armenian heritage and the Armenian Genocide.
Dr. M. Gabriela Salvador is the CEO of Maternova, Inc., a Providence-based global health company that runs an e-commerce marketplace for vetted, life-saving medical devices, diagnostics and nutrition products aimed at low- and middle-income countries. A physician trained as a pediatric ophthalmologist in Argentina, the United States and Mexico, she spent two decades building high-impact health programs at Americares, Grameen Foundation, Freedom from Hunger and Pro Mujer before taking the helm at Maternova in March 2023. Originally from Salta, Argentina, she pairs a medical degree from the National University of Cordoba with a Harvard MPH in health policy and management.
Ron Cohen, M.D., is a biotech entrepreneur with a 30-year record of building companies that ship medicines for the nervous system. He founded Acorda Therapeutics in 1995 from his apartment and grew it into a public company that brought multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's therapies to market. After Acorda's sale to Merz in 2024, he evaluated roughly two dozen startups before taking the CEO seat at Oryon Cell Therapies in March 2026, a Belmont, Massachusetts company developing autologous neuron replacement therapy for Parkinson's. He is a past Chair of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO).
Yasir Al-Wakeel is a physician turned biotech operator who in September 2025 became CEO of Vesalius Therapeutics and a CEO-Partner at Flagship Pioneering. Trained as a doctor at Oxford with a theology degree from Cambridge, he spent a decade structuring more than $30 billion in life-science deals before running finance and strategy at companies like Merrimack, Neon Therapeutics and Kronos Bio. At Vesalius he is betting that many common diseases are actually clusters of genetically distinct conditions waiting to be redefined.
Justin Schram, MD, is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of August Health, an AI-enabled electronic health record platform built for senior living communities. A physician by training from the Perelman School of Medicine at UPenn, Schram spent years on the front lines of value-based care for older adults at Landmark Health before channeling that clinical experience into building the software he wished existed. August Health has raised $44M total - including a $29M Series B in August 2025 led by Base10 Partners - and now serves hundreds of senior living communities nationwide, including Sonida Senior Living's 94-community network.
Dr. Shubhra Jain, MD, MBA is Chief Business Officer at Hippocratic AI, the $3.5B generative AI healthcare company building the world's safest patient-facing AI agents. A rare triple threat - trained primary care physician, Stanford engineer (MS Biodesign), and Wharton MBA - she brings a decade of healthcare investing and product leadership to Hippocratic AI's commercial strategy. Before joining HAI, she led healthcare investing at Tarsadia Investments and Cota Capital, and held product leadership roles at Natera and Pieces Technologies. A first-generation immigrant from a small Indian town, she is a passionate advocate for health equity, underrepresented founders, and making healthcare abundant for all.
Ziad Obermeyer is a physician-scientist and professor at UC Berkeley whose 2019 Science paper exposing racial bias in a healthcare algorithm used by millions changed how the world thinks about AI fairness. An emergency medicine doctor who moonlights as a machine learning researcher, McKinsey alum, and serial founder, Obermeyer co-founded Dandelion Health and Nightingale Open Science while testifying before Congress and earning a spot on TIME's 100 Most Influential People in AI.