Vivance is a patient-centric medical technology company with a mission to enhance the lives of people with kidney disease and their caregivers by providing solutions to deliver better outcomes along with improving their quality of life.
Suresha is the Chief Executive Officer of Vivance (formerly AWAK Technologies). He has spent over a decade in the medical technology space, enabling company growth, increasing revenues, and developing various innovative medical devices.
Prior to becoming CEO at Vivance, he worked for Hill-Rom, a US$5.4B (market cap) medical devices company (NYSE: HRC), as the Director for Front Line Care business, where he was responsible for developing and commercialising new products, and spearheading innovation culture. He joined as the first engineer in the newly formed division in Hill-Rom Singapore, helped the team to grow it substantially, and commercialized five medical devices across the globe.
As the leader of the Innovation and Technology Integration team, Suresha was instrumental in driving the patent portfolio of the Singapore division, which not only resulted in numerous patent applications but also opened avenues for new market growth.
He has acquired deep domain expertise in areas such as Respiratory Care, ECG/Cardio, Remote Patient Monitoring and Therapy Surface Technologies, and has navigated many complex products in these domains through 510 (K) and CE clearance processes.
Before joining Hill-Rom, Suresha was a technical leader at Robert Bosch, world’s largest automotive component supplier with a revenue of Euro 73B , where he provided leadership to a talented team of engineers in the development of cutting-edge engine control system solutions for world-renowned companies such as Daimler Chrysler and Mercedes.
For more than a decade he has cultivated extensive experience in the fields of Marketing, R&D, IP, QA/RA, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Clinical Affairs and Regulatory Affairs.
Suresha received a Master of Science degree in Computer Control Systems from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, and a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University, India.
Mandar Gori
As the Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Business Officer at Vivance (formerly AWAK Technologies), Mandar Gori leads Marketing, Clinical and Business Development departments. He was instrumental in successfully closing the largest MedTech Series A funding round in Singapore of US$ 40 million. Under his leadership, US FDA granted Breakthrough Device Designation to Vivance’s wearable dialysis product in 2019, a major milestone for Vivance as it became first in the region to achieve this designation and the first globally in the kidney care industry. In 2018, Vivance (formerly AWAK) completed its First-In-Human clinical trial in Singapore General Hospital proving for the first time safety of a wearable artificial kidney.
Prior to Vivance, Mandar was Deputy Director at Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore’s premier R&D and commercialisation agency, where he successfully established programs to train and develop local MedTech talent and give them an in-depth understanding of other regional healthcare markets. As a Commercial Manager at Hill-Rom (acquired by Baxter in 2021), a global $12 Billion medical device manufacturer, Mandar successfully launched several products in the Asian markets. In his role at Hill-Rom he managed sales channels across ASEAN, S.Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Indian sub-continent for the entire product portfolio of the company. In his early career, Mandar was a Project Manager for a US-based digital health start-up MedMined Inc where he launched several one-of-a-kind products which gave unmatched clinical intelligence at point-of-care. These solutions based on datamining and artificial intelligence were first in their categories to show better clinical outcomes and cost savings in the areas of hospital-acquired infections and medication errors. MedMined was later acquired by Cardinal Health, spun-off into CareFusion and then acquired by Becton Dickinson (BD).
Mandar has a keen interest in talent development. He was a mentor at Junior Achievement in Singapore, one of the world’s largest non-profit organization dedicated to inspire and prepare younger generation to succeed in a global economy. As a teaching volunteer at Akanksha Foundation he mentored underprivileged kids from urban areas in India.
Mandar has a MBA from Nanyang Business School (Singapore), MS in Healthcare Informatics from University of Alabama at Birmingham (USA) and BE in Information Technology from Mumbai University (India). He also has several patents related to technologies in kidney care under his name.
Carol Lim
Carol is the Finance and HR Director at Vivance (formerly AWAK Technologies). She has previously worked at Ernst and Young for 4 years and has prior experience in auditing companies that are also in the Medical Technology industry. Carol is a Chartered Accountant and a member of Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants. She also holds a degree in Accountancy from Nanyang Technological University.
Joel Fernandes
Joel is the Senior R&D Director at Vivance (formerly AWAK Technologies). In his role, he will be leading all the activities related to Systems Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Connectivity. He also has additional responsibility of managing QMS and Regulatory functions.
Joel joined Vivance from Hill-Rom where he was managing multiple teams towards commercialization for the Respiratory Care business unit. He has experience of over 10 years in R&D, majority of which is in Medical Devices industry. Prior to Hill-Rom, Joel has worked in multitude of industries such as Aerospace, Automotive and Semiconductors. During his career, he has worked on some of the world’s well-known programs such as Boeing 787, Volvo Trucks, AMD APUs to name a few.
Joel has experience in executing New Product Development projects, Early Innovation programs and has been actively involved in new innovation. He is also an avid inventor with multiple patents pending. During his tenure in the New Product Development, he was actively involved in strategizing the device connectivity platform, conceptualised and launched Hill-Rom’s first healthcare analytics platform which is being used actively by thousands of patients in the US. Additionally he spearheaded various efforts in different areas like V&V, System Software, Manufacturing, Mobile App development to name a few.
Joel holds an Engineering degree in Electronics and Communications from the Visvesvaraya Technological University, India.
Sanjay Singh
Sanjay Singh, Ph.D. joined Vivance (formerly AWAK Technologies) in 2018 and since then he is responsible for the development of the sorbent, with a multi-disciplinary team, for application in wearable dialysis device and other related chemistry. He has also taken a role in overseeing pre-clinical research activities including validation of sorbent in animals and other in-house projects. In his present role, he also supports the innovation team in scouting new emerging technologies based on the strategic direction of the company.
Prior to joining Vivance, Sanjay was Section head, Medicinal Chemistry at Curia Inc (formerly Albany Molecular Research Inc), where he was responsible for driving multiple pre-clinical drug discovery research projects and providing analytical support for drug discovery programmes with a team of experienced medicinal and analytical chemist respectively. The key therapeutic area of research included Thrombosis, Oncology and Autoimmune disorder.
Sanjay earned his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry from Central Drug Research Institute, CSIR, India, where he worked on the isolation and screening of natural products of medicinal values and high-throughput solid-phase synthesis of organic molecule library and peptide library of biological interest.
Jiang Cong
Jiang Cong joined Vivance (formerly AWAK Technologies) in January 2019 as the Director of System Engineering and QA&RA. In this role, he is leading the Quality, Regulatory, and System Engineering teams to ensure that Vivance products are designed and built with quality and fulfill the expectations of both customers and regulatory bodies.
Prior to Vivance, Jiang Cong had over 12 years of experience in the areas of system and quality engineering. In his previous roles in Hill-Rom and Life Technologies (now part of Thermo Fisher Scientific), he provided technical leadership to several successful projects of various scales which enhanced the competitive edge of the companies. He has championed the creation and maintenance of these products’ DHF per FDA 21 CFR PART 820, EU MDD/MDR, and ISO13485 guidelines. He was also experienced in ensuring the quality is built into the design of the products and led the team in navigating through several major audits including FDA audit, notified body audit, etc. He also has in-depth knowledge of FDA premarket notification/approval submissions and CE clearance processes.
Jiang Cong is a system engineering expert with extensive knowledge in system definition, system development, and system integration of medical products. He is also experienced in acting as the technological leader in the product commercialization processes following design for six sigma (DFSS) and customer-oriented product design approaches. He has broad exposure over quality management of medical devices.
Jiang Cong holds a M.Eng. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He received his B.Eng. (first-class honor) from the same school.
Koh Yau Luong
Yau Luong joined Vivance (formerly AWAK Technologies) in July 2021 as the Director of Research & Development to lead technology development and engineering activities.
Yau Luong has 10 years of experience in product development, operations, supply chain and business development roles for life sciences, consulting and investment companies. Before Vivance, he was Head of Business Development at Trendlines Labs Singapore, the innovation unit for Trendlines Medical, an Israel-based technology incubator, tasked to set up and advance the presence in the Asian region. In this role, he worked with government agencies, healthcare institutions, MNCs and Startups to kickstart commercialization of seed technologies for medical applications.
Till 2020, he served as Associate Director for Product Development for Biolidics Ltd(SGX: 8YY), a Singapore med-tech company providing oncology and acute disease diagnostic solutions. He led the product development team that launched the world’s first label free CTC(Circulating Tumor Cell) isolation system and COVID-19 Antibody detection kits. From 2014 – 2020, he was founder of a product development agency, Buildlabs Pte Ltd, that consulted for companies in the medical and consumer electronics space, serving to provide development strategies and technical solutions to help them get to market.
Yau Luong has an Exec MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology(Washington DC), BE in Bioengineering from National University of Singapore(NUS) and Minor in Technopreneurship from NUS Overseas Colleges.
Suresh Palale
Dr. Suresh Palale joined Vivance (formerly AWAK Technologies) in October 2020 as the India Head, R&D, to set up and lead the India site.
Suresh has more than 14 years of experience in New product development and led teams in Research & Development and Engineering divisions. His product development experience is wide spread in various domains like automotive, Consumer electronics and Healthcare. Suresh has a proven track record of setting up Research and development centres and new businesses in a multicultural environment both in Singapore and India.
Before joining AWAK he was a Senior Program Manager at Robert Bosch Engineering and Business solutions, India, and was tasked to develop new business in the domain of Electromobility. He was instrumental in forming a new team and developing a business model and digital platform solution to monitor electric vehicles, charging stations and to bring-in battery intelligence using Artificial intelligence algorithms. In this role, he worked with several start-ups, educational institutions, different government agencies and large corporate customers in India. Before this, he was a Senior Manager at ROBERT BOSCH (SEA) PVT LTD, Singapore and was responsible to strategically build new Research team and R&D domains for Bosch in South East Asia. During 10 years here Suresh was able to build highly cross functional team, R&D facility and successfully developed 3 new products in the domain of Consumer electronics and Healthcare. Until 2009 he was a Product Manager at Fosroc Technology Centre, Bangalore and was responsible for New product development.
He was a Postdoctoral fellow at Hydrocarbon Research Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA and worked under the tutelage of the late Dr. George Olah who is a Nobel laureate in Chemistry. He has his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore, India) and MSc in synthetic chemistry from Mangalore University (India). He owns 6 US patents and about 15 Journal publications in high impact Journals.
Jason Lim
Jason is the R&D Manager for Vivance (formerly AWAK) and has more than a decade’s worth of experience in medical device design & development. Prior to joining Vivance, he spent 8 years working as a Design Engineer and was involved in the development of more than a dozen various medical devices. Jason has been with AWAK since 2013 and is currently overseeing product design development as well as pre-clinical & clinical testing. He holds a BEng in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Nottingham.
Peter Haywood
Peter has a rich hands-on experience of 12+ years working in both Singapore and Australia. He has broad research experience working in academia and industry in a wide range of industries including medical devices, food & water testing, semiconductors and natural products. In the medical field, Peter has formulated of anti-microbial coatings for hospital surfaces as well as enzymatic detergents for cleaning surgical instruments. Additionally, he has worked in analysis for nutritional panels and in manufacture of semiconducting thin films by chemical vapour deposition.
Peter completed his BSc(Hons) in Chemistry from UNSW, Sydney, Australia. He has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals on natural products and inorganic synthetic chemistry. He is currently completing a Grad Cert in Intellectual Property Law and is part of the team overseeing the AWAK patent portfolio.
Dr. Marjorie Foo is the Director of Singapore General Hospital Peritoneal Dialysis Program and heads the Renal Medicine unit. She is also the Clinical Senior Lecturer at National University of Singapore and associate professor at Duke-NUS Medical School.
Dr. Foo actively engages across several committees working to strengthen kidney care and dialysis efforts globally. She is the Chair of Clinical Privileging and Competency committee and Chair of Renal Medicine Senior Residency Examination Committee. She’s involved in the Part time physician scheme (PTPS) Ministry of Health , Singapore and co-chairs the Clinical Integration Committee at SGH.
She graduated from Queen’s University Belfast in 1989, MB ChB. BAO ( Belf), and attained MRCP (UK) 1992, FAMS 2003 and FRCP (Glasgow) 2004. In the UK, Dr. Foo was trained in University College Hospital, The Middlesex Hospital and Hammersmith Hospital London. Her training in Nephrology was completed in 2001.
Dr. Foo is fully trained in all aspects of Nephrology; i.e. transplantation, general nephrology, haemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. Her main subspecialty interest is in peritoneal dialysis and the use of telemedicine in monitoring of chronic disease and treatment.
Dr. Arsh Jain
Dr. Jain is an Associate Professor at Western University. He completed his medical degree from the University of Toronto in 2002. And undertook an internal medicine residency and fellowship in nephrology at the University of Western Ontario, which was completed in 2007. He then completed a 3-year clinical/research Fellowship through the clinical investigator program at Western University. He was awarded a prestigious Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) health professionals research fellowship for this training. In 2010, Dr. Jain completed a Master of Science in clinical epidemiology under the supervision of Dr. Amit Garg. He has been on staff in the Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine at Western University since July 2010.
Dr. Jain’s focus of research has been in a few main areas: Clinical Peritoneal Dialysis (PD), Epidemiologic PD, and Health Services Research. Dr. Jain has completed numerous studies assessing clinic structure, laboratory reports and values, medications, and other health services research in the setting of chronic kidney disease. Dr. Jain has partnered with numerous groups all over the world including North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia/New Zealand. As Principal Investigator, Dr. Jain has received over $3M in peer-reviewed funding. He has published over 100 peer reviewed papers in various journals, including JAMA, BMJ, and CMAJ. Dr. Jain has achieved an h-index of 35 and has presented at numerous universities and conferences with 100+ presentations completed.
Currently, Dr. Jain is completing a randomized controlled trial (RCT) comparing a novel remote monitoring system to standard of care for patients on Peritoneal Dialysis. This project will involve multiple sites from across Canada, in which he aims to randomize 400-500 patients, making this one of the largest randomized trials completed in PD. He is the Canadian Co-Lead for the Peritoneal Dialysis Outcomes and Practice Patterns Study (PDOPPS). This large multi-national undertaking is designed to advance the understanding of optimal practices for PD patients worldwide.
Dr. Jain is an active member of the Board for the Kidney Foundation of Canada. The Kidney Foundation is the largest and most well-known patient advocacy group for people with kidney disease in Canada. He has personally raised well over $500K for this worthy charitable organization. In 2013, Dr. Jain founded the Peritoneal Dialysis University for Interventional Nephrology for nephrologists and radiologists (PDU:IN/IR), which takes place at least once a year in Tampa Bay, Florida. This course has attracted numerous physicians from around the world. Recently, Dr. Jain was elected as a Board member to the Canadian Society of Nephrology. He is a member of the North American Chapter of the International Society for Peritoneal Dialysis. As well, Dr. Jain serves as a faculty member for the American Society of Nephrology pre-course on Maintenance Dialysis.
Prof. Edwina Brown
Professor Edwina Brown’s main research interests are peritoneal dialysis, dialysis outcomes in older people and renal palliative care. She is currently the principal investigator for the study Kidney Transplantation in Older People (KTOP). She organises an annual meeting on Renal Supportive Care and co-organises the UK PD Academy. She co-chaired the ISPD guideline committee (2014-2020) and has overseen the development of the 2020 guideline on ‘Prescribing high quality, goal-directed peritoneal dialysis’. She is the co-chair for the KDIGO controversies conference on symptom-based complications in dialysis (May 2022) and is the president-elect for the ISPD (2020-2022); she will become the president in August 2022
Dr. Htay Htay
Dr Htay Htay is a senior consultant at Department of Renal Medicine and also a Deputy Director of Peritoneal Dialysis Program, Singapore General Hospital. She graduated from University of Medicine Yangon, Myanmar and received Master of Medicine from the National University of Singapore. She completed advanced specialist training in Nephrology at Singapore General Hospital. She received Health Manpower Development Programme (HMDP) Award and underwent one-year fellowship training at Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, Australia. She is a fellow of Royal College of Physician and also a member of International Society for Peritoneal Dialysis, and Singapore Society of Nephrology. She was awarded as ISN-GKHA (Global Kidney Health Atlas) fellow (2016 -2020) by International Society of Nephrology.
She has been appointed as clinical assistant Professor in Duke-NUS Medical School. She is also a clinical lecturer at National University of Singapore, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. She is also a visiting lecturer for Advanced Diploma in Nursing in Nanyang Polytechnic. In addition, she is interested in clinical research and has published original papers and review articles in international peer review journals.
Dr. Martin J. Schreiber
Dr. Schreiber has over 40 years of clinical nephrology, research and innovation experience in the field of chronic kidney disease, with a career focused on advancing home dialysis modalities. He has held a number of prominent leadership positions in both academia and industry during his career, most notably, as Chief of Nephrology and Hypertension and a Member of the Board of Governors at Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio and as the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for Home Dialysis and Pediatrics at DaVita, the largest provider of Home dialysis in the US.
Dr. Schreiber is an active educator and international lecturer in home dialysis and hypertension, with over one hundred publications, and previous editorial responsibilities with the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, American Journal of Kidney Disease and Peritoneal Dialysis International. He received his medical degree through Wake Forest University School of Medicine, did his residency and chief residency at Cleveland Clinic and nephrology fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital Boston, Massachusetts. He has a passion for innovation and the future applications of AI and new kidney care models, as critical components to improving patient outcomes while lowering the cost of care.
Dr. Prashanth Kumar
Dr. Prashanth Kumar practices in a private Nephrology group in the high desert region of Southern California. He received his medical degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit Michigan in 2003 and completed his Internal Medicine residency training and Nephrology fellowship at University Hospitals of Cleveland in 2008. Currently Dr. Kumar is involved in administrative and clinical oversight of Desert Cities Dialysis (DCD), an independent dialysis organization. Daily operations for DCD include providing dialysis services at In-center dialysis clinics, home HD and PD programs, and management of acute dialysis programs at local hospitals. Dr. Kumar is also involved in medical staff leadership and participates in numerous hospital committees, maintains membership and supports the San Bernardino County Medical Society, and is currently serving as Chief of Staff at Providence St. Mary Medical Center.
Dr. Kumar is currently pursuing study towards a Master of Public Health degree at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Enrolled in the population health curriculum with a focus on Health Behavior and Health Education, Dr. Kumar expresses his enthusiasm for the future of patient care. “As an industry, we are privileged to bear witness to a new era of health care delivery. Innovation is seemingly everywhere and spans the entire spectrum of kidney care, from medical device technology to new care delivery paradigms. All innovation must aim to help reduce health disparities, improve outcomes, reduce cost, and most importantly improve quality of life and experience for our patients.”
Dr. Ha Tran
Dr. Tran is a Pediatric Nephrologist and Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford School of Medicine, Department of Pediatric Nephrology. She earned her M.D. from Ross University, completed her residency in General Pediatrics and Albany Medical College, clinical fellowship in Pediatric Nephrology at Stanford University, and earned her M.S. in Epidemiology and Clinical Research from Stanford School of Medicine.
She is an experienced drug/device developer with 10 years of clinical development industry experience. During her previous tenure at Baxter International as Global Clinical Development Lead, Renal Care, she led clinical development to receive FDA De Novo Authorization for the Theranova dialyzer, Emergency Use Authorization for the Oxiris filter, and ran the first in-home automated peritoneal dialysis solution generation system trial (Sharma et al. Kidney International, 2024). Dr. Tran is currently the Medical Head of Cell and Gene Therapy at Astellas Pharma where she oversees talented medical directors and clinical scientists working in clinical development across the Primary Focus Areas of Genetic Regulation, Blindness and Regeneration, and Immune Homeostasis. She is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Dr. Pallavi Patri
Dr. Pallavi Patri completed medical college and training in Internal Medicine and Nephrology/ Hypertension/ Kidney Transplantation in the US. Upon completion of her training in this field at Weill Cornell Medical College – NY, she stayed on as teaching faculty involved with the training of medical students and fellows in Nephrology and worked as a Nephrology consultant at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Cornell (NYPH). At this busy center, she gained substantial experience managing complex Kidney Transplant cases. Promoting home dialysis modalities including home hemodialysis and Peritoneal Dialysis became a keen area of interest during her work in this department at NYPH-Cornell. She also worked at Memorial Sloane Kettering Cancer Center which provided the unique experience of managing diverse kidney conditions in Cancer patients.
She has published articles in International Journals in the field of Transplant and Kidney disease and has published books chapters in two Nephrology textbooks. Currently, at Manipal Hospital-Sarjapur, she leads the Nephrology Department which includes, outpatient Hemodialysis and Peritoneal Dialysis, inpatient and ICU dialysis, general Nephrology outpatient clinic and along with the Urologist/Transplant surgeon leads the Kidney Transplant Program. Apart to her work at Manipal Hospital, she has several charitable involvements; she is the founding trustee of the Beanstalk Foundation which aims to provide financial assistance to patients in need of kidney disease associated medical care and she provides pro-bono Nephrology coverage for Sri Sathya Sai Sarala Memorial Hospital (a large teaching institute providing multidisciplinary care complete free of cost to patients).
Dawn Evans
Dawn Evans was diagnosed with Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) in 2010 while playing collegiate basketball at James Madison University. Despite this challenge, she pursued a professional basketball career, competing in the WNBA and Europe. After her first kidney transplant at Vanderbilt University, Dawn retired from basketball but remained resilient in chasing her dreams.
Passionate about patient advocacy, Dawn shares her journey on her YouTube channel, TheDawnRaven, where she inspires others battling chronic kidney disease to stay hopeful and determined. After her transplant, Dawn relocated to Los Angeles, embarking on successful careers in real estate and acting. Her recent acting roles include appearances in films like Never Would Have Made It and Six Triple Eight, as well as TV shows like The Black Hamptons on BET and Judge Me Not on AMC’s AllBlk.
Dawn’s unwavering spirit is a testament to overcoming adversity, and she uses her platform to encourage others to relentlessly pursue their dreams, regardless of the obstacles.
Mr Abel Ang is the founding Group Chief Executive Officer of Advanced MedTech Holdings, a US$300M global player in urology devices and services. The group has quadrupled its revenue since its founding.
Mr. Ang has a proven track record in the medical device sector. He has served as the Senior Advisor to the CEO of Greatbatch Inc (NYSE: ITGR), providing guidance relative to the commercialization of medical device technologies in the cardiac, neurology, vascular and orthopedic markets. Prior to Greatbatch, Mr. Ang was President, Asia/Pacific for Hill-Rom Inc. a US$3B revenue medical devices company (acquired by NYSE: BAX) where he was responsible for leading, developing and implementing the strategy to expand Hill-Rom’s presence in the Asia/Pacific markets. He formerly served as the Chief Technology Officer for Hill-Rom for 3 years. In that role he had overall responsibility for Hill-Rom’s global R&D operations which are distributed across sites in the U.S., Mexico, France, and Singapore. At Hill-Rom, he also held the positions of Vice-President and General Manager of Hill-Rom’s US$420M Global Therapy Business unit, and Vice-President for International Business Development. He formerly headed the global Medical Technology and Biotechnology industry groups in the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB).
Mr. Ang sits on the Board of Economic Development Innovations Singapore, a privately-held investment holding company headquartered in Singapore with direct investments in deeptech, education and listed assets. He sits on the Boards of various Advanced MedTech group companies: Dornier MedTech GmbH, AMT Pte Ltd, SonoMotion Inc,. and AWAK Technologies, where he chairs the Board. He was formerly on the Board and Nominating Committee of Aslan Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: ASLN).
Mr. Ang is an Adjunct full Professor at the Nanyang Business School in Singapore and Waseda University in Japan, where he teaches in their respective MBA programs. On the education front, he also sits on the Board of Singapore Institute of Management, a profitable private education platform, which has 16,000 students in Asia and 180,000 alumni.
Mr. Ang has a Master of Science in Computational Biology from Rutgers University in New Jersey, which he pursued while on an EDB scholarship. He attended Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program in 2012. He was awarded the Public Service Medal (PBM) in 2021 for his contributions to the medical device industry in Singapore.
Dr. Jeffery Chi
Dr. Jeffrey Chi is a veteran in the venture capital industry and a strong advocate for the promotion of venture capital, entrepreneurship & socially responsible investing. Based out of Shanghai, Dr. Chi heads Vickers Venture’s investments in Asia and has investments in life sciences, medical devices, healthcare, financial services (including fintech) technology, and energy transition sectors.
Dr. Chi co-founded Vickers Venture Partners in 2005 is currently its Vice Chairman for Asia and member of its Investment Committee. He is also former Chairman and Ambassador of the Singapore Venture Capital & Private Equity Association. Dr. Chi sits on board Aardvark Therapeutics (biotech company focused on metabolic and inflammatory diseases), AWAK (renal care company), Jing Jin Electric (SH:688280, Electric Vehicle Drivetrains) Matchmove Pay (Fintech), QYH (Carbon credit development company) and others. Dr. Chi also sits on the advisory panels of Monetary Authority of Singapore and Chongqing Connectivity Initiative (Financial services). He has also served on the board of SEEDS Capital (Investment arm of Enterprise Singapore) and on the advisory panels of the National University of Singapore Department of Industrial Systems Engineering and Management.
Dr Chi’s wealth of experience include investment banking (Partner at Pegasus Capital), strategy consulting (senior consultant at Monitor Deloitte) and operations (Managing Director of SpanDeck Engineering SEA) and Chairman & CEO of Vickers Vantage Corporation I (NASDAQ: VCKA), a US$138m SPAC sponsored by Vickers Venture.
Dr. Chi is a CFA Charter holder and a Chartered Valuer & Appraiser holder. He graduated from Cambridge University with 1st Class Honours in Engineering and earned his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in organizational knowledge and information technology.
Mr Soo Kee Wee
Mr. Soo is the Managing Director of Pristine Capital Pte Ltd, an asset management company from 2013 till to date. Prior to that, he was an Executive Director with UBS AG, Singapore branch, managing the Ultra High Net Worth clients within the UBS Wealth Management business. Mr. Soo has been active investing into the start ups, and other private companies, involving quite substantially with the investee companies with aim to bring them to public listing. Mr. Soo graduated from Materials Engineering from Nanyang Technological University of Singapore in 1995. He started out as an engineer for 3 years at semiconductor manufacturing company before joining Citibank, NA to be banker till late 2012.
Ms Kimberly Oleson
Ms. Kimberly Wong Oleson has over 30 years of proven clinical research experience in helping companies realize the commercialization of new medical technologies, including Class III devices. Ms. Oleson’s career includes industry roles that cover all stages of a medical device’s product lifecycle: product development, preclinical testing, first-in-human trials, pivotal clinical trials, regulatory registration, market launch and clinician adoption.
Currently, Ms. Oleson is the Principal Consultant of her own company, Lucent Clinical Consulting, founded in 2020, focused on serving the healthcare industry in accelerating the global commercial launch of products that improve public health.
Prior to founding Lucent Clinical Consulting, Ms. Oleson was at Danaher Corporation as the Vice President of Global Clinical Affairs, Danaher Life Sciences & Diagnostics Platforms, where she oversaw the group’s large clinical trial portfolio and established best-practice standards that improved on-time trial completion from 25% to 92%. Prior to her expanded role at Danaher, Ms. Oleson was the Senior Vice President of Clinical Affairs at Sunshine Heart, Inc, a start-up medical device company focused on commercializing an implantable Class III PMA medical device for end-stage heart failure patients.
Before Sunshine Heart, Ms. Oleson worked at Medtronic Inc for nearly 28 years, holding positions of increasing responsibility. In her last position with Medtronic as the Vice President of Global Clinical Operations, she established the company’s centralized global clinical operations group that supported a portfolio of >350 trials for the Medtronic Clinical Research Institute (MCRI). In prior roles at Medtronic, she was instrumental in directing global clinical and regulatory teams that completed pivotal trials for Class III devices for cardiac electrical mapping and ablation of heart rhythm disorders, oversaw clinical programs for a new steerable cardiac pacing lead design that opened new markets in cardiac HIS bundle pacing, created new preclinical research capabilities that accelerated the development of the world’s first MRI-compatible implantable stimulation devices and filed provisional patents on risk-based trial conduct. An early highlight in Ms. Oleson’s lengthy clinical research career at Medtronic was successfully leading the InterStim™ multicenter pivotal trial with an adaptive trial design that earned the company a Class III original PMA, two PMA supplements and U.S. Medicare reimbursement coverage for a novel implantable neurostimulator device.
For the International Standards Organization (ISO), Ms. Oleson is currently appointed by the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) as a Clinical Expert for Technical Committee TC210/WG4 that authored the ISO 20916:2019 (Good Study Practices for In-vitro Diagnostic Products) and as a Liaison Clinical Expert for Technical Committee TC 194/WG3 ISO 14155:2020 (Good Clinical Practices for Medical Devices).
Ms. Oleson graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Biometry/Biostatistics from the University of Minnesota, USA.
Mr Suresha Venkataraya
Suresha is the Chief Executive Officer of Vivance (formerly AWAK Technologies). He has spent over a decade in the medical technology space, enabling company growth, increasing revenues, and developing various innovative medical devices.
Prior to becoming CEO at Vivance, he worked for Hill-Rom, a US$5.4B (market cap) medical devices company (NYSE: HRC), as the Director for Front Line Care business, where he was responsible for developing and commercialising new products, and spearheading innovation culture. He joined as the first engineer in the newly formed division in Hill-Rom Singapore, helped the team to grow it substantially, and commercialised five medical devices across the globe.
As the leader of the Innovation and Technology Integration team, Suresha was instrumental in driving the patent portfolio of the Singapore division, which not only resulted in numerous patent applications but also opened avenues for new market growth.
He has acquired deep domain expertise in areas such as Respiratory Care, ECG/Cardio, Remote Patient Monitoring and Therapy Surface Technologies, and has navigated many complex products in these domains through 510 (K) and CE clearance processes.
Before joining Hill-Rom, Suresha was a technical leader at Robert Bosch, world largest automotive component supplier with a revenue of Euro 73B , where he provided leadership to a talented team of engineers in the development of cutting-edge engine control system solutions for world-renowned companies such as Daimler Chrysler and Mercedes.
For more than a decade he has cultivated extensive experience in the fields of Marketing, R&D, IP, QA/RA, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Clinical Affairs and Regulatory Affairs.
Suresha received a Master of Science degree in Computer Control Systems from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, and a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University, India.
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