MENTORING

Prof. Eric Achtmann: Award-winning innovator, entrepreneur, executive, and investor. He started his career fighting fires in the Middle East after Gulf War I; then moved on to the US Congressional Lean Aerospace Initiative, McDonnell-Douglas Phantom Works, and McKinsey & Co. Thereafter, Eric moved into venture capital, serving as a Managing Partner for two pan-European tech and life science (therapeutics, diagnostics, devices) venture funds. Eric proposed, architected, and brought to market the global fresh drinks vending system underpinning Coca Cola’s $5.1b acquisition of Costa Coffee and co-founded V-Nova, a London-based software company providing leading advanced video compression solutions (MPEG-5 II: LCEVC and VC-6). He is a Senior Advisor to McKinsey, Arowana Capital, and VivoPower plc; Non-Executive Director of Celdara Medical, Aclys Biotechnologies Corp., TargetArm, and VeriTX; Founding Member of Meggitt PLC’s Technology Advisory Board, AFWERX Mentor, and Expert Advisor to the European Commission. Eric holds degrees from MIT and other universities and is a Professor of Practice at MIT-cofounded Skoltech.

Joel Bresler is an accomplished executive with extensive experience in higher education, corporate leadership, and entrepreneurship. Skilled in general management, business development, and new service innovation, he has a proven track record of managing multimillion-dollar projects, negotiating contracts, and forging strategic partnerships. With a strategic mindset and deep understanding of technology, Joel excels in defining new products and services and overseeing their development. In his recent role, Joel retired after 11 years at Northeastern University's technology transfer office, where he developed the university's inaugural Gap Fund and provided guidance to professors and students in commercializing inventions. Earlier in his career, he co-founded two successful firms, one of which was acquired by Microsoft, and consulted for leading media and software companies like Ziff-Davis and Activision. Joel's career is defined by innovation, entrepreneurship, and a remarkable ability to drive success across diverse professional settings.

Piali De is a co-founder and CEO of Senscio Systems, developer of the patented Scio™ framework. This artificially intelligent inference engine contextualizes data in any domain into actionable intelligence and provides the perfect balance between technology and the right touch for individuals with complex health needs, resulting in fewer avoidable hospital admissions and improved health outcomes. Piali is the author of many publications, three patents, and one pending patent. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, and Sigma Pi Sigma honor societies and recipient of the National Women of Color’s 2009 Technology Innovation Award. In 2005, Piali received the Raytheon CEO Award, Raytheon IDS President’s Award, and Raytheon Business Development Excellence Award, for her work on profiling Marine Corps missions. Piali grew up in Calcutta, India. In 1982, she graduated Summa Cum Laude, from Hunter College of the City University of New York, with Bachelors and Masters degrees in Physics. In 1987, Piali completed the doctoral program in Physics at Brown University. 

Lisa Dufresne is an investment manager with the Boston based corporate venture team of PTTGC. GC, as it’s commonly known, is the flagship petrochemical refinery arm of PTT Group, the national oil and gas company of Thailand. GC invests in advanced materials, clean technology, life sciences, and industrial digital. Prior to joining GC, Lisa spent over 15 years at a consulting firm providing technical and commercialization assistance to startups and other small companies, primarily those receiving federal Small Business Innovation Research funds. These companies spanned a broad range of markets including chemicals, materials, medical devices and therapies, and energy.

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Lisa holds a MS in Environmental Engineering from Tufts University and a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

Barbara is a serial entrepreneur who has successfully launched many companies and products to market, energizing and aligning teams. Barbara identifies and manages opportunities to engage and grow the rich network of manufacturing resources offered in the region with the startups we serve, providing connections and support for both suppliers and startups. With an extensive background helping technology-based, business-to-business companies across industrial, automation and medical sectors, Barbara has a technical background and degree (BS, Northeastern University) and MS in management of innovation and technology (MSA, Boston University). With a superpower in product marketing, Barb has developed the messaging, business models and go-to-market plans for large and startup companies. She has helped attract funding for dozens of startups, and founded the STEM incubator TechSandBox, Southie Autonomy, TeleRadx, and CxO Management Group.

Marcella Garcia specializes in medical devices and Software as a Medical Device (SaMD), with a strong background in FDA regulations, quality assurance, regulatory and clinical compliance, risk management, design controls, cybersecurity, HIPAA, HITRUST, and SOC2. She is HCISPP and LQMS certified and offers fractional C-level or executive-level advisory and consultancy in Regulatory Affairs, Quality Assurance, Information Security, Compliance, and Operations. With ten years of executive experience in Class II/III complex electro-mechanical medical devices, digital therapeutics, AI/ML, in vitro diagnostics (IVD), control systems, and electronic diagnostic hardware, and over fifteen years working with complex technologies, integration, supplier management, and operational excellence, Marcella has technical expertise in building design history files, regulatory submissions, and leading audits and certification activities.

Veronica Gibaja is a Senior Biology leader enabling drug discovery teams; she has over 20 years of experience in drug discovery and early development, specializing in small molecule inhibitors with the potential to offer therapeutic options for oncology, hemoglobinopathies, virology, and epigenetically driven indications. Her career spans from her beginnings as a bench scientist at a large pharmaceutical company to senior leadership roles at small and medium-sized biotech firms. She has a proven track record in scientific proficiency and strategic execution, successfully identifying, characterizing, and advancing drug candidates to early development stages. Veronica has systematically delivered non-clinical pharmacology packages ready to support Investigational New Drug (IND) applications and first-in-human clinical studies. She is deeply committed to empowering teams to collaboratively translate science into therapies addressing unmet medical needs. Recently, she has been leveraging her technical acumen to support rising contract research organizations as a scientific advisor, aiding in the development and implementation of cellular assays for drug discovery projects.

Joe is well versed in all things innovation, from strategy to execution - with experience leading large, multinational R&D organizations, bringing new products to market in startup organizations, and building and validating value propositions and business plans for new technologies and products.  He spent 25 years in corporate leadership roles before starting his own consulting practice, where he helps companies innovate through great strategy, process, engineering, and intellectual property research.

Don Golini is a successful entrepreneur with extensive experience in the development, management, and commercialization of new technologies. Through SANICA Ventures, Don provides consulting and advisory services and is an angel investor. He currently serves as the Advisory Board Chair of the Luminate Accelerator, the world’s largest business accelerator for optics, photonics, and imaging (OPI) startups. Don was the founder and president of QED Technologies, a company that commercialized novel patented technologies aimed at the deterministic manufacturing of precision optics. The company was acquired in 2006 by Cabot Microelectronics and Don stayed on as president until 2010. He has also served as an adjunct professor at the Simon School of Business, was chairman of the Rochester Angel Network, and continues to advise several early-stage technology companies. Don is an Optica Fellow and is named on 7 U.S. patents. He received his B.S. in Optics from the University of Rochester and his M.S. in Electro-Optics from Tufts University. He currently resides on the New Hampshire seacoast and is passionate about startups and entrepreneurship.

Electra is the CEO of TAB Boston Northwest in Burlington, MA. With over 30+ years’ experience in the FinTech industry, she is a skilled executive who specializes in leading transformative changes in companies, delivering operational excellence, streamlined technology and empowering a diverse and engaged workforce at SSgA, State Street Research & Management, Eagle Investment Systems and BNY Mellon. Today, Electra helps forward-thinking business owners grow their businesses, increase profitability and improve their lives with business coaching, facilitating local business owner advisory groups, and optimizing talent strategies in organizations to achieve business results. As an Executive Coach, Electra helps top leaders move beyond self-limiting beliefs and engage in creative problem-solving leading to focused action and resilience. Electra holds a BS in Computer Science from Merrimack College and a Masters Certificate from Boston College’s Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics – Leadership for Change. She is also a certified partner of Predictive Index. 

A native of Worcester, MA, his career started as a Mechanical Engineer out of the University of New Hampshire, working for Teradyne Connections in Nashua, NH. With 15 years running my his own electro-mechanical rep business, he has worked with multiple verticals including Industrial, Medical Device, Electronics, Robotics, Defense and Med-Tech accounts. He has also worked at several high-tech firms including Fujitsu Consulting, Attivio and Elevated Resources. DavidI co-founded Kona DataSearch to bring data insights to the Salesforce user experience. He now advises entrepreneurs and invests in other start-ups to support their sales, marketing, brand awareness and go-to-market requirements.

Sanjeev is a seasoned entrepreneur with experience incubating and transforming businesses - resulting in successful exits. A proven executive who championed and executed innovation and turnaround strategies that resulted in increased revenues from new channels while optimizing operational investments. A leader, who listens, empowers individuals and consistently builds efficient teams to deliver successful results.

Sophia has 30+ years of experience in profit and non-profit organization management, local and international market operations, multi-country management team building, and crisis management during merger and acquisitions. Sophia started her career with the design and implementation of marketing research plans and strategic marketing guidance for multinational organizations like Unilever, PepsiCo,  KraftHeinz, CITIgroup, GlaxoSmithKline and PernodRicard. She has extensive experience managing teams with diverse nationalities, languages, work ethics and business practices.  Sophia’s experience includes development of marketing and communication plans, brand awareness generation, and effective story telling techniques for charitable organizations, chambers of commerce and business associations.

Mr. Karys has held senior software development positions, such as CTO/VP Of Product Development/VP of Engineering at companies, including but not limited to Data General, Amazon, mShopper, InterQual/Mckesson and Authoriszor. An international start-up evangelist , angel investor and a Mentor/Judge/ Presenter, he has supported several  start-up Accelerators, such as MIT Enterprise Forum of Greece, MassChallenge (Boston), TechStars (Cambridge) and others. He has advised numerous start-ups such as Soli, OpenRounds, Zoottle, MaterNova, CloudCarib, Mashlink and others.He enjoys working with new founders and helping to  shape their companies. 

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Eliot joined TD in 2012 and prior to TD held similar roles at other banks in the area;  his clients typically have annual revenues between $5 and 75 million. Eliot has enjoyed mentoring entrepreneurs and innovators for the past 7 years.

Earlier in his career, Eliot worked with not-for-profit clients in healthcare and higher education and has served on several not-for-profit boards.  Eliot now serves as a Trustee of Cotting School in Lexington.  Cotting serves kids from 5 to 22 with physical and learning challenges.  

Dr. Kotidis has been in the high-tech industry for more than thirty years and has commercialized numerous technologies in Life Sciences, Safety/Security, Industrial Process Control and Energy markets. He is currently serving as a Senior Commercialization Advisor for NobleReach Emerge, the investment branch of the CIA and the Intelligence Community, with particular focus on commercializing technologies with critical implications for US national competitiveness and security. He has advised numerous high-tech companies in strategic business development, technology commercialization, capital raising and expansion into new markets.  Dr. Kotidis has Ph.D. and M.S. in Aeronautics from MIT with a minor from the Sloan School of Management at MIT, and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens. He has been awarded 26 patents for various optoelectronic and algorithmic inventions.

Dr. Livada has been active in the innovation/entrepreneurship ecosystem for over 35 years. He has advised Global 300 type companies, research universities, regional organizations and startups on commercializing technology. Presently Val leads the Boston Center of the EU Enrich program, connecting European ventures to the US, and is working with MIT's Materials Research and Deshpande Centers to better connect. academia and industry. He is founder of the Corporate Entrepreneurship Network, sits on the Board of Directors of Aphios Corporation, The Built Environment Coalition, AutoHarvest Foundation and Monarch Antenna. He is also advisory board member for Greentown Labs, Mass Robotics, NU's Advanced Manufacturing Group, and Portugal's. BGI Incubator. Dr. Livada holds degrees from MIT and Tufts' Fletcher School and has taught at the Sloan School of Management at MIT and the Questrom School at BU.

Giorgio is an investor, corporate strategist, and startup advisor with extensive experience in venture building, strategic partnerships, and corporate innovation across Europe, the US, and Latin America. He co-founded an acceleration program for tech startups and previously held a senior management position in strategic marketing at a major semiconductor company. Giorgio holds advanced degrees from Yale School of Management, IE Business School, and Bocconi University. Since 2023, he has been leading the InnoEnergy US office, with a particular focus on supporting European companies in their go-to-market strategies in the US.

PJ McInnis is a proud alum of Avon Old Farms Prep School and Hobart College. During his time at Hobart, he majored in History and minored in Media and Society. He started his professional career working in sales at EdgeRock Technology Partners where he represented independent consultants to Fortune 500 companies. PJ then transitioned to IT Recruiting at CyberCoders. He shifted his focus to finance and pursued a position as a Mutual Fund Accountant at BYN Mellon. Following his time at BNY, PJ went to Broadridge Financial Solutions where he worked as a Client Services Manager for a revenue and expense management system. In November 2020, PJ was fortunate to achieve one of his professional goals of working within the alternative investments market by joining HarbourVest Partners. He is currently the Senior Manager of the Portfolio Analytics Operations Group. His role manages two distinct teams, (1) Inbox Group, responsible for handling all internal and external General Partner communication, and (2) Cash Flows, processing investment capital calls and distributions.

An experienced Physician with an MBA degree, rich experience in medical affairs and digital initiatives. Currently into a strategic leadership role in the vaccines industry with a vision to make the innovative medicines accessible and affordable to a wider population in the world.   Dr. Nageshwaran is also an angel investor with a VC group in Boston focusing on biotech space primarily.

Larry is a Certified Public Accountant, who retired from Katz, Nannis + Solomon, PC of Waltham-MA in 2016, after a 47-year-career. Over the last 35 years, Larry has worked with entrepreneurial companies that all levels of growth curve, providing accounting, auditing, tax and financial management advice designed to help the owners successfully grow their businesses and reach their desired exit strategies. He has served as "Expert-in-Residence" at TechSandBox, a technology incubator located in Hopkinton, MA. Larry was a VBA for Cohorts 8 and 11 of the National Goldman Sachs 10,000 small business program. He is presently an adviser for the Southeast Region of the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center. He has been a Judge for MassVentures START program and a Mentor for the first two cohorts on E For All - Roxbury.   

Charlie is the founder and principal attorney at Pascal Advisory LLC.  He concentrates his practice on representing technology and other emerging and established private companies. Charlie’s representation of companies spans the entire corporate life cycle.  Beginning with pre-incorporation planning, choice of entity, and formation, Charlie’s guidance continues through debt and equity financings, day-to-day corporate matters (outside general counsel), and ultimately the execution of an appropriate exit strategy, whether an acquisition, merger, or other transaction providing liquidity to stockholders.  A complementary component of Charlie’s practice is his representation of venture capital investors in connection with their investments in early-stage companies. Before founding Pascal Advisory LLC, Charlie was a member of the Business Law Department and of the Technology Companies Group at Goodwin Procter LLP and the Corporate Law Group at Gesmer Updegrove LLP and Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton, P.C.

Doctor of Pharmacy by training, dedicated pharmaceutical and biotech industry professional with a strong background in life-sciences consulting, portfolio strategy, and new drug commercialization. With a passion for bringing innovative therapies to market, successfully contributed to the development and launch of several lifesaving medications. Successfully managed highly efficient teams in both the United States and Europe, consistently exceeding organizational objectives.

Jack is a communicator. His professional career has always been in the communications field, first as a TV commercial writer and director, then with various advertising agencies, including his own, Rossin Greenberg Seronick. He published a business book (The Pawnshop Chronicles: Street Wisdom for the Business World) based on his experiences growing up and working in a pawnshop in Chester, PA.  Today, Jack focuses his activities on presentation skill training.  He teaches at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, a graduate school. He also runs presentation workshops for private companies including those in medical areas, biotech, high technology, law, construction, and consulting.

Currently, the CEO of RaySecur, Dr. Alexander Sappok is a tech entrepreneur with a proven track record developing and bringing to market disruptive innovations in historically conservative industries. Previously founder and CEO of an automotive tech startup spun out of MIT and acquired by CTS Corporation (NYSE: CTS) and experienced in scaling early-stage tech companies, building start-up teams, securing non-dilutive funding, structuring corporate partnerships, and M&A. Active advisor and mentor to technology startups in Boston. Strong technical and R&D background with 40+ peer-reviewed conference and journal publications, and over a dozen patents in energy efficiency, emissions systems, and advanced sensing. A frequent speaker at leading international conferences in the automotive and transportation space.

Steven is an angel investor, entrepreneur,  engineer,  university lecturer, and a mentor.  In  his  day job as a patent attorney, he chairs Nutter's Intellectual Property Department where clients of all sizes rely on Steven's counsel for managing their IP issues (portfolio development, strategy and evaluation, patent preparation  and prosecution, IP litigation, and licensing). Steven also conducts extensive due diligence analysis for angel and VC investments, M&As. He works with a wide range of technologies, including medical, electronics, computer software and hardware, cloud computing, routing, IoT, alternative energy, high performance computing (HPC), integrated circuit design, MEMS, semiconductor fabrication, and materials processing.  He is a member of Hub Angels and Launchpad Ventures and has advised numerous startups on growth strategy and raising capital. Steven is an adjunct faculty at Boston University, and a mentor for MIT's $100K Business Plan Competition, Venture Mentor Service, Sandbox, and DeltaV program.

Mr. Schmid is the Chief Operations Officer at Modular Medical, Inc.  and was the Chief Executive Officer at Common Sensing, Inc. (2018 - 2021), and a member of the Board of Directors (2015 to present). Kevin served as a member of the Board of Directors for Eitan Medical Ltd. in Israel (2018 - 2022) . He has worked at the Stevanato Group (a provider of innovative packaging and drug delivery solutions for pharma) as VP of Drug Delivery Systems.  Kevin has served as Insulet Corporation's VP of Business Development and Advanced Technology from 2011 to 2015. From 2003 to 2011, Mr. Schmid served as Vice President of Manufacturing and Vice President of Operations and Engineering. Mr. Schmid earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Clarkson University and an MBA from Sacred Heart University.

Barbara has over 25 years of experience in ensuring marketing initiatives drive business results for hi-tech companies. Barbara’s broad expertise in strategy, branding, and product marketing; she has helped corporations like Schneider Electric, Bose, and AFL Telecommunications successfully launch new products and services. She has also worked at small startups, including Avici Systems, (IPO featured on the TV show 48 Hours), and Tertill Corporation (a robotics company founded by the inventor of Roomba®).  Barbara enjoys working collaboratively with cross-functional teams to solve some of the most common business challenges including sales enablement, partner marketing, demand generation, employee engagement, and customer satisfaction. She is a passionate customer advocate and has led numerous initiatives to bring the customer’s voice into internal conversations about product roadmap and strategy. 

Ameeta drives breakthrough expansion for B2B, B2B2C, and B2G companies. She has extensive strategy, product, marketing, and business development experience with large multinationals and VC/PE-backed SaaS, AI, digital health, sensors, and tech-enabled services companies. Ameeta has founded technology companies, helped raise over $100M in venture capital, and facilitated two public offerings. Ameeta was CMO at engage2learn, PlatformQ Health, and VFA (now Fortive). In her consulting practice, she holds interim CMO/CRO roles. Ameeta is interim VP of Marketing at Dover Digital, part of the global conglomerate Dover Corporation. She was interim CRO or CMO at Carbon Relay, WorldAPP, DocASAP, and Assemble Systems earlier. Ameeta co-founded digital health company FitTrace, founded RFID services company Aanza AutoID Group and product lifecycle management software company Aanza. Ameeta serves on Maroon Venture Partners Fund's Investment Committee and has held board roles with portfolio companies HomeBinder (acquired by iGo), Ompractice, and TOP the organic project. She is a TiE Boston charter member and a past board member of PlumChoice, MIT Enterprise Forum Cambridge (Chair), and Technology Capital Network. Ameeta received her MBA from the University of Chicago, MS in Polymer Science and Engineering from UMass Amherst, and BS (Honors) in Chemistry from St. Stephen's College.

Judith Underwood is a social entrepreneur, educator, and environmentalist who co-founded Blue Innovation Labs, a public benefit corporation, in 2017.  Blue Innovation Labs is home to the BLUE Incubator serving 25 startups, and is spearheading the development of the first waterfront BlueTech innovation, education, and Blue Jobs hub on the US Eastern Seaboard - BLUE on Boston Harbor – a 9.5-acre deepwater site used by the U.S. Navy during WWII in the Climate Justice and Gateway City of Chelsea, Massachusetts. Judith is also the Founder, in 2016, of its sister nonprofit 501C3 Blue Institute that supports solutions for clean water and climate challenges through education, culture, and early-stage entreprenurial programming graduating 40 ClimateTech startups through the BLUE Excelerator.  Judith has 20+ years of technology transfer and science for economic development work at research and educational institutions including MIT, the United Nations, and the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy.  She has a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts Boston, a master’s from New York University, with additional coursework in environmental studies at Antioch University New England, and business innovation & entrepreneurship and national security from the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Judith supports her local community as a water/wastewater commissioner and serves globally as vice-chair of the education committee for the Marine Technology Society (MTS).

Alina is a Chief of Assessment at Duolingo, an EdTech company, and Founder & CEO of EdAstra Tech, an education consulting company. At Duolingo Alina and her team operate at the forefront of Computational Psychometrics. Her current research interests involve developing psychometric methodologies in support of digital-first assessments, such as the Duolingo English Test. She is an award winner author and sought after speaker. In 2020, von Davier was awarded a Career Award from the Association of Test Publishers (ATP). In 2018, she was a finalist for the “Visionary” Category from EdTech Digest. Prior to Duolingo she was a Chief Officer at ACT, where she led ACTNext, a large R&D-innovation unit. Before that von Davier was a Senior Research Director at Educational Testing Service (ETS) where she led the Computational Psychometrics Research Center. She has also led the Center for Psychometrics for International Tests (like TOEFL® and TOEIC®). Currently, Alina is the president of the International Association of Computerized Adaptive Testing (IACAT) and she serves on the board of directors for the Association of Test Publishers (ATP).  She has mentored for the Startup Weekend, in via:mentor—Mentoring Programme for Female Postdoctoral Researchers, University of Kiel, Germany. She earned her PhD in Mathematics from Otto von Guericke University of Magdeburg, Germany, and her Msc in Mathematics from the University of Bucharest, Romania.