O P E N A C C E L E R A T O R

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Mentors

OA Mentors are highly skilled and experienced professionals guiding and supporting the startups throughout challenging acceleration phase. However, at the OA we see mentoring also as a two-way partnership between parties with different levels of experience. It provides invaluable opportunity for both parties to learn about themselves and each other and to grow in their professional field. Very often the relationship built during the OA program continues also afterwards, as mentors frequently join the startup in an official advisory role.

Rosa Aiello

Business Development Manager for the European affiliates at Zambon SpA

After a degree in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at University of Padua, Rosa worked as researcher at VIMM (Venetian Institute Molecular Medicine) focusing her work on proteins crystallization. During these 4 years she concluded a PhD in Molecular Sciences. She started working in Zambon in 2010 after a master in Management and Biotechnology as junior business development specialist. Now she is responsible for the Business Development of the European affiliates of Zambon where she coordinates the activities of scouting of local and multicountries projects, the feasibility of the opportunity, the negotiation of the deals.

Alessio Ascari

CEO of GenomSys SA

CEO of GenomSys SA, a Swiss company focused on developing state-of-the-art technologies and services for genomic data processing. Also President & Founder of A&A Digital SA, advising on digital health both startups and large corporates, as well as on BTL marketing and consumer behavior telecom players mainly in emerging markets. In summer 2020, orchestrated Amicomed, Inc.’s sale, the company he founded in 2012 and from which stepped back in 2016. Amicomed offers Digital Therapeutics to help people manage and reduce blood pressure without adding medications, via a CE-marked medical device Class IIa software and a fully automated lifestyle improvement program. Until 2012, Senior Partner in McKinsey & Company, Inc., with focus on Technology and Telecommunications globally. He developed a multi-year experience on greenfield business building, new services/devices go-to-market, in Europe and Emerging Markets, as well on the impact of new technology on consumer behavior. In this context, in 2009-2012 he founded and led the Firm’s Global mHealth Initiative, partnership between Healthcare and Telecom, Media & Technology practices, on the impact of new technologies on Healthcare delivery, He holds a ME Summa cum Laude from Polytechnic of Milan, Italy, and a MBA with Distinction (Henry Ford II Prize) from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France.

Emilio Attolini

Founder, President & Managing Director Globalcare Medical Technology Hong Kong, Ltd

Entrepreneur, angel investors and member of the board in four startups. From 1995 to 2008 he has been founder and CEO of Medel Group Spa, leader in Medical Devices in Italy, then he remained as President till 2015. In 2013 Founder and Chairman of the Board of ActiveAction S.r.l , a start up offering the latest technology in medical devices combined with telecommunication and information technologies to provide patients with a comfortable and accurate medical assessment of their blood pressure, cardiac and sleep functions. In 2015 to date, Founder, President and Managing Director of Globalcare Medical Technology HK, a leading company manufacturing medical devices in China. Overall, Emilio has a 25 years’ experience in the production and sourcing of medical devices, electro medical equipment, and in the commercial management of the Pharmacy channel.

Sajni Chotai

Corporate Development Associate at Huma Therapeutics

Corporate Development Associate at Huma Therapeutics responsible for strategic partnerships, finance and M&A. Background of 3+ years in M&A and Corporate Advisory at Evercore and HSBC.

Luca Cialdella

Ecosystem Advocacy Group Leader Italy at IBM

Luca Cialdella has been with IBM for 22 years, during which he held various roles in the technical and commercial fields, for the development of innovative solutions. In the last years he has been involved in digitalization projects of corporate business processes, taking care of the implementation and customization of dedicated platforms. Since January 2019, he leads a team that supports startups and IT operators, helping them in the implementation of cloud and artificial intelligence solutions and that, through the promotion of dedicated programs and a rich ecosystem of partners, allows easy and quick access to IBM technologies.

Paolo Crivelli

VP Client Services at Ismar Healthcare

Paolo leads the Ismar Healthcare NV Global Client Services Team that supports Pharmaceutical, Medical Device and IVD companies, extracting relevant science data and the clinical experience of thought leaders, to drive appropriate adoption and market penetration of new technologies. He also covers the Role of Administrator of Ismar Healthcare Italy S.r.l. Previous experience as Corporate Vice President Strategic Marketing in DiaSorin, a Global Diagnostic Specialist company, Paolo was based in Italy and in USA and executed more than 30 assay launches in Infectious Disease, Bone & Mineral, Hypertension. In Medtronic, the world N1 medical device player, Paolo held EU and EEMEA Head of Marketing Positions, restructuring MKTG Teams in Gastro-Uro and in Neuro, executing launches in the Neurological Division. In Yamanouchi/Astellas as Business Unit Manager, launched and grew Omnic (Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia), reaching Market Leadership in Italy. As Europe Brand Director based in the Netherlands, with a newly developed European Brand Team sustained Omnic European Leadership. For Boehringer Mannheim in Italy, managed drugs such as Aulin (N1 NSAID) and Laevolac (Hepatic Encephalopathy). Paolo holds a Degree in Pharmacy at Università degli Studi di Pavia and a Postgraduate course in Leadership Capabilities at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Renato Del Grosso

Co-founder & Chief Strategy Officer at Cube-Labs

Experienced executive in biopharma/medtech industry heading up the market access function in Italy (national/regional). Currently serves as Co-Founder of an holdings in life sciences (Cube-Labs) which accelerates and seed invests into R&D projects from Academia. Mentor at several accelerators across countries (Italy, Switzerland, UK, US, Poland, Germany). Legal background coupled with Executive Masters in Finance and Health Technology Assessment. Based in Milan.

Thibaud Eckenschwiller

Head of Strategic Operations at Zambon SpA

Thibaud joined Zambon from Ipsen where he was President and Managing Director of the Italian branch. Under his tenure the affiliate underwent a cultural transformation that led to a sales growth acceleration, putting Ipsen among the leading companies in terms of growth in Italy, successfully launching three new oncology products over the last two years. Besides, between 2015 and 2018, Thibaud was President of Club Santé Italie, a Think Tank whose members are 40 leading French healthcare companies operating in Italy (cumulative sales approx. 3bn € with 10,000 employees in Italy). Before moving to Italy, Thibaud led also the Spanish affiliate, increasing profitability and market share during the Country's worst economic crisis. Thibaud had the opportunity to actively participate to Ipsen's transformation, joining in 2003 to prepare for the IPO at first, and then to develop the emerging markets (Latin America, Middle East and South East Asia), contributing to its international development as well as to the growth of its Specialty Care business. Previously, he spent 12 years at Novartis, in Switzerland, Denmark and Italy where he had increasing responsibilities in Finance. Thibaud graduated in Biochemistry from the ETH Zurich. He is French National and fluently speaks French, Italian, English, Spanish and German. He is French Foreign Trade Advisor since 2016, nominated by the French Prime Minister.

Marco Frontini

CEO of Link Up

Marco Frontini is CEO of Link Up, founded in 1999 immediately after studying business administration. The company develops custom made software projects and IT solutions with a focus on Healthcare. In 2016 he created Datareg, a spin off of Link Up, a data registry platform that enables clinical analytics and artificial intelligence, sold in 2020 to Deloitte. Between 2007 and 2010 he promoted a humanitarian telemedicine project in Chad, in collaboration with the European Union and ACRA for the Chad Health Organization Group. The experience marks the decision to experiment with new IT applications with the desire to combine innovation and efficiency of services for citizens. The result is ParEnt, a platform for parenteral nutrition of premature babies, officially adopted by SIN - Italian Society of Neonatology. More recently, the prestigious COD19 and COD20 created for UNIMI Faculty of Medicine and Surgery with ASST FBF-Sacco, to manage the covid19 emergency first and to virtualize hospital processes in the daily clinic. A pioneering virtual hospital experience supported by Amazon AWS, which is its official partner. Frontini is also CIO for Cerba Healthcare and CSV Life Science; consultant for Baxter spa and the Sant’Agostino Group. Several speeches as Guest Speaker at round tables and conferences on the topic of digitalization of the healthcare sector, including the latest AWS Initiate 2020 Italy focused on COD20, as a successful case study.

Michele Gaiotto

CEO of HTH, Health Technology Holding

Michele is currently CEO of HTH (Health Technology Holding), a Venture Capital Investment company dedicated to life sciences. The company invests in early/mid stage companies with breakthrough innovation in Life Sciences. He sits in various biotech/medtech companies Board of Directors. Previously, he was responsible for Life Science Venture Investments for Secofind, a leading Family Office backed by pharmaceuticals entrepreneurs. Michele has a MSc in Statistics and is a CFA Charterholder.

Gerard Gregg-Smith

Managing Director of GGS Associates

Gerard Gregg-Smith is Managing Director of GGS Associates, which provides investor introductions and executive search. Clients range from early stage start-ups to international listed companies. Gerard invests in companies across various sectors, and is available for non-executive and other roles. The executive search focuses on senior appointments, both executive and non-executive. Sectors include healthcare and life sciences globally, as well as other sectors. He has appointed a number of CEOs, CFOs, Business Development and other senior executives and board directors in Europe, Asia and the US. He has raised capital for a number of companies, from early stage start-ups to profitable companies with valuations over £100m. He started his career with 10 years in the pharmaceutical industry, initially with Chugai Pharmaceutical (now part of Roche) in Japan, then with Glaxo in the UK. He then worked for 15 years in investment banking (M&A), living and working in Asia, America and Europe, starting with Baring Brothers in London, then Japan for another 5 years, and culminating by joining KPMG Corporate Finance as a Partner responsible for healthcare and life sciences corporate finance, globally. He then established his own business, GGS Associates, in 2006. He is a mentor and judge at MassChallenge, Cleantech Challenge, ZCube Open Accelerator, Innovation Forum and MedTech Super Connector, and an Innovate UK Assessor.

Christoph Gugl

CEO at Evoleen

Chris is a digital healthcare pioneer with proven international track record in creating and building next generation innovations. Passionate and creative out-of-the-box entrepreneur coaching high performing startups

Olivier Magnin

Strategy Manager at Huma Therapeutics

Strategy Manager at Huma Therapeutics, responsible for strategic partnerships, finance and M&A. Background of 5+ years in Venture Capital / M&A and Strategy & Operations at fast growing technology companies.

Yinka Makinde

Head of Innovation

Yinka is an experienced healthcare and technology Leader, Entrepreneur, and ex Pharmacist. With a demonstrable track record in programme management; innovation strategy and delivery in healthcare; partnerships development [domestic and international]; healthcare policy; building innovation ecosystems; leadership education; and digital health market evaluation. Now Head of Innovation at NHSX, she spent 4 years as Programme Director at DigitalHealth.London (DH.L). Prior to this she led a number of quality improvement projects for Imperial College Health Partners, one of the founding partners of DH.L. Yinka has spent more than 25 years in healthcare. She has held both delivery and business development leadership roles in global IT outsourcing consultancies – Accenture and CSC. Yinka practiced as a front-line Pharmacist for 12 years across England, Singapore and Australia. Working within primary care, acute care, mental health and pharma.

Alessandro Milli

Head of Global Commercial Excellence at Zambon

Alessandro Milli works in Zambon since June 2017, leading the Global Commercial Excellence and a transformational program aimed at ensuring Execution of the Strategy, maximizing customers’ impact and capturing all growth opportunities. His core areas of interest are currently Sales Force Effectiveness, Advanced Analytics, Field Force Training and Customer Engagement platforms for Pharma Industry. Alessandro has a solid knowledge and experience in Pharmaceutical Commercial Excellence due to his previous experience as a Commercial Excellence Manager in Teva and in previous roles in Eisai, Cegedim Dendrite and Menarini Group. Alessandro earned in 2005 a Degree in Mathematics from the University of Florence.

Luca Ravagnan

CEO and co-founder of WISE Srl

Luca Ravagnan is the CEO and co-founder of WISE Srl (www.wiseneuro.com). He holds a PhD in Physics (2005 – University of Milan) and an MBA (2018 – SDA Bocconi). He has long-term experience in basic and applied research in the field of nanotechnology. He developed and patented the innovative technology on which the activity of WISE is based. Since 2011 he received numerous Italian and international innovation awards, among them the “TR35-Joung Italian Innovators Award 2011”, the “Start Cup Milano Lombardia Award 2011”, the “Sapio Prize for the Italian Research 2012”, the “Up Start Paolo Traci Award 2013”, the “Bocconi Start-up Day Award 2015” and the "Medtech Innovation Challenge Award 2017” by Assobiomedica. From 2019 he is member of the Management Board of the Lombardy’s Life Sciences Cluster.

Luigi Roggia

CEO & Head of Data Science Apply Science

Master’s Degree in Physics provided Luigi with a solid mathematical and scientific background. He started his professional career in the world of computational Physics, running mathematical models of complex systems on distributed grids of servers. Those years granted him an advanced experience in Information Technology. Then, as a consultant, he moved to Statistical Learning and quantitative modeling, an experience that soon did turn into Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. While his skills were evolving, the clients he worked for were, one after one, lead companies in many fields, from manufacturing to marketing and finance. As a result, today he has a senior profile, a lead data scientist, who built, led and trained many successful Data Science teams and that can bring the added value of having seen many different use cases and of having both IT and Mat/ Stat skills.

Lecturers and Coaches

Luca Benatti

CEO EryDel and Chairman of IAB – Italian Angels for Biotech

Alessandro Giaume

Director of Innovation - Ars et Inventio / Business Integration Partners

Karolin Hiller

Counsel - Rechtsanwalt/ Attorney McDermott Will & Emery

Dario Mazzella

Digital Skills Program Manager, EMEA at Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Fabio Miraglia

Founder and CEO of Lifeseeder Spa

Gian Marco Rinaldi

Counsel presso Bird & Bird

Antonio Pelliccia

Business Development Healthcare & Life Science at IBM Italy

Alice Ravizza

Founder, USE-ME-D srl - Member of the Board, bioPmed

Elisa Stefanini

Regulatory Lawyer, Counsel at Portolano Cavallo

Jovan Stevovic

CEO Chino.io

Silvio Traversa

Adjunct Professor at Università degli Studi di Torino

Paola Ruggiero

Trademark Attorney at Studio Legale BIRD & BIRD

George Winfield

CEO and co-founder Spyras

Mantas Venslauskas

CEO UAB Vilimed

Marta-Gaia Zanchi

Founder & managing partner at NINA Capital

Fabio Tinello

Head of Project Development at Italiassistenza spa

Luca Gambini

Partner at Portolano Cavallo