Howard is a Managing Director and focuses on healthcare investments at Asahi Kasei, a diversified conglomerate based in Tokyo. A physician by training, Howard has over 20 years of experience investing in innovative public and private healthcare companies. Prior to Asahi Kasei, he was an investor at Hambrecht and Quist Capital (a leading healthcare fund) and Advent International (one of the largest global private equity firms). His early career includes time at The Advisory Board Company and Goldman Sachs.
Howard received his AB in Economics from Harvard University where he was a member of the Varsity Tennis Team. He then received his MD from Tufts University School of Medicine. Howard lives in the Boston area with his wife and three children.
Jennifer Miller is Executive Director, Commercialization for CVS Kidney Care® at CVS Health. In her current role, Jennifer has responsibility for commercial strategy, market insights, and commercial operations across a portfolio of products and services designed to support those living with Chronic Kidney Disease and End Stage Renal Disease.
Jennifer has spent over 15 years in the medical products industry, including roles in new product development, product management, global marketing, commercialization, and sales management. She has spent most of her career in the renal space with both market leading firms and start-ups, with a focus on home dialysis therapies and products.
Jennifer received her Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University, and is currently in the Executive MBA program at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business. She also serves as a Community Board member for the American Diabetes Association of Illinois. She lives with her husband, Steve, and two children in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
Michael Pimental is Partner & Co-Founder of CVS Health Ventures and Senior Director of Business Development, for CVS Health. In his current role within Strategy & Business Development, Pimental has led partnership and investment activities in several key strategic areas of focus, including, diagnostic testing, social determinants of health, oncology genomic testing and dialysis services.
Pimental joined CVS Health in 2011 and held previous roles in Finance and Corporate Development (M&A). During his time in Corporate Development he was deeply involved in the strategy development and execution of transactions including the more than $70 billion acquisition of Aetna.
Pimental earned his bachelor’s degree from Stonehill College. Previous to CVS, he worked in financial services.
Prior to joining the UW Center for Dialysis Innovation and Kidney Research Institute as the Director of External Relations & Patient Engagement, Glenda V. Roberts was an Information Technology executive with over 35 years of experience. Before going on dialysis, Glenda managed the progression of her disease throughout her career via diet and exercise for over 40 years. Refusing to accept limitations, she enjoyed a fulfilling career, evolving from a software developer to a senior business executive managing multi-million-dollar business units for top-caliber corporations, including General Electric, Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson. Since her transplant in 2010, she’s completed eight half marathons.
Keisha L. Gibson, MD, is Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics and Chief of Pediatric Nephrology in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also the Vice Chair of Diversity and Inclusion for the Department of Medicine. Dr. Gibson received her medical degree and Masters of Public Health degree in epidemiology from UNC Chapel Hill. She completed a residency in general pediatrics at MUSC in Charleston and fellowship in pediatric nephrology from UNC Chapel Hill. She is board certified in pediatrics and pediatric nephrology. Her research and clinical interests focus on lupus nephritis and other glomerular diseases. In the area of epidemiology, she is interested in ethnic and socioeconomic disparities and their effect on patient outcomes. She has been involved as a co-investigator with large consortium studies such as the Nephrotic Syndrome Network Study (Neptune Study) and the Cure Glomerulonephropathy Network (Cure GN Study). Within the ASN, Dr. Gibson has served in several capacities. She has served as a member of the American Society of Nephrology’s Program Committee and worked as a founding member of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She has been a Cabinet Member for the ASN Foundation Campaign and served on the ASN Glomerular Disease Advisory Group. As an ASN Treks mentor, she provides mentoring for students and residents interested in potential nephrology careers and research.
Kevin Longino has been Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Kidney Foundation since 2015. He first became involved with the organization in 2008 as a volunteer advocate, and in 2012 he joined the national Board of Directors. As CEO, Kevin leads a team headquartered in New York, NY, and field offices around the country. NKF is supported by thousands of volunteers nationwide and serves millions of patients and healthcare providers seeking support and education every year.
Before his tenure at NKF, Kevin held executive positions at Compaq Computer Corporation. from 1987-2000. After his own diagnosis with kidney disease, he became an entrepreneur, an angel investor, and mentor to several startup technology companies, including the successful start-up ClearFactr. Kevin served on the Board of Directors for Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores, Inc. and was member of its Audit Committee and Special Committee.
In 2004, Kevin received a life-saving kidney transplant after at-home peritoneal dialysis and is now 17 years “kidney strong”. He readily shares his story and uses his experience to help other kidney disease patients.
Kevin earned a post-graduate diploma in Financial Strategy from Oxford University, England. He holds a BS in Marketing and MBA from Louisiana Tech University. He lives in Greenwich, CT, with his wife.
After back-to-back chronic illness diagnoses of Multiple Sclerosis and Inflammatory Bowel Disease in her 20s, Jackie Zimmerman turned to the internet to find a way to cope and build a support system. Blogging became the outlet she found and she quickly realized that she wasn’t the only one benefiting from her stories. Jackie became a professional blogger and public speaker and in 2012 formed a nonprofit called Girls With Guts to uplift women living with Inflammatory Bowel disease.
Through the process of blogging and developing communities, Jackie honed her skills in digital communications by learning to design websites, create brand recognition and build online courses. She has now turned those into a full time career in her company Queen of GSD. Though she holds degrees in graphic design and information science, Jackie really built her digital marketing skills through the desire to tell her story and she is most passionate about helping others in the chronic illness community learn to share their own stories.
Dr. Lisa Hehenberger is an Associate Professor in the Department of Strategy and General Management at ESADE Business School and Director of its Center for Social Impact. She is a renowned expert on social entrepreneurship, venture philanthropy, impact investment, and entrepreneurship. Dr. Hehenberger is a member of the Impact & Sustainable Finance Faculty Consortium set up by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern and a member of CNBC’s Disruptor 50 Advisory Council, a group of leading thinkers in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship. She is also a member of the Academic Working Group on Impact Measurement and Management of the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) at Duke with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
Dr. Hehenberger’s research focuses on market building as an entrepreneurial project in the contexts of social entrepreneurship, venture philanthropy, and impact investing. She is the author of numerous books, policy papers, and practitioner reports and has published in the most prestigious academic peer-reviewed journals in management, such as the Academy of Management Journal, as well as in practitioner-oriented publications, such as Stanford Social Innovation Review. She is a member of the scientific board of SDA Bocconi School of Management’s Impact Investing Lab and has served as advisor to the EU-funded research projects SEFORIS (social entrepreneurship for innovative and inclusive societies) and ITSSOIN (impact of the third sector as social innovation). Dr. Hehenberger launched the ESADE Center for Social Impact, through which she is engaged in numerous research projects (e.g. on migrant social entrepreneurship, social impact bonds, venture philanthropy, impact investing in Spain, etc.) and set up ESADE’s impact community and the Social Impact Lab of the MBA to connect ESADE students with the impact sector.
Dr. Hehenberger sits on the advisory boards of impact investing funds such as Creas, Rubio Impact Ventures, Oryx Impact Fund, People and Planet Partners, and Seastainable Ventures and of Lyfebulb. She has advised organizations such as World Wide Fund for Nature, Repsol Foundation, and Meridia Capital Partners on their impact investment strategies. For six years, she was the Research and Policy Director of the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA), the pan-European association for venture philanthropy and social impact investment, where she currently serves as a strategic advisor on research and policy. She also represents the ESADE Entrepreneurship Institute as the academic partner of the Spanish National Advisory Board on Impact Investing (Spain NAB) and served on the French National Advisory Board and the Impact Measurement Working Group of the Social Impact Investment Task Force established by the G8.
Dr. Hehenberger has a PhD in management from IESE Business School and a master’s degree in business and economics from Stockholm School of Economics and HEC (CEMS). Previously, she worked in investment banking at Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in London and at GB Investment Banking in Madrid and Barcelona.
Dr. Ram Raju has a distinguished career of over 40 years as a healthcare provider, teacher, researcher, and community organizer. In his role at Northwell Health – the largest provider in the state of New York serving 2 million people every year in the New York metro area and beyond – Dr. Raju set the strategic vision to improve population health by examining the existing programs aimed at improving the health system’s response to the needs of its most vulnerable communities and working with local organizations to address them.
Prior to joining Northwell, Dr. Raju was the President and CEO of NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC), the largest public health system in the country. Dr. Raju was appointed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in January 2014 to lead the 37,000 employees of this $7.3 billion corporation, which includes 11 acute care hospitals, five nursing homes, six large diagnostic and treatment centers, more than 70 community-based health centers, a large home care agency, and one of the New York area’s largest providers of government-sponsored health insurance, MetroPlus Health Plan. During his tenure, he rebranded HHC, implemented EPIC EMR, set a new vision for HHC, and successfully managed the Ebola crisis in NYC.
From 2011 to 2014, Dr. Raju served as the CEO for the Cook County Health & Hospitals System (CCHHS) in Chicago, the third-largest public health system in the country. His proposed healthcare delivery model fetched the much-coveted 1115 Waiver to the Social Security Act, enabling the creation of CountyCare, an Illinois Medicaid program that provided health coverage for more than 182,000 low-income Cook County residents. Dr. Raju’s further recognition that patients are more likely to use care they can access near their home resulted in the development of a network of more than 130 primary care access points through partnerships with FQHCs, safety-net and community hospitals, academic medical centers, and private doctors.
Dr. Raju has served on many local, regional, and national organizations, including as past Vice-Chair of the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) and as board of Trustees of America’s Essential Hospitals and Healthcare Association of NY State (HANYS). He is president-elect of Asian HealthCare Leaders Association (AHCLA), Board Trustee of the American Hospital Association (AHA), a trustee of the NY Academy of Medicine, a board member of NYS Office of Professional Conduct, and was appointed to the NYC Board of Health by the Mayor of NYC. His community activities include serving as a board member of Community Board 2 and Iron Hills Civic Association and a member of the NYS Board of Medicine and Director of NYS OPMC. He served on many FSMB committees and serves as an alternate delegate for the FSMB House of Delegates.
Dr. Raju earned his medical diploma and Master of Surgery degree from Madras Medical College. He underwent further training in England and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. Dr. Raju is also a physician executive, having obtained an MBA from the University of Tennessee and CPE from the American College of Physician Executives.
Jeffrey Yang is the Chief Technology Officer at Lyfebulb. He spent the past 20 years working with early-stage companies and helped launch over 50 companies and products. He founded Arabella LLC, a digital product agency, in 2011, which was acquired by Roman Health Ventures in 2018. As a specialist in building product and engineering teams for early-stage companies, he has worked with some of the most innovative healthcare companies such as Oscar Health, Ro, and Calibrate. Jeff received his BS in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.