People category: Board

Jane is a powerhouse in the life sciences sector.  A 2024 PharmaVoice 100 honoree, she leads a global team of medical directors, guiding biotech firms through the complexities of clinical drug development and asset strategy. 

Before her tenure at Syneos, Dr. Williams held senior leadership roles at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, where she directed medical policy, and at Parexel, where she provided strategic oversight for global vaccine and pulmonary programs. Her corporate expertise is uniquely informed by 15 years of clinical practice as a family physician and her status as a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians (FAAFP). 

Jim is the CEO of the DRK Foundation, and he brings more than 30 years of experience in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. He is an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, as well as a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Public Leadership and Hauser Center Institute for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University. Jim serves on the boards of numerous foundations and organizations, has served as CEO of two public companies, and is a member of the Bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 

Stephen Jones serves as Executive Director of the Stanley Family Foundation, with the mission of reducing the burdens of Serious Mental Illness through basic scientific research for translation to therapeutics.  He serves as a Trustee of the Stanley Medical Research Institute, is the Managing Partner of his law firm, Jones, LLP and has served on numerous nonprofit Boards of Directors. He attended Williams College, Exeter College, Oxford University and Fordham University School of Law. 

Joanne Kamens has advanced the leading edge of science in the academic, pharmaceutical, and nonprofit world. She earned her PhD in Genetics from Harvard University. After completing thesis work, Dr. Kamens spent nearly twenty years in the pharmaceutical industry as Senior Director of Research Collaborations at Abbott Bioresearch Center and RXi Pharmaceuticals Discovery respectively. She then became the Executive Director of Addgene, overseeing its expansion into a leading international research biorepository. Dr. Kamens is an advocate for inclusive and equitable workplace culture as well as health equity through open access to research reagents and resources. Under her leadership, Addgene was named #1 Place to Work in Massachusetts by the Boston Globe. She now serves as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) consultant for a variety of organizations.

Ruchika Kumar has over 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry providing advice and counsel on biotech/pharmaceutical regulation & compliance, digital health, market access, privacy and clinical trial innovation. She is an experienced lawyer with a demonstrated history of working successfully in the biotechnology industry. Prior to joining N-Power Medicine (a venture-capital backed startup) as General Counsel, Ruchika spent 17 years at Genentech-Roche as Associate General Counsel. She has won many awards that recognized her strengths as an effective collaborator, a strategic thinker, a leader driving for results, and influencing through open and practical communications. Ruchika possesses a developed leadership interest in elevating individual and team capabilities and bringing others along to solve complex business issues. She has a keen interest in creating societal impact through science and technology.

A member of the MIT Lincoln Laboratory from 1979-1981, Neil and two colleagues spun-out and scaled, American Power Conversion (APC). Over the ensuing 26 years as its CTO and director, Neil helped APC grow from zero to $3 billion in revenue, with the company frequently recognized as one of America’s hottest growth companies. 

He holds 30 patents related to high-efficiency and high-density data center power and cooling infrastructure and has published more than 60 papers related to power and cooling systems. Neil is currently working to advance the science of high-efficiency, high-density, scalable data center infrastructure solutions and is a principal architect of the APC InfraStruXure system.  He is a Life member of The MIT Corporation and a trustee of the Neil and Anna Rasmussen Foundation

Lisa Serwin has a 25+ year career leading start-ups and established organizations in the healthcare, consumer product and retail sectors. She is the co-founder of C-Sweetner—a nonprofit that matches senior women in the healthcare industry with mentors so they can thrive in C-suite leadership positions. She has also served as CEO and in other leadership roles at a wide variety of technology and healthcare companies where her responsibilities have ranged from strategic planning to closing on multiple rounds of financing. Lisa has an M.B.A. from Loyola Marymount University and B.A. from U.C.L.A. 

Garabet Yeretssian, PhD is an experienced executive and scientific leader in the non-profit, biotech and academic space. Currently, Dr. Yeretssian is a Science Program Manager at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, where he is responsible for managing initiatives related to inflammation and rare pediatric inflammatory diseases. Previously, he has worked as the Director for the Helmsley Charitable Trust’s Crohn’s Disease Program, where he was responsible for providing the visionary leadership for a multimillion-dollar scientific and clinical portfolio, defining a long-term vision and establishing a strategy for the Crohn’s Disease Program. Prior to joining Helmsley, Dr. Yeretssian was an assistant professor in the Immunology and Tisch Cancer Institutes at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai where he led a research team investigating the implication of innate immune and cell death mechanisms in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, colorectal cancer and other gastrointestinal disorders.