Paul Flanagan
Paul is a managing director of Sigma Partners, pursuing new investment opportunities and leveraging his operations experience to aid entrepreneurs in creating successful enterprises. Prior to joining Sigma Partners, Paul was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer with VistaPrint Ltd. where he helped increase annual revenues from $40M to over $180M and led the company through its initial public offering, which raised $138 million and resulted in a market capitalization of $1.2 billion. Before VistaPrint, Paul was President and CEO of StorageNetworks, having previously served as executive vice president, COO and CFO. At StorageNetworks, he was instrumental in growing the company from a start-up to revenues of $124 million in three years, expanding company to over 700 employees in 16 different cities. Paul led the company through an initial public offering and subsequent follow on offering achieving a multi-billion dollar market capitalization. Prior to StorageNetworks, Paul was Vice President of Finance and Acting Vice President of Manufacturing for Lasertron, Inc. and began his career at Ernst & Young LLP as a senior manager in the Entrepreneurial Services, Audit Services, and Mergers and Acquisitions areas. Paul graduated with a B.S. in Accounting from Bentley College.
Geoff Pardo
Geoff Pardo joined Gilde Healthcare Partners in 2011 as a Partner working out of the office in Boston/Cambridge, MA and is focusing on Gilde’s investments in North America. He led the investments in InovaLabs and BionX and represents Gilde as a member of its board of directors. Previously, he was a Partner at Spray Venture Partners where he led investments into Interlace Medical (sold to Hologic), Solace Therapeutics, TearScience and Cascade Ophthalmics. He served on the board of Solace, TearScience and Cascade, and was actively involved in Interlace and Conventus Orthopedics. He also served as President and CEO of Facet Solutions, a spinal implant company focused on treating lumbar spinal stenosis until the company was sold to Globus Medical in 2011. He has also worked at Cardinal Partners as an Associate leading their investing activity in the medical device sector. He was responsible for sourcing and managing investments in Replication Medical and CardioOptics. He began his career in medical devices as a product manager with Synthes USA. While there he led the market introduction of a bone graft substitute which was named Synthes’ impact product of the year in 1999. Geoff has a B.A. with honors in History from Brown University and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business.
Mike Ellenbogen
Mike Ellenbogen is an Entrepreneur in Residence at General Catalyst Partners. Before joining General Catalyst, Mike was the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Reveal Imaging Technologies. Mike successfully led the company as President and CEO, achieving double digit growth in both revenue and profitability since its inception. At Reveal Imaging Technologies, Mike successfully, raised over $35M in venture capital, private equity and debt. Mike secured over $30M in Government funding to leverage the company’s product development investments, while maintaining control of core intellectual property. He drove successful company sale, providing over 8x return on investor’s equity. Mike is skilled at identifying market opportunities and translating concepts into specific product plans and growth strategies, planning and executing global business development programs to establish market share, drive revenue and achieve earnings targets. Mike holds a Physics degree from Colgate University, has been issued 16 patents in the field of X-ray inspection and automated detection technology and has been broadly published within the security industry.
Kevin Connors
Kevin Connors has served on our board since April 2015 and is an accomplished entrepreneur and venture investor. He has co-founded seven healthcare technology companies, and has had interim CEO roles in nine. These companies have focused on developing proprietary technology to address large un-met medical needs, such as emphysema, low back pain, uterine fibroids, and bladder dysfunction. Prior to founding Spray Venture Partners in 1996, Kevin was the founding CEO of Vesica Medical, a company focused on the surgical treatment of female urinary incontinence which was acquired by Boston Scientific Corporation in 1995. Prior to Vesica, Kevin led medical device investment activity at DSV Partners in Newport Beach, California. Kevin has served on the Board of Directors of the New England Venture Capital Association and MassMEDIC, the Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council. He has served on the Board of Directors of Cothrerix (acquired by Actrilign), Vesica Medical, Inc. (acquired by Boston Scientific), Masimo Corp. (Nasdaq: MASI), Pilot Cardiovascular (acquired by CR Bard), Circe Biomedical (acquired by Valient Pharmaceuticals), Gamera Bioscience (acquired by Tecan AG), and Endonetics (acquired by Medtronic). Kevin received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Dayton, and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.
Dr. Hugh Herr - Founder
A leading visionary in the research and development of Personal Bionics, Dr. Herr is the Founder of BionX, as well as the NEC Career Development Professor at the MIT Media Lab. He also holds a joint appointment at MIT’s Program in Media Arts and Sciences and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. He is the Director and Principal investigator of the Biomechatronics Group of MIT’s Media Laboratory. Herr received his B.A. in physics from Millersville University of Pennsylvania, an M.S. in mechanical engineering from MIT, and a Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University. Prior to coming to the Media Lab, Herr was Assistant Professor at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School. Herr’s research interests include bionics, biomechanics, biological motion control, and the advancement of human rehabilitation and augmentation technology for amputees and others with limb pathology. His earlier prosthetic invention, the Rheo Knee, was licensed and commercially launched in 2004 and currently has 20% market share.
Charles S. Carignan, MD – Chief Executive Officer
Chuck brings over 20 years of experience in medical device development to BionX. He has vast experience as a clinician, med-tech executive and CEO. He has had the opportunity to introduce a number of breakthrough technologies that have changed healthcare, navigating the clinical, regulatory and reimbursement challenges along the way. Before joining BionX, Chuck was founder and CEO of Ninepoint Medical, a developer of medical devices that enable high resolution in-vivo imaging. At NinePoint he was able to bring together an outstanding team who developed and launched the first product within 3 years of licensing the fundamental technology from Massachusetts General Hospital. Prior to that, Chuck was executive vice president and chief medical officer of Novasys Medical, Inc., where he was responsible for the successful launch of a device to treat stress urinary incontinence. Prior to Novasys he was Chief Medical Officer at Boston Scientific, and Vice President of clinical research and medical affairs at Conceptus. Chuck has served healthcare worldwide participating on committees of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Chuck trained in general surgery at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. He earned his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his MD degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University.
