Dr. Jeffrey Le Benger is Executive Chairman of the board that governs Summit Health, the health care network formed by the 2019 merger of Summit Medical Group and CityMD. Prior to becoming Executive Chairman in October 2021, Dr. Le Benger served as Chief Executive Officer of Summit Medical Group since 1999 and of Summit Health since 2019. He is a visionary and thought leader in physician group practice management, value-based care, population health management and other timely issues that impact the quality and availability of health care. During his decades of leadership, the century-old Summit Medical Group achieved unprecedented growth and success. He also serves of the board of Calviri Inc., a cutting-edge genomic company based in Phoenix, AZ focused on the prevention, diagnosis and vaccine development for early stage canine and human cancers. Dr. Le Benger is board-certified in otolaryngology, head and neck surgery, facial plastic and reconstructive surgery and he is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, American Rhinologic Society and American Society of Head and Neck Surgery. He earned his medical degree from New York Medical College and completed his residency at Mount Sinai Medical Center.

Joan Koerber-Walker is president & CEO of AZBio and Chairman of the Opportunity Through Entrepreneurship Foundation (OTEF).  AZBio and OTEF partnered to create, AZAdvances to support the creation and commercialization of Arizona-based health innovations.  View more

Navin Govind is a venture partner at Evidence Ventures, an angel investor, author of several original papers in peer reviewed journals and holds multiple issued patents. Navin is a frequent speaker and industry faculty for health technology innovation, startup advisory, health policy for digital health standards initiatives at TIA, HIMSS, IEEE and ETSI. He is the founder and executive chair of the b-eCare Connected Health Initiative sponsoring unique international, multi-center clinical evidence studies for improved chronic disease management.

Mitzi Krockover, MD, is a Managing Director of Golden Seeds, a national angel investing organization that funds early-stage women-led companies. She co-leads the Health Sector group, which evaluates early-stage life science and health care companies, and is a co-founder of the Arizona Chapter of Golden Seeds. A leader in women’s health and women’s issues, Dr. Krockover is the Founder and CEO of Woman Centered, LLC, a company dedicated to improving the health of women. Most recently, she launched the Beyond the Paper Gown podcast, a part of the Off Scrip Health Media Network, which aims to inform, inspire and engage women so that they can achieve optimal health. She was the founding Medical Director of the Iris Cantor-UCLA Women’s Health Center, designated a Center of Excellence by the Department of Health and Human Services. She then served as Vice President of Women’s Health for Humana Inc., where she was the company’s chief healthcare strategist and spokesperson for women’s health. Currently, she serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the Women’s Health Initiative of Springboard, an accelerator for entrepreneurial life science and technology companies led by women. She is also a Board member of the Black Women’s Health Imperative and Chair of the Board of the Institute for Mental Health Research.

Richard Upton is a General Partner at Harbor Light Capital Partners, a private investment firm seeking to invest in early-stage companies. Previously, he was the founder and President of Upton Advisors, LLC, a boutique investment bank serving middle market and emerging healthcare companies throughout the United States. Mr. Upton has been advising companies since 1993 both as a senior healthcare investment banker for Salomon Brothers and later as an independent advisor. Mr. Upton serves on the boards of Anuncia Medical (Chairman), Alcyone Therapeutics, Carmell Therapeutics and Medicinal Genomics Corp, and previously served on the boards of Home Diagnostics, Inc. (NASDAQ: HDIX – acquired by Nipro Corporation), Castlewood Surgical and Courtagen Life Sciences. Mr. Upton currently serves on the investment committee of the Endowment for Health and served 10 years on investment committee of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. He is also the former Chairman of The Pine Hill Waldorf School. Mr. Upton received his MBA degree from The Darden School at the University of Virginia and a dual BA degree in Economics and English from Amherst College.

Joan Koerber-Walker is president & CEO of AZBio and Chairman of the Opportunity Through Entrepreneurship Foundation (OTEF).  AZBio and OTEF partnered to create, AZAdvances to support the creation and commercialization of Arizona-based health innovations.  View more

Randal Schulhauser is the Senior Manager of Technology & Business Development at Medtronic. Randal holds four patents with another six applications filed at the US Patent Office. He has also published multiple articles in peer reviewed literature. His technical affiliations include the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO), International Society for Cardiovascular Translational Research (ISCTR) and Heart Rhythm Society (HRS, formerly NASPE). He is a current board member for the Arizona Chapter of the American Diabetes Association (ADA), and an industry representative for the American Heart Association (AHA).

Jyotsna Ghai, PhD serves as Global Head, Vice President Product Development, Roche Tissue Diagnostics.

Jyotsna is an accomplished executive with over 25 years of biomedical industry experience which includes successfully leading challenging technical and high visibility strategic programs through large multi-functional teams towards the development of implantable devices, drug-device combination/cross-labeled products, in vitro diagnostics instruments and assays. In her current role as the Global Head and VP Product Development, Roche Tissue Diagnostics (Pathology & Oncology) she leads product development functions including Oncology and Personalized healthcare Solutions, Assay Research Development, Systems Engineering, Software Engineering, and Digital Pathology. (Learn More)

Andy Muller leads corporate development for the Screening business unit at Exact Sciences, a publicly traded cancer diagnostics company focused on changing lives by providing earlier, smarter answers. In his role at Exact Sciences, he works with external companies to accelerate the realization of the Exact Sciences vision through investments, partnerships, and mergers and acquisitions. Prior to his time with Exact, Andy worked at the University of Wisconsin hospitals and at Epic, and has mentored numerous seed and pre-seed stage healthcare IT startups.  Andy holds an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and did his undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Mara Aspinall is a healthcare industry leader and pioneer with a commitment to active civic involvement. Aspinall is Co-Founder and Managing Director of BlueStone Venture Partners.  Aspinall also heads the Health Catalysts Group publishing the popular Health Catalysts Diagnostics Year in Review. Aspinall is an advisor to The Rockefeller Foundation on COVID diagnostics.

Aspinall is passionate about education on diagnostics, genomics, and personalized medicine. To that end, Mara co-founded the School of Biomedical Diagnostics at Arizona State University, the first school dedicated to Diagnostics as an independent discipline. Aspinall served as President and CEO of Ventana Medical Systems, now Roche Tissue Diagnostics, a $1 billion division of the Roche Group. Previously, she was President of Genzyme Genetics and Genzyme Pharmaceuticals.  Deeply committed to expanding learning, Aspinall was an active member of the US Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Council on Genetics, Health & Society (SACGHS) in the Obama and Bush administrations. Aspinall is also certified in Cybersecurity Oversight from Carnegie Mellon University.  Learn more

Jack Florio is a life sciences executive with almost 50 years of experience across the full range of life science companies from pharma / biotech, medical device, and digital health. His experiences span from early-stage company formation through late-stage capital raising and M&A.  This gives him a unique view of company formation, development, and eventual exit.

Jack is currently a Managing Director with Weild & Co. where he works with several other life science focused bankers on advisory, capital formation and M&A deals across the sector. He is also an angel investor with NuFund Venture Group and a Partner with Deallus, a global life sciences consultancy. Prior to this Jack was with Eli Lilly and Company for almost 30 years in 15 different roles domestically and abroad.

Over the last 21 years he has held operational roles in both small and large companies across the life science space in the US and Europe. Jack is with BIOCOM on the Capital Development Committee and Medical Device Committee

Jack has a BS in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Columbia University and an MBA from NYU/Stern School of Business.  He also holds FINRA series 7, 63, 79 and 82 licenses and is a Registered Representative of Weild & Co. member  FINRA/SIPC

Andy Lombard is CEO of AVC (Arizona Venture Development Corp.), a new organization designed to catalyze early-stage technology investment in Arizona. AVC backs exceptional entrepreneurs with bold ideas. We invest in early-stage technology startups across enterprise, consumer, and bio-health tech, while helping to catalyze access to equity capital for underserved founders and communities in Arizona.

Prior to AVC, Andy served as Executive Vice President, Business Development, Arizona Commerce Authority where  his responsibilities included Innovation and Venture Development programs like the Arizona Innovation Challenge (AIC), Venture Ready and Small Business Bootcamp.