THE TEAM
EYAL GEFFEN
DIRECTOR OF THE SPARK FUND
As Spark Fund Director for the CRI, Eyal Geffen is responsible for the strategic and operational leadership of the fund.
Eyal has 20 years of demonstrated success in management and hands-on positions as a technology entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He has vast experience working with startups, large enterprises, and venture capital firms. Eyal’s experience is further enriched by a record of creating and running new ventures.
Eyal is a founder and Managing Partner of Sky Ventures Group, a Boston-based investment group providing funds to young and emerging companies in life-sciences and healthcare.
A dynamic and visionary leader, Eyal is passionate about building exceptional technology, savvy teams, and game-changing companies. His solid technical acumen complemented by deep understanding of the innovation and investment landscape is singularly advantageous for this founding Spark Fund role.
Eyal earned a B.Sc in Business Administration from Touro College and an MBA from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
BRICE TENNANT
Marketing and Program Manager
As the CRI’s Marketing and Program Manager, Brice is responsible for communicating the value of Northeastern’s use-inspired technologies and operationalizing programs that connect R&D executives with Northeastern innovators in order to stimulate collaborative research and licensing opportunities.
Prior to joining the CRI team, Brice was the founder and CEO of International English Group, a boutique firm catering to the educational needs of international professionals. Brice holds two advanced degrees in philosophy and history from Boston University and George Fox University.
Henry Kay
Henry Kay is an active angel investor. He retired from Boston Scientific in 2006, where he was Group Vice President of New Market Development / Strategic Planning, Endosurgery Boston Scientific Corporation (BSC). Prior to joining BSC, Henry was based in the UK for five years as Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing for Allergan Europe, a global eye care company. He has 35 years of experience in the medical industry in roles which include R&D, International Marketing, Regulatory Affairs, and Strategic Planning for major pharmaceutical companies, including Schering-Plough, American Home Products, Sterling Drug and Allergan.
Henry is a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine (UK). He serves on the Boards of several start up health care companies, including Smart Cells (sold to Merck in 2010), Cool Systems, Avaxia, Christcot Medical, and Cannuflow. He was a member of the board of Directors of Microfluidics, a public company in the equipment space for pharmaceutical manufacture (sold to IDEX in 2010). Internationally, he serves on the boards of 3 Canadian Medical Device companies (Cellaegis Devices, MyndTec and Exact Imaging in Toronto. He is a mentor with the Venture Mentoring Service of MIT and works closely with the Canadian Consulate in Boston to mentor Canadian startups. He serves on the Board of Overseers of Beth Israel-Deaconess and Newton Wellesley Hospitals. In addition, he is serving on the boards of Neurofibromatosis (NF Inc.) and JF&CS, both nonprofit organizations. Henry holds Bachelors (Augusta College) and Master’s Degrees in Chemistry from Rutgers University, and an MBA in International Marketing from Seton Hall University. Henry is a past President of Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Henry and his wife Laurie have one grown daughter and reside in Weston, Massachusetts.
Henry ANCONA
Henry Ancona has over 30 years of management experience with large and small global technology-based companies. He currently serves as executive advisor, board chair/member, and angel investor to technology companies.
Henry brings strategic, operational and leadership development experience to his advisory and board service. He was President at Pegasystems, and CEO at Evidian, a cybersecurity software company which he founded. Earlier, Henry held senior management positions both in Europe and in the US at Digital Equipment (now HP).
As Executive Advisor, Henry teams with CEOs and Boards on a broad range of strategic, operational, people, financing and board issues to achieve growth and profitability. His clients include companies in healthcare, AI and software businesses.
Henry is a venture partner at Companyon Ventures, and an angel investor in software and softwareenabled businesses such as HubSpot and Carbonite.
Henry has served on the Board of Directors of many private and public technology companies. He currently serves as Board Chairman at Medisafe, a digital health company, and Board member at BlueConic, a customer data platform company, at Frase, an AI based software company, and at Verne Global, an Icelandic data center company.
Henry holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, and BS and MS degrees from MIT in Computer Science. Henry is fluent in French and Italian, and has lived in Europe and the Middle East.
Kevin Scanlon
Dr. Kevin Scanlon is currently Professor of Practice at Northeastern University, Boston, MA. He received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology at the University of London. His career spans roles in academic medicine, senior management in the pharmaceutical industry and biotech companies, as well as an investor. Dr. Scanlon’s notable academic achievements include: Leukemia Society Scholar, Paul Martini Medical (Cancer) Research Prize (Germany), Co-Founder and Editor of the Nature Journal “Cancer Gene Therapy”, President of the International Society of Cell and Gene Therapy, co-authoring 135 peer-reviewed scientific articles and nine medical books. Dr. Scanlon also holds seven issued US Patents. At Berlex-Schering (Berlin, Germany), he was responsible for their genomic and cancer programs in the US, Europe and Asia. He was C0-Founder & CEO of Melanoma Diagnostics, which was sold to Myriad Genetics. Dr. Scanlon was identified by Los Angeles Techweek for significantly impacting the local business and technology communities. Dr. Scanlon was Chairman of Pasadena Angels Investment Group, executive member of the Tech Coast Angels in Los Angeles and investment advisor to Sky Ventures in Boston.
MICHAEL MCGREAL
Michael “Mike” McGreal is a results oriented, data driven strategic leader with a proven track record in creating high performance teams, industry leading service delivery, highly satisfied clients and exceptional returns for investors.
Mike currently serves as Chief Corporate Development Officer for The Stepping Stones Group (SSG), a leading provider of special education and autism services, providing therapy to over 125,000 children across the country. In this capacity he oversees acquisitions as well as post-merger integration activities. Since joining SSG, Mike has closed six accretive acquisitions increasing SSG’s revenue by 190%.
Prior to joining SSG, Mike was the Chief Operating Officer for Ieso Digital Health, a UK based provider of on-line mental health therapy. He oversaw Ieso’s US operations and supported business development efforts.
Previously, Mike held multiple executive roles with Beacon Health Options (formerly Beacon Health Strategies), a managed behavioral healthcare leader. As one of Beacon’s first 5 employees and its EVP and Chief Operating Officer for the majority of his tenure, he was responsible for business operations including operations strategy development and implementation for the company that grew from 10 employees in 1 office to 1,200 employees across 18 offices in 12 states managing behavioral health benefits for 12 million members with $500M in revenues.
He also serves as an Advisor to Workit Health, an innovative digital substance wellness company providing a therapy platform for employees and their families.
Mike is an active member of Sky Ventures Group, a life science and healthcare investment platform introducing start-up organizations to leading healthcare investors and strategic thinkers.
He has participated in multiple due diligence processes of organizations in the following markets: biotech, healthcare services, healthcare technology, and medical devices.
He also serves on the board of the non-profit, Community Investors, Inc. The organization is dedicated to providing community based activities improving the physical and mental health of adolescents. In the past he has also volunteered with multiple youth groups including Little League Baseball and American Youth Football.
Mike received his MBA from Babson’s Olin School of Business and his bachelor’s in Business Finance from Framingham State University. He also completed Executive Educational programs through Harvard Business School.
Richard Corley
Rich has over 30 years of experience in building technology-based startups in the Boston area. With six successful startups under his belt Rich continues to explore how to capitalize on emerging technologies and trends.
Rich has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University and continues to support the University at many levels. Rich is an active advisor to NU’s IDEA Venture Accelerator and is a member of the McCarthy Venture Mentoring Network.
Jon Leibowitz
Jon Leibowitz is a business operator and owner with over 30 years’ experience working in high growth environments. He is a founder, investor and/or active advisor to a number of companies, including Amplifire, Claris Healthcare, ConnectMeMore, Spring Loaded Technologies, Westgate Consulting, WikiDoc, Lighthouse Learning, and Pri-Med. Previously Jon served in leadership roles at Questex Media, Calloway Labs, M|C Communications, Fidelity Capital Companies and Reed-Elsevier. He also serves as an investment advisor to Sky Ventures, as a member of the Beth Israel Deaconess Board of Advisors, as a member of the Wharton Alumni Angel Network and as a member of the Pleio board. Jon has a BA from Hamilton College and an MBA from The Wharton School of Business.
RObert Nagle
Robert Nagle has spent over 4 decades as a leader at software innovation businesses, in domains spanning Artificial Intelligence, Design, Computer Graphics, Rational Drug Design, Data Management and Analytics providing solutions to markets as diverse as Healthcare, Government, Financial Services and Retail/Distribution/Logistics.
He has helped grow or has run businesses ranging from startup up to $500m of annual revenue. A mathematician by training, he spent five years in the 1990s working with Nobel Laureate Martin Karplus in the Chemistry department at Harvard. For a decade, beginning in his mid 30s, he was a highly successful professional athlete (extreme sports). He has conducted business operations in the US, in Europe, in S. America and Asia.
For the last 5 years, he has concentrated on the startup ecosystem, serving as advisor or mentor to emerging companies. He has board experience in both the for profit and non-profit sectors. He is an active angel investor.
DOminic Tong
Dominic Tong, M.D. is an entrepreneurial and accomplished physician executive with diverse healthcare practice and management experience in the academic, public and private sectors, and senior executive experience in the biopharmaceutical, medical device and diagnostic industry with the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies and early-stage life science companies. His therapeutic areas (industry) are broad and include: cardiovascular, immunology, orthopedics and spine, sports medicine, tissue regeneration/repair, neurology, pain.
Dr. Tong currently serves as a consultant or medical advisor with a focus on early-stage technology development in the life sciences and healthcare occasionally serving as interim medical director or chief medical officer. He is medical director and medical advisor for several digital health start-up companies.
Dr. Tong leverages his business and technology development experience to provide creative insight and real-world relevance to young entrepreneurs as they attempt to transition technologies from the university lab to the market.
Professional experience and education include training in internal medicine and diagnostic radiology at major academic and public institutions: Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons (M.D.), UCLA, UC San Diego, University of Hawaii (B.A.), United States Public Health Service, Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.
Vincent Ling
For the past 30 years, Dr. Ling led successful groups in diverse biotechnology fields including cell devices, protein engineering, biosimilar cell line production, molecular immunology, stem cell differentiation, checkpoint inhibitors and antibody /alternate scaffold evolution. He has held leadership positions in large, midsized and start-up environments, creating practical medical technologies. His current interests lie in novel drug delivery technologies, which includes drug particles, energy guidance and biomaterial scaffolds. Dr. Ling serves as Senior Director within Search and Evaluation, Center for External Innovation (Business Development) in Takeda . Prior to Takeda, Dr. Ling was Head of Biological Sciences developing Encapsulated Cell Therapies (ECT) for wet AMD at Neurotech. He has held positions including Vice President at Dragonfly Sciences, managing all scientific operations and marketing functions, Director of Molecular Genetics at Adnexus (Compound Therapeutics), and other scientific roles in Discovery Research at Genetics Institute and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.
EDUCATION
- BA, UC Berkeley
- MS and PhD, University of Illinois
- Post-doctoral training, Harvard Biological Laboratories