almost 8 years ago
Excited to Announce the Addition of Stephen Kraus and Carla Small to Our Panel of Judges!
Stephen Kraus | Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners
Stephen Kraus is partner at Bessemer Venture Partners and leads up the firm's healthcare investing activities.
He currently sits on the boards of Welltok, Health Essentials, DocuTAP, Patient Steward, Allena Pharmaceuticals and Alcresta and is actively involved in BVP's investments in ClearCare. Steve has been actively involved in Bessemer's investments in Liazon, acquired by Towers Watson; Ovascience (NASDAQ: OVAS), Sirtris Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SIRT, acquired by GlaxoSmithKline);Affymax (NASDAQ:AFFY); Aveo (NASDAQ: AVEO); Alnara, acquired by Eli Lilly; Transave (NASDAQ: INSM); Stromedix, acquired by Biogen Idec, Verastem (NASDAQ: VSTM), Acceleron (NASDAQ: XLRN), Restore Medical (NASDAQ: REST), acquired by Medtronic, and Flex Pharma (NASDAQ: FLKS).
Steve has been recognized by Forbes Magazine as one of the top healthcare investors in the industry.
Prior to joining Bessemer, Steve worked for a growth-stage, private-equity firm and as a management consultant at Bain & Company. He has also worked on several political campaigns throughout his career.
Steve graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. from Yale University and earned his MBA from Harvard, where he was a Baker Scholar. He serves as Chair of the board of the New England Venture Capital Association (NEVCA) and the Achievement Network.
Steve regularly blogs on healthcare topics at www.hcvcs.com
Carla E. Small| Director of Innovation, Boston Children’s Hospital
Carla E. Small is Director of Innovation at Boston Children’s Hospital. She joined Boston Children’s in 2013, bringing extensive industry knowledge in health care, marketing, and business strategy as a consultant to start-up, mid-cap and Fortune 500 companies.
Carla oversees innovation and commercialization programs geared towards accelerating the transformative ideas of Boston Children’s clinicians and researchers. “We see our role as business partners with the hospital’s world-class clinical and research talent, helping them translate their ideas into technologies and treatments that improve pediatric care, globally.”
Since joining Boston Children’s, Carla has overseen the transition of the innovation program into the Innovation & Digital Health Accelerator (IDHA), a multi-disciplinary team that builds and scales market competitive digital health technologies. "Historically our innovation acceleration strategy has been focused on taking our own innovations and pushing them forward. Today, in the spirit of efficiency and looking at the most cost effective way to deliver solutions, we’re making a strategic decision to partner with industry and startups."
Prior to joining Boston Children’s, Carla founded Strategia Solutions, and before that was at strategy consulting firm Health Advances, consulting to medical device, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, diagnostic and direct-service health care providers. She also served on the Consumer Marketing Advisory Board for Medtronic Diabetes.
Carla is on the School Board for Codman Academy Charter Public School in Dorchester, MA. Previously, she worked at a startup, Work/Family Directions, where she launched a series of nationwide groundbreaking work-family benefits promoting a diverse, engaged workforce.
Carla received her MBA from the Harvard Business School and her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College.
Stay tuned, more judges to be announced next week!
Want to learn more about the MDP Innovation Challenge? Join us today at 2pm ET for an informational webinar http://bit.ly/1SdELrI #MDPHack