Joe Cook, III
Joe Cook III is a Principal and Co-founder of Mountain Group Capital (www.mgcfund.com), which Manages the Limestone Fund. Prior to his involvement with MGC, Mr. Cook was a Director, of Private Placements in the Investment Banking Group of Robert W. Baird & Co. in Nashville from January 2001 through February 2003. As head of Baird’s private placement group, he was responsible for the private placement of equity and debt securities for both private and public companies. During these two years, Mr. Cook helped originate and led the team executing nine transactions raising almost $400 million. Previously, Mr. Cook was a Vice President in the Investment Banking Group at J.C. Bradford & Co. in Nashville. He joined Bradford in July 1993 as a financial analyst, working on initial and secondary public equity offerings, public debt offerings, mergers and acquisitions and business valuations. From December 1995 through June 2000, he specialized in private finance, including leveraged buyouts and private debt and equity placements.
Mr. Cook is active on numerous boards in the community, and he is involved in many local non-profit organizations. He graduated with a B.A. in Economics from Davidson College.
John Harris
John F. Harris is President and CEO of NeuroVista Corporation (www.neurovista.com), an early stage medical device company developing technologies for the management and treatment of epilepsy.
Prior to his work with NeuroVista, John was a full-time consultant to Versant Ventures, a healthcare-dedicated venture capital firm with assets of $600 million where he helped assess medical device investment opportunities. Prior to his work at Versant, John was a founder and the vice president of marketing and business development for Northstar Neuroscience, a Seattle-based medical device company that he co-founded with Dr. Andrew Firlik that seeks to dramatically improve neurological recovery following stroke through targeted electrical stimulation of the brain. John is also the founder of Heartstream, a Seattle-based company that is revolutionizing the treatment of sudden cardiac arrest with uniquely designed defibrillators that make the deployment of these devices practical in a variety of settings. These heart defibrillators are now on all commercial aircraft in the U.S. as well as in public buildings, stadiums, arenas, and first responder vehicles and are responsible for saving thousands of lives. While at Heartstream, John held positions in finance, product management, business development, and marketing. Collectively, John has 16 years of experience in the development and commercialization of innovative medical device technologies. He received a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Stanford University and a master’s degree in business administration from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Hans Hickler
Hans Hickler is the Chief Executive Officer of Agility Logistics (www.agilitylogistics.com), Asia Pacific Region, responsible for managing customer requirements in the areas of Ocean and Air Freight Transportation, Contract Logistics (warehousing & Distribution), as well as development of supply chain solutions.
He joined DHL in 2005, and most recently served as Chief Executive Officer of DHL Global Customer Solutions, responsible for the customer relationship management of the group’s largest customers. Prior to that, he served as Chief Executive Officer of DHL Express in the United States. In that position, he focused on building out the DHL Express US network, and implementing numerous service initiatives; in this capacity, he devised strategies to bolster the company’s standing in the express shipping industry, and also implemented a recognized Customer Experience Initiative, aimed to deepen customer engagement and enhance customers’ experiences.
Hans started his career in the ocean transportation business, and for the next 20 years, he held senior positions including Sales, General Management, CIO for the NOL Group, and CEO of APL Logistics. Hans has served on the boards of several startup ventures in the automotive, technology and medical device sectors.
Brian Laden, Ph.D.
Brian Laden is a co-founder of TriStar Technology Ventures (www.tstventures.com), an early stage venture fund that focuses on forming and investing in companies in the area broadly defined as “Healthcare Innovation:” biotechnology, personalized medicine, medical devices, healthcare IT and healthcare services. Through his role at TriStar he serves on the Board of Directors for VenX, Molecular Sensing, GOBA and Diagnovus.
Prior to the founding of TriStar, Dr. Laden served as the Assistant Director in the Office of Technology Transfer and Enterprise Development at Vanderbilt University. That role involved leading various technology transfer functions for Vanderbilt, which included identifying, protecting, marketing, and licensing promising new technologies to companies of all stages and sizes as well as developing collaborative, sponsored R&D and material transfer relationships with industry. He also participated in the office’s venture investment and company formation activities. Since beginning as the Chancellor Fund in 2000, Vanderbilt invested a substantial amount of capital into 30 different Vanderbilt-related companies.
Before moving into technology transfer, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt, where his work focused on structure-function studies of the cytochromes P450. Dr. Laden holds a doctorate in Toxicology from the University of Kentucky, a master’s degree in Environmental and Industrial Health from the University of Michigan, and an undergraduate degree in biology from Penn State University.
Navroze Mehta
Navroze Mehta is the Managing Director of MDI Partners (www.mdipartners.com), which specializes in early-stage medical device development. Prior to that he was the Founder and Vice Chairman of NovaVision Inc., a venture backed neurostimulation medical device company that restores vision in stroke and traumatic brain injury patients. Mehta has 15 years of experience managing life science and technology companies. He co-founded NovaVision in 2002, guiding the company through the FDA clearance of its Vision Restoration Therapy (VRT) device, the accumulation of 50 Partner Centers and three rounds of financing. Before joining NovaVision, he co-founded Dermdex/Skinstore, a medical technology company that specialized in practice efficiency solutions for dermatologists and plastic surgeons. Mehta successfully managed the sale of Dermdex/Skinstore to Salu Inc; Skinstore currently has revenues over $40 million and was the 2006 recipient of Inc’s 500 fastest growing companies in the US. Prior to co-founding Dermdex, Mr. Mehta was the president of Boca Global, a subsidiary of Boca Research, where he was responsible for directing the day-to-day operations of a $70 million NASDAQ company involved in developing internet appliances, thin client and data communications solutions. Before joining Boca Research in 1998, Mr. Mehta was president and CEO of Comark Communications, Inc. a high tech designer and manufacturer of television transmission systems and a wholly owned subsidiary of Thomson CSF, a $7 billion global electronics company.
Mr. Mehta received an MBA from Syracuse University and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Sydenham College at the University of Bombay, India. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in the State of New York, a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and past chairman of America’s Gateway Chapter (YPO) in Miami.