Advisors

 BS Aerospace Engineering (93) UCLA Samueli, MBA (02) UCLA Anderson
   Over 25 years in the aerospace industry as a leader of high performing teams at the Boeing Company. Deep experiences in program management, supply chain and product development - including research and development. President of Spectrolab, a Boeing subsidiary company since 2015 - a world leader in space solar cells and airborne lighting products.

 Sarita A. Mohanty, MD, MPH, MBA, serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer of The SCAN Foundation. The SCAN Foundation is one of the largest foundations in the United States focused on improving the quality of health and life for older adults. Its mission is to advance a coordinated and easily navigated system of high-quality services for older adults that preserve dignity and independence. Previously, Sarita served as the Vice President of Care Coordination for Medicaid and Vulnerable Populations at Kaiser Permanente. Sarita was previously Assistant Professor of Medicine at USC; Chief Medical Officer of COPE Health Solutions, a health care management consulting company; and Senior Medical Director at L.A. Care, the largest U.S. public health plan.
   
   Sarita completed her Internal Medicine residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and research fellowship at Harvard Medical School. She earned her MD from Boston University, MPH from Harvard University, and MBA from UCLA. She completed undergraduate work at UC Berkeley. She currently is an Associate Professor at the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine and is a practicing internal medicine physician with Kaiser Permanente. Sarita enjoys international travel, tennis, and spending time with her husband and three children.

 Following several years as a project and program manager, managing increasingly complex and involved IT and process improvement projects, in both his native Michigan and California, Judd received an MBA in 2008 from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Upon completing his MBA, he led program management teams at two large financial services firms. For the past eight years, he has worked in corporate planning and strategy, managing a large project portfolio as well as process improvement and strategy efforts across Illumina, the world’s leader in DNA sequencing systems and solutions.
   
   He lives in San Diego with his wife and two kids, enjoying youth sporting events, playing baseball and volleyball, and sailing on San Diego Bay when time allows.

Mr. Fields is involved in all aspects of data center development, including site selection, land acquisition, permitting, and utilities interconnection and procurement. Prior to joining Google, he worked at SolarReserve developing Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) and Photovoltaic (PV) power projects, in the U.S and Australia.  In that role, he negotiated agreements to acquire or lease over 10,000 acres of land, managed the interconnection process for over 600 MW of generation, and progressed permitting activities on 40+ projects. Mr. Fields has also worked in Commercial Real Estate Development and Acquisitions at Karlin Real Estate and Bond Companies, where he sourced and underwrote over $450 million of office, multi-family, retail and hotel properties.  He authored a white-paper on the advantages of green building and cutting-edge sustainable development. Before joining Bond Companies, Mr. Fields was an Assistant Vice-President at UBS Financial Services in New York. He worked in their Alternative Investments Group, conducting due-diligence and placing over $1 billion of capital into various hedge funds and private equity firms. 
   
    Mr. Fields has his MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania.

Jim Jusko -- Jim is an adjunct faculty member at UCLA and an entrepreneur in the healthcare and communications fields. He proposed and led a 2019 UCLA Health Innovation Challenge Award project focused on the clinical value of patient stories and is now developing technology to bring unprecedented healthcare price transparency to the public. He is an advisor to a pioneering company in the development of AI to access the world's growing body of medical evidence and a producer of innovative ed-tech content for the Surgical Sciences Lab at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine. Jimhas served on UCLA's medical Institutional Review Board overseeing patient safety in clinical trials and led a team in the Amazon Alexa Diabetes Challenge. His career has included work as a television producer and executive roles in sales, joint ventures, financing, and acquisitions. He is a graduate of UCLA and UC Berkeley School of Law.

Tamar Fuhrer, AICP leads business operations for the Facilities & Engineering department at Kite, A Gilead Company. She joined Kite in 2018 to develop and implement a transportation strategy for the company before pivoting to business operations. Prior to joining Kite, Tamar spent a decade in the transportation planning & engineering sector, working at both a mid-sized transportation firm and at LA Metro. She enjoys developing context-specific solutions that are scaleable and sustainable, and particularly loves working with a diverse group of stakeholders in her current and in former positions. She holds a BA from Columbia University and a MScPl from University of Toronto. Outside of work, Tamar volunteer bakes for Cast Your Bread, competes in dog agility with her two dogs, and runs and cycles with her husband, Jon, a proud Bruin!

Alex is an investor at Vive Ventures, a brand new venture fund investing in leading early-stage digital health and health tech start-ups. Prior to Vive, he led sourcing and recruitment for the Cedars-Sinai Accelerator in Los Angeles. Alex graduated from the full-time MBA program at UCLA Anderson in 2019, where his studies focused primarily on the intersection of early-stage technology and healthcare.

 Brian is a Director in the Global Commercial organization at Kite Pharma. In this capacity, his responsibilities include global expansion strategy, commercial operations, and digital health.
   Prior to Kite, Brian spent 7 years as a consultant with Strategy&, a part of the PwC network, in the Global Markets, Health New Entrants and Innovators, and Enterprise Strategy practices. He was a founding executive at Augmedix, Inc., the world's first Google Glass enterprise healthcare startup and member of the 5th class at Rock Health. His started his career at Medtronic, Inc., in field sales and marketing.
   Brian is a graduate of Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering in 2006, with degrees in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering. He also holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson as a 2013 alum.

 Dan Selz is a Senior Impact Manager at XPRIZE, where he leads the Alumni Network of over 200 teams from ten past prizes, helping them grow to scale both during and after the competitions. He also leads impact work for active prizes including XPRIZE Rainforest, XPRIZE Rapid Covid Testing, and XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion, bringing together ecosystems of partners to help the technological breakthroughs of the competition translate into massive real world impact. Before this role, Dan was a Lead Prize Designer, creating new prize designs, predominantly in our environmental domain. Dan joined XPRIZE after earning an MBA at the USC Marshall School of business where he was awarded the Chaltiel Scholarship and inducted into the Beta Gamma Delta honor society and earned certifications for technology commercialization and entrepreneurship. His career before XPRIZE spanned the globe, bridging entertainment and politics, and included writing a Bollywood movie in Mumbai, India and leading presidential campaign turnout efforts in Lansdale, Pennsylvania.

Michael Leitch is the Technical Manager for the $20-million NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, leading the technical and scientific operations of the XPRIZE competition. With ten years of experience in engineering and the trades, he has a keen interest in the commercialization of high-end research and has spent most of his career leading collaborative research & development projects bridging industry and academia.
   
   Mr. Leitch is trained as a machinist, holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Calgary, and an M.Sc. in Engineering Management from the University of Alberta. A carbon-fiber enthusiast, outside of the office you can find him racing high performance sailboats and bicycles.

David J. Whelan serves as Chief Executive Officer of BioscienceLA, the catalyst for life sciences and health innovation in the greater LA area, with a mission to accelerate the growth of funding, space, and talent, as well as messaging and awareness-building. Having spent 20 years in Los Angeles, he is passionate about leading the growth of a vibrant ecosystem that will create new opportunities for all stakeholders.
   
   Dave was an integral part of the creation of New York Genome Center, where he served as Senior Vice President, Business Development & Chief Strategy Officer. Recent engagements include incubating a digital health and media start-up, steering a multi-year strategic and financial plan for a leading synthetic biology organization, launching a cancer diagnostic spinoff from a leading hospital, and developing a market assessment and strategic plan for an innovative integrative healthcare research institute. Dave has spent many years as a start-up advisor, mentor, and judge with organizations like Larta Institute, Cedars-Sinai Accelerator, and Women Founders Network.
     He holds an MBA with Honors from the UCLA Anderson School and a BS in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, and he remains very involved in alumni activities with both schools. He also studied at London Business School and Carnegie Mellon University.

Neama Dadkhahnikoo comes to the XPRIZE Foundation with 12 years of experience in entrepreneurship and technology management. He leverages his expertise in artificial intelligence and startup development as Technical Lead on the IBM Watson Artificial Intelligence XPRIZE.
   
   Prior to joining XPRIZE, Mr. Dadkhahnikoo was most recently the CTO of CaregiversDirect (AI startup for home care), co-founder and COO of Textpert (AI startup for mental health), and a startup consultant. He started his career as a Software Developer for The Boeing Company.
   
   Mr. Dadkhahnikoo holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson; an MS in Project Management from Stevens Institute of Technology; and a BA in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, with a minor in Physics, from UC Berkeley.

UCLA's first Chief Sustainability Officer, Nurit Katz is working to foster partnerships among academic, research, and operational departments to facilitate creating a world class living laboratory for sustainability at UCLA. Nurit has also served as Executive Officer for UCLA Facilities Management for five years and is an Instructor for UCLA Extension's Sustainability Certificate Program. Nurit holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, a Masters in Public Policy from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and a BA in Environmental Education from Humboldt State University.

  Angela Hsiao is a Director of Product Management at PatientSafe Solutions where she focuses on using technology to address challenges within clinical communications and collaboration, ultimately improving the experience of patients and caregivers.
   With over fifteen years of experience in the software industry, Angela has broad experience having held roles in product, development and marketing at companies including Amazon, Adobe, and MyFitnessPal(Under Armour).

Richard Passov has more than 25 years of leadership experience across technology and life science companies. He helped capitalize Sun Microsystems through its hyper-growth phase, leaving to join Intel, where he became one of the first employees in Intel’s venture capital group. He helped steer Pfizer through $250 billion of acquisitions, strategic reviews of R&D productivity and the outsourcing of clinical trials, and he led the divestiture of Zoetis and its successful IPO. He is on the board of OffAssignment and the finance committee of OneAcreFund. He received a B.A. and MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles and an M.S. in operations research from the University of California, Berkeley.

Danny Yu has a track record of revenue acceleration, industry impact and value creation. He has been able to execute on emerging market opportunities by applying his experience as a repeat venture-backed entrepreneur, global corporate VP and senior venture capitalist. He has a passion for building purpose-driven teams as well as leading the digital and sustainable transformation of physical-world B2B industries.

His operating experience spans early through growth stages for SaaS and hardware companies. He has helped multiple startup businesses reach more than $100 million in revenue and has managed company-wide global business segments exceeding $600 million.

He has been part of two exits to global, corporate acquirers (Daintree/GE, Lumileds/Philips), as well as a board director for 12 early-to-growth VC-funded startups, with six exits to major acquirers. He received a B.S. from Stanford University and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Danie Beukman is a director at Kibo Global, an international strategic advisory firm, and chief operations officer for a stealth SaaS startup. Much of his work in government and the private sector has centered on helping companies navigate problems in areas where tried, trusted, traditional engagement approaches no longer cut it, as well as thinking through global policy and regulatory implications for product design and go-to-market strategies.

He has worked with a range of governments and international organizations to build and harmonize new approaches to disruptive technologies and business models, both as a consultant and most recently as head of global government relations for a major autonomous vehicle developer. He is currently a member of the advisory board of the US | NZ Council, and he has advised the World Economic Forum on disruptive technology issues.

He has spoken to diverse audiences across the world on technology policy, the future of mobility and innovation-forward public affairs, and he represented clients at the World Economic Forum, APEC, the OECD, the UN and the WTO.

He is a former New Zealand diplomat and trade negotiator. He was on the New Zealand–China Free Trade Agreement negotiating team, led investment chapter negotiations for the ASEAN–Australia–New Zealand Free Trade Agreement and participated in WTO Doha Round negotiations on sustainable development.

While in the diplomatic service, he served as New Zealand's deputy chief of mission in South Africa during New Zealand's last UN Security Council term, shaping political and commercial relations across 13 southern African countries. He was also posted to Washington during President Obama's second term, where he worked on Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement negotiation issues, climate and fossil fuels subsidy reform.

He lives in Los Angeles with his fiancée and an enormous elderly Doberman.

Serge Gonzales creates uncommon solutions to common problems. He fiercely advocates for the role of the innovator mindset in solving multi-disciplinary challenges. He speaks and teaches workshops on the discipline of innovation at universities; advises companies on creating sustainable innovation that creates impact; and mentors startups and entrepreneurs on strategy, product, execution and cultural transformation. He has advised international government entities on creating innovative solutions in community engagement, health services, civic action, corporate innovation, intelligent cities and several other areas. He is a prolific inventor, with more than 24 patents issued in a broad range of categories, and he has many more still under review at the USPTO.

In his former role as director of innovation programs at eBay, he designed and built a comprehensive innovation ecosystem in which one out of every six eBay employees was an active participant. More than 20% of prototypes going through the program received funding, and almost 60% of those sponsored concepts were launched to customers.

Beyond his work in innovation, he pursues his passion for unlocking human potential. An aspiring polymath, he is an avid life hacker, delving into topics involving health, wealth and lifelong learning. His post-collegiate work involved developing gene therapy vectors and cancer vaccines. He co-founded a disruptive education program that helps students at under-resourced schools. He also co-founded the World Memory Tournament Federation with the world-record holder in memory, Dave Farrow. His recent work has been focused on creating economic opportunity, empowering inclusive narratives and nurturing human connectedness.

Peter Kung is senior vice president and chief strategy officer for Hospital Sisters Health System. He previously served as vice president and chief innovation officer at SCL Health (Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth) in Denver. Prior to SCL Health, he worked at UCLA Health and Health Sciences in Los Angeles for 14 years. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Irvine; a master’s degree from Claremont Graduate University; an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management; and a Master of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary. He is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.

Farbod Hagigi, Ph.D., MPH is CEO of ClinicalBox, a healthcare technology company digitizing and automating care coordination, patient engagement and administrative interactions between payers and providers. At ClinicalBox, he leads product development and innovation, corporate strategy and business development. Over the course of almost 20 years in the healthcare industry, he has used technology to break down barriers that exist between different sectors of the industry. Prior to ClinicalBox, he was a project leader at the Boston office of The Boston Consulting Group, where he collaborated with C-suite executives on significant strategic and operational challenges facing their businesses. Besides his role at ClinicalBox, he engages with new entrepreneurs at the Harvard Innovation Lab, where he serves as a mentor at the Venture Incubation Program, and at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, where he also serves as a mentor through the Easton Technology Management Program.

Mary LeBlanc is president and principal consultant of Bridger Val Associates LLC, providing strategic coaching and consulting services to companies that are planning and implementing large-scale transformation programs. She also serves on the advisory board for the Easton Technology Management Center at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and on the board of trustees for Homeless Solutions Inc. Her background as a chief information officer (CIO) in multiple global industries, including pharmaceuticals, hospitality, agribusiness, oil and gas, and chemicals, has established her as a dynamic executive and hands-on strategist with a strong track record of developing high-performing IT leaders. Most recently, she was the global pharma CIO for Novartis Pharma AG, based in Basel, Switzerland, where she drove several significant digital health initiatives. Prior to joining Novartis, she was senior vice president and CIO for Avis Budget Group. Her experience also includes senior-level IT positions at Pfizer/Pharmacia, BASF and American Cyanamid, where she built business-focused global IT teams and led large-scale change initiatives focused on the integration of systems and operations that were the consequence of several mergers and acquisitions. She has a bachelor’s degree in human biology from Stanford University and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. She also has a certificate from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University for the Women’s Director Development Program.

Charles Corbett, Ph.D., is the IBM Chair in Management and a professor of operations management and sustainability at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. He holds a joint-appointment at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. He served as chairman and deputy dean of academic affairs from 2009 to 2012 and previously as associate dean of the MBA program. He was an AT&T Faculty Fellow in Industrial Ecology. He founded and co-directed the award-winning UCLA Leaders in Sustainability graduate certificate program and the Easton Technology Leadership Program. His areas of teaching include operations of entrepreneurs and small businesses, sustainability, operations management and supply chain management. His current research focuses on sustainable operations and operations management in entrepreneurial firms. He has published in leading academic and business journals, including Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Operations Research, Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, European Journal of Operational Research, the Journal of the Operational Research Society, Production and Operations Management, Energy, Environmental and Resource Economics and others. His 2006 study on sustainability in the motion picture industry was featured in media outlets worldwide, including CNN, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, The Guardian, La Opinion and various radio and TV stations. He holds a Ph.D. in production and operations management from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France, and a Drs. in operations research from Erasmus University Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Jess de Jesus is currently the chief pharmacy officer at UCLA Health and assistant dean at UCSF School of Pharmacy. He graduated from University of Illinois College of Pharmacy with a Doctor of Pharmacy in 1990 and received an MBA in healthcare management in 2002. He has extensive experience in pharmacy practice encompassing hospital, clinical, ambulatory/retail, research, 340B program, outpatient infusion, home infusion in acute care and specialty hospitals in large and complex healthcare systems, and large tertiary and quaternary academic medical centers. He has held various pharmacy leadership positions for the past 25-plus years including the VP/chief pharmacy officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, which is affiliated with Harvard Medical School; network associate VP at Honor Health, the second-largest health system in Arizona; and executive director of pharmacy at University of Miami Health System. He currently serves on several national pharmacy executive committees, including University Health Consortium Pharmacy Executive Committee, Vizient Pharmacy Executive Council and National Comprehensive Cancer Network Pharmacy Forum.

Jim McDermott is a co-founder and the managing partner of Rusheen Capital Management LLC, a Santa Monica-based private equity firm investing in energy, environment and sustainability. Prior to forming RCM, he founded and ran U.S. Renewables Group, a private equity firm focused on renewable power, clean fuels and energy infrastructure. As an investor and entrepreneur, he has started, run and invested in over 25 companies. Examples include Stamps.com Inc. (founder and CEO), NanoH2O Inc., which was acquired by LG Chem (founder and board member), Fulcrum BioEnergy Inc. (founder, executive and chairman), Moleaer Inc. (founder and board member) and Carbon Engineering (board member).

Yipeng Zhao is a managing partner at Embark Ventures, a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm focused on early-stage companies. Embark Ventures is particularly interested in frontier/deep tech companies such as Advanced Material, cybersecurity, AI/ML, robotics and data analytics. He co-founded Embark Ventures in 2017, where he manages new investments and portfolio companies. Prior to this, he served as executive vice president of ZMXY Global Investment Inc., a China-based private equity company where he was involved in equity investment in China and U.S. He also helped ZMXY Global Investment set up its venture investment arm in Los Angeles as a part of its global strategy. He also worked at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) as a research statistician focused on nonparametric and semiparametric estimation and inference problems in econometrics. While at UCSD, he worked on the application of big data in customer behavior research and a game-theoretical econometrics approach to customer behavior research. He also has extensive research experience in financial risk management and time-series data analysis.

Tom Georgis is an advisor and consultant to global renewable energy companies. He was most recently the CEO of SolarReserve, a solar power plant and technology company focused on thermal energy storage solutions for conventional and renewable energy generation facilities. He has more than 28 years of experience in the energy, technology and government service sectors. He has held senior executive positions with several global energy companies, managing the development, financing and construction of power plants in Nigeria, El Salvador, Chile, Australia, South Africa and the United States. He has also served on the management teams for two technology startups. He earned his MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and a Bachelor of Arts in international studies from Northwestern University. He served nine years as a naval special warfare officer in the United States Navy. He also serves on the board of the Price Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at UCLA Anderson and on the board of directors for EngenderHealth, leading global women's health organization.

Howard is a principal with Morpheus Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Los Angeles that focuses on early-stage technology investments. He currently serves on the boards of RIOS, Rugged Robotics and Tagnos, and is a board observer at Bridg, Sidecar Health and RapidDeploy. He was previously with Mission Ventures, a leading Southern California early-stage venture capital firm. While at Mission, he focused on investments in software, wireless technologies and semiconductors. Prior to Mission, he was with Salomon Smith Barney in its Technology Investment Banking Group, where he was involved in over $3 billion of public and private financings and M&A. He has served as co-chair of the San Diego Telecom Council Wireless Infrastructure Group. He was a member of the Board of Reviewers for the San Diego-based Center for Commercialization of Advanced Technology, an organization funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. He holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from UCLA and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Ryan Moore has spent the past 15 years after graduating from UCLA building and scaling revenue operations across the pharma, social media, technology and entertainment industries. Through his work in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, London and Australia, he has built and managed global teams and learned how to navigate global complexity, local operations and the nuanced interactions between both.

Most recently, he was the head of revenue strategy and solutions at L.A.-based Quibi, where he founded and led the product strategy, revenue strategy, marketing, creative and measurement/insights teams. He was hired by the founders to build their advertising revenue strategy from the ground up, which secured Quibi's first $150 million of pre-launch advertising commitments from 10 of the world's largest brands. Prior to that, he was a founding member of Twitter's enterprise partnerships division and then went on to establish a new global business unit responsible for monetizing the transition of Twitter from a text/image-based platform to a video-first platform. He is also involved in advisory roles with nonprofit organizations that seek to leverage technology to make people happier, more resilient and more compassionate toward one another in their personal lives and in the workplace.

Dena Bravata is an advisor/consultant to numerous digital health and public health organization. Dr. Bravata is the co-founder of Lyra Health where she also served as the Chief Medical Officer from 2015 to 2016. She was the Chief Medical Officer and Head of Products at Castlight Health from 2009 through 2014. Dr. Bravata was a practicing internist for 16 years in her own private practice and as an attending physician at Stanford University and the Palo Alto VA. As a senior research scientist in Stanford’s Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research and a nationally recognized health services researcher, Dr. Bravata has published widely on the clinical effectiveness of a variety of key clinical and public health topics. She served on the Governing Council of the Stanford-UCSF Evidence-based Practice Center, the board of trustees of the Society for Medical Decision Making, and was an assistant public health officer for Santa Clara County. Dr. Bravata has an undergraduate degree from Yale University, an M.D. from Columbia University, and a M.S. in health policy from Stanford University. She completed her Internal Medicine Residency and Ambulatory Care Fellowship at Stanford University.