Leadership

Brigitte Smith
Co-founder and Managing Partner, GBS Ventures

Brigitte Smith co-founded GBS in 1997 with 10 years experience in business strategy and hands-on management of start-up company operations. Before joining GBS she worked with high-tech start-up companies in Australia and the US in fundraising and business development roles. She also spent several years at Bain & Company, a strategic management consulting firm. Brigitte is on the board of GBS portfolio companies Applied Physiology, Cortical, Dynamic Hearing, Kalobios Inc, Neuromonics, Proacta Inc, and Viveve Inc.
Brigitte earned her Bachelor of Chemical Engineering (Honours) from the University of Melbourne, her Master of Business Administration (Honours) from the Harvard Business School and her Master of International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Boston, USA where she was a Fulbright Scholar.  Brigitte is a Fellow of The Australian Institute of Company Directors and an adjunct Senior Lecturer at the Melbourne Business School, where she teaches Entrepreneurial Finance.

Andrew J. Schwab
Founder and Managing Partner, 5AM Ventures

Andrew J. Schwab is a founder and Managing Partner of 5AM Ventures. Prior to founding 5AM Ventures in 2002, Mr. Schwab was a Principal at Bay City Capital (BCC). After joining BCC in 1999, he led the firm's investment and merchant banking activities for companies such as Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Metabolex, PTC Therapeutics, Symyx and Syrrx. Prior to joining BCC, Mr. Schwab was Vice President of Business Development at Digital Gene Technologies and a Vice President in the life science investment banking group of Montgomery Securities. At 5AM, he has led the firm's investments in (and served on the Boards of Directors of) Anaphore Flexion, Ikaria, Ilypsa (acquired by Amgen), Miikana (acquired by EntreMed), Panomics (acquired by Affymetrix), Synosia and Viveve. Mr. Schwab received a B.S. with Honors in Genetics & Ethics from Davidson College and is a member of the Davidson Alumni Association Board. Mr. Schwab is based in the Menlo Park, CA office.

Kerry Pope
CEO

Kerry started at Viveve in April of 2009. Prior to this, he co-founded Novare Surgical Systems and served as its CEO for ten years. Kerry demonstrated his ability to raise and manage capital, assemble and retain a talented team, weather significant challenges, and develop a compelling story from a technological and a new market perspective. Novare is now known for developing the technology that enabled the new laparoscopic surgical technique called single port surgery, or surgery completed through the umbilicus leaving only a hidden scar. Prior to Novare, Kerry served as Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Computer Motion (now part of Intuitive Surgical) and as VP and General Manager of the Vascular Systems Division of Baxter Cardiovascular Group.

Carl Simpson, Chairman
Co-founder and Managing Director, Coronis Medical Ventures

Carl has worked in the medical/medical device arena for over 40 years. His undergraduate training is in Microbiology and Biochemistry. His graduate degree is in Electrical Engineering/Computer Science and he holds an MBA - both from the University of Santa Clara. After graduate school and a short period working for Hewlett-Packard's medical business group, Carl began an unanticipated excursion into medical device entrepreneurship. With John Simpson, MD, PhD, and Ray Williams, Advanced Cardiovascular Systems (ACS) was formulated and was Carl's first entrepreneurial effort. Needless to say, ACS was very successful. The company was sold to Lilly in 1984 and spun-off into Guidant in 1994. ACS became the University of Medical Devices for Silicon Valley, giving birth to over 100 medical devices companies. Recently, Guidant was sold to Boston Scientific and Abbott Vascular. For Carl, ACS created the experience, motivation, and entrepreneurial drive to launch into a career of working with other entrepreneurs in establishing over 16 medical device companies. He has been on the board of multiple medical device companies and worked with Versant Ventures for four years learning the VC business and assisting them in defining new companies for future investments.

With multiple start-up companies under his belt, an understanding of the VC business models, and 40 years of operational and clinical experience, Carl is uniquely situated to contribute to the success of early stage medical device companies through the Coronis Medical Ventures incubator.