Tech4Eva Roadshow - The Connection to the USA

Elizabeth Gazda is the CEO of Embr Labs, a Boston-based wearables company that developed the Embr Wave – a wrist-worn, thermal therapeutic that improves sleep, relieves anxiety and helps with hot flashes.

Prior to Embr Labs, Liz was a member of several founding teams including Doni, a fintech company, and Noteflight, a music technology company and has also worked at a number of Boston’s fastest growing companies, including m-Qube (acq. Verisign) and unicorn Art Technology Group (acq. Oracle). Liz began her career with Philips Consumer Electronics in the Netherlands, where she was responsible for driving innovation in several business divisions across multiple countries.

Elizabeth received her undergraduate degree in Anthropology and International relations from UC Berkeley where she was also a member of the Women’s Varsity Soccer team. She also holds an International MBA from Nijenrode University in the Netherlands and an Executive Coaching degree from William James College. Elizabeth serves as a board member and advisor to several start-up companies.

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Ben is a multi-passionate innovation leader, with expertise in strategy and commercialization of consumer goods + health technology. He has been working in roles spanning the innovation process for 15 years – across marketing concept ideation, R&D proof-of-concept exploration, business development in the startup ecosystem, and internal new venture creation – at Johnson & Johnson Consumer Health (now Kenvue).

He holds a Masters in Biology and MBA from New York University, and actively engages in mentorship both with students and founders in his network.

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Alice has been a women’s health enthusiast throughout her career spanning global health, clinical medicine, and the private sector. She currently a Principal at Rhia Ventures, a women’s health-focused impact fund, leading investments in innovative women’s health companies. Alice was previously a women’s health practice leader and management consultant at McKinsey & Company, where she served biopharma, diagnostics, global public health and private equity clients across R&D and commercial strategy topics.

Earlier in her career, Alice’s passion to improve lives for the underserved led her to work in East Africa and Asia in reproductive health and family planning with EngenderHealth, Marie Stopes International and other nonprofits. As a clinician, she focused on women’s health globally and published articles examining healthcare in low-income countries.

Alice holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and MD and MPH from the University of Michigan, where she was a Dean’s Merit Scholar. Alice is a frequent speaker on FemTech and women’s health innovation and is a steering committee member for multiple women’s health innovation forums.

Siew-Veena is a half-Indian, half-Chinese, Swiss, Singaporean & British medical doctor, public health researcher & entrepreneur. Her mission is to re-write the norms for sexual health testing to make it easy & accessible for all - regardless of gender, geography or sexuality.

As CEO & founder of Testmate Health, she leads the development of low-cost, inclusive & accurate disposable tests to detect common STIs immediately from home.

Lan is the Deputy Managing Director of EPFL Innovation Park and an Expert of Innosuisse – the Swiss Innovation Agency.  She has 23 years of hands-on professional experience in industry as well as in the ecosystem of innovation & entrepreneurship.

Lan started her career at R&D department of Rolex, in charge of creating new computer aided design and optimisation tools in the product development process. She was later appointed as Head of Operational Planning at Pictet, working closely with a startup to design, develop and implement a management information system for group operation control. As the Managing Director of Geneva Creativity Center, she connected large corporations, SMEs, startups and researchers to initiate innovative joint R&D projects.

Currently at EPFL Innovation Park, she is leading entrepreneurship training and acceleration programs and is helping startups to establish business partnership with large corporations. Lan has a PhD degree from EPFL, an MBA from HEC Lausanne and postdoctoral applied research experience at Stanford University.