Gavin Christensen
As Managing Director of Kickstart Seed Fund, Gavin is responsible for all aspects of managing the firm in addition to leading due diligence and investment decisions in conjunction with Kickstart's Investment Committee. In addition to Kickstart, Gavin heads vSpring's New Mexico office where he is focused on funding companies in New Mexico's technology-rich ecosystem.

Gavin joined vSpring as an associate, left to attend the Kellogg School of Management, and rejoined vSpring as a Principal. Gavin's efforts have had a significant impact on vSpring's firm strategy and on the success of many of vSpring's Fund I and II companies. During business school, Gavin worked as a Vertical Strategy Associate for Google's direct sales organization. Gavin also worked as a consultant in Monitor Group's Boston office where he advised clients on a range of strategic, operational, and organizational improvements. Gavin began his career at Fidelity Investments as an investments representative.

Gavin received a Masters of Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management and a B.S. in Economics (with Honors), cum laude, from Brigham Young University. Gavin currently serves on the boards Intelisum, Symbiot, and nanoMR.

Sally Corning
Ms. Corning is a Partner and Co-Founder of Sun Mountain Capital, a Santa Fe , New Mexico based private equity firm. She has over 20 years experience in evaluating investment opportunities, conducting due diligence, structuring transactions and raising equity and debt capital in both the public and private markets. Prior to joining Sun Mountain, Ms. Corning was a Principal in a family company, Corning Enterprises, where she invested in private equity opportunities primarily in real estate and oil and gas. Prior to Corning Enterprises, Ms. Corning worked for 13 years at Credit Suisse First Boston in New York in the Firm’s Private Placement Group. In this role, she led the evaluation of numerous companies and fund sponsors and structured, marketed and executed over 40 private placements of debt and equity capital. Ms. Corning is currently on the Board of Directors for the New Mexico Venture Capital Association and holds an observer role on the Board of Directors for Sun Mountain’s portfolio company Sundrop Fuels. Ms. Corning has an MBA in Finance from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business and a BSBA in Finance from Georgetown University.

Steve Gullans, PhD
Dr. Gullans is an experienced investor, entrepreneur and scientist. As Managing Director at Excel Venture Management, he focuses on life science technology companies with a particular interest in disruptive platforms that can impact multiple industries. Dr. Gullans is currently a Director at MedNetworks, Biocius Life Sciences (acquired by Agilent Technologies (A), Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals, Pathogenetix, and RxGen, and was a board member of BioTrove until it was acquired by Life Technologies (LIFE) in 2009.

Prior to Excel, Dr. Gullans co-founded RxGen, Inc., a pharma services company where he served as CEO from 2004-2008. In 2002, Steve stepped in as a senior executive at U.S. Genomics to direct operations, recruit a new CEO, and assist with fundraising. In the 1990s, he co-developed the technology that launched CellAct Pharma GmbH, a drug development company. Steve's experience with venture investing began in the late 1980s when he became an active advisor to small biotech companies and venture investors, including Senior Advisor to CB Health Ventures for 10 years.

Dr. Gullans is an expert in advanced life science technologies and was a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital for nearly 20 years. He has published more than 130 scientific papers in many leading journals, lectured internationally, and co-authored numerous patents. He recently co-authored with Juan Enriquez an eBook entitled, Homo evolutis: A Short Tour of Our New Species, which describes a world where humans increasingly shape their environment, themselves, and other species. He received his B.S. at Union College, Ph.D. at Duke University, and post-doctoral training at the Yale School of Medicine.

Gus Lawlor
Gus Lawlor is a General Partner at HealthCare Ventures. He joined the firm in 2000. Mr. Lawlor has 15 years of experience in the biotechnology industry in finance, business development, mergers and acquisitions, and general management. Prior to joining HCV in 2000, he was Chief Operating Officer of LeukoSite, a biotechnology company. Before joining LeukoSite, Mr. Lawlor also served as Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Corporate Development for Alpha-Beta Technology, and he was previously Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Business Development, at BioSurface Technology. Mr. Lawlor is a co-founder of Phase Forward, a company developing Internet-based management tools for conducting clinical trials. He is also a Director of U.S. Genomics, Inc. Mr. Lawlor received a B.A. from the University of New Hampshire, and an M.A. in Management from Yale University.

Caroline Popper, MD MPH
Dr. Popper is the founder and President of Popper and Company, a boutique life sciences consulting and M&A firm with offices in Florida, Maryland and Canada. She has 20 years of hands-on biotech/life sciences operating experience. An internist and pathologist, she combines this perspective with that gained from managing a wide spectrum of life sciences businesses in diagnostics, devices and drug discovery. Her business management experience in both Fortune 500 and start-up settings and extensive track record creating strategic and business partnerships in biotechnology, is key to the service she provides to her firms clients.

In a 10-year career at Becton Dickinson (BD NYSE), Dr. Popper’s global responsibilities included clinical affairs, marketing, strategy, and business development. She was the founding General Manager of BDGene; a start-up focused, with its partner Millennium Pharmaceuticals, on development of novel cancer diagnostics. From 2000 to 2002, she was the Chief Business Officer for MDS Proteomics, a drug discovery company with operations in the US, Canada and Europe.

Popper and Company provides strategic consulting as well as hands on management to a wide variety of venture-backed as well as public life science firms. She has been involved in the start-up of 9 companies in the past 36 months. She serves on the Board of several venture-backed life science companies.

Dr. Popper received her MD from the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa) and her MPH from Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore). She was a Robert Wood Johnson Fellow in Health Care Finance. She completed her residencies in Internal Medicine and in Pathology at Johns Hopkins.



Richard Fuentes (Board Observer)
As Global Life Science Investment Director for Dow Chemical's Venture Capital group, Richard is responsible for all aspects of the due diligence process and leads or co-leads investments in diagnostics, medical devices and therapeutic startup companies. Richard has led or co-led Dow's investments in Biolex, DNA Research Innovations (acquired by Invitrogen), HandyLab, Mirabilis Medica, Oxford Immunotec, nanoMR, Noxxon Pharma AG, Santhera (Graffinity) and Veralight. In addition to nanoMR, he serves as an observer on the board of Oxford Immunotec.
Richard received a B.S. in Chemistry from University of Texas - Pan American and a Ph.D in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Texas - Austin. After a post-doctoral assignment in the Michigan State University Department of Biochemistry, he started at Dow Chemical in 1977 and has served in a variety of technical and leadership R&D and business roles. He has been with Dow Venture Capital since 1999 with a focus on life science investments since 2001.

Victor Esch, President & CEO
Dr. Esch has successfully led product development in diverse organizations, from venture funded start-ups, to large integrated programs with more than 100 engineers and $100MM budgets. His diverse practical technical experience spans many disciplines, from interventional neuro catheters to free-space laser communication, and he has made significant contributions in these diverse areas. He has 23 issued patents, and more than 20 applications in prosecution. He received his Ph.D. in Optical Sciences in 1990.

Dr. Esch was Director of Research and Development at Indigo Medical, responsible for all product development. Indigo was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 1996. Following this he was CTO of EndoVasix, a company that produced an ischemic stroke treatment system. Endovasix was eventually acquired by W.L. Gore. Dr. Esch is a co-founder of PowerVision, a company successfully developing an accommodating intra-ocular lens to treat presbyopia. Dr. Esch’s design innovations have been honored by R&D 100 and Photonics Circle of Excellence.