Dr. William Abraham’s research interests include hemodynamic and neurohormonal mechanisms in heart failure, sleep disordered breathing in heart failure, and clinical drug and device trials in heart failure and cardiac transplantation. Dr. Abraham has participated in all regulatory phases of new drug and device development from pre-clinical evaluation to Pre-Market Approval (PMA) and New Drug Application (NDA) submission and approval.

In addition to his role as Scientific Advisor for Cardionomic, Dr. Abraham also serves as Professor of Internal Medicine and Chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Ohio State University College of Medicine. He previously held faculty appointments at the University of Colorado, the University of Cincinnati, and the University of Kentucky. Dr. Abraham earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, and after that he completed his residency in Internal Medicine and fellowships in Cardiovascular Disease and Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.  Board certified in Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Disease, and Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiology, he spends the majority of his clinical time managing heart failure patients in the inpatient and outpatient settings.

Dr. Abraham is the author of more than 700 original papers, abstracts, book chapters, and review articles.  He has also co-authored national heart failure practice guidelines and co-edited Heart Failure: A Practical Approach to Treatment, a leading textbook on heart failure. He continues to serve on the editorial boards of several major journals.

Dr. Behbahani is a Partner at NEA. He specializes in investments in the biopharmaceutical, medical device, specialty pharmaceutical and health care services sectors.

Before joining NEA, he was an intern and business development consultant at The Medicines Company, a specialty pharmaceutical company developing acute care cardiovascular products. Dr. Behbahani previously held positions as a Venture Associate at Morgan Stanley Venture Partners and as a Healthcare Investment Banking Analyst at Lehman Brothers. He also conducted basic science research in the fields of viral fusion inhibition and structural proteomics at the National Institutes of Health and at Duke University.

Dr. Bahbahani graduated summa cum laude and received his bachelor’s degrees with distinction in Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Chemistry from Duke University. He concurrently earned his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and his M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, where he graduated with Honors and was a Palmer Scholar.

Michael DeMane is Executive Chairman of Nevro, a Silicon Valley-based leader in the medical device field. Michael led the company as CEO from March, 2011 until June, 2016, from scrappy start-up with negligible revenue to a leading global player in the spinal cord stimulation market. With an emphasis on the mechanics and culture of  building the business, under his leadership the company raised two venture funding rounds totaling $106M, completed a $145M IPO (upsized and priced above the range), and subsequently initiated a public follow-on offering, again upsized to $260M.

An engineer by training, Mr. DeMane has established a consistent record of success leading both large and mid-size global med-tech organizations. Over the past 35 years, he has held executive leadership roles in the US, Europe and Australasia.

Prior to Nevro, Michael held a variety of positions at Medtronic, Inc., including: Chief Operating Officer, Sr. VP and President Europe, Canada, Latin America and Emerging Markets, and Sr. VP and President Spinal, ENT, and Navigation. In each of these roles he served on Medtronic’s Executive Committee.

Before joining Medtronic, Mr. DeMane served as Managing Director, Australasia for Smith & Nephew Pty. Ltd.

Michael has served as Senior Advisor to Thomas McNerney & Partners, and Oak Hill Capital. In addition he is on the Board of Directors of several firms in the medtech space including Cardionomic, Inc., Rotation Medical and SafeOrthopaedics.

Mr. DeMane has completed the Advanced Management Program at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France and holds an M.S. in Bioengineering from Clemson University and a B.S in Chemistry from St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York.

Steve Goedeke’s extensive experience spans implantable defibrillators, pacemakers, therapies for heart failure, device design, and wireless communications.

Before joining Cardionomic as President and CEO, Goedeke was President and CEO at Denali Medical II and previously served as a Senior Director within Medtronic’s Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management division. He is a Bakken Fellow and was largely responsible for the creation of the MICS wireless system. He is also a two-time recipient of Medtronic’s Star of Excellence and was granted The Chairman’s Award for Outstanding Initiative. Before his 17 years at Medtronic, Goedeke held various technical and business development roles at Hewlett-Packard.

Goedeke is a named inventor on 25 patents and holds a B.S in electrical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis and a M.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Mr. Borowicz is Vice President of Strategy & Development of Integer Holding Corp. Mr. Borowicz has worked in the medical device industry for 34 years. At Greatbatch, Mr. Borowicz is responsible for corporate strategy, mergers & acquisitions, technology licensing, venture investments and minority equity portfolio management. His previous roles at Integer, include VP of Finance for the QiG Group, & Treasurer and Director of Investor Relations. Prior to Greatbatch, Mr. Borowicz was VP Finance for Kendall Healthcare and Vice President & CFO for Graphics Controls. Mr. Borowicz currently serves on the Board of Directors at Cardionomic Inc.

Mr. Borowicz holds a Masters in Finance and Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Niagara University, NY. He is a Certified Management Accountant.

Tara Butler came to Ascension Ventures in 2002 after completing a residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Washington University in St. Louis. She primarily focuses on investments in the medical device and diagnostics sector. Tara has been a board member or observer at several Ascension Ventures portfolio companies, including Apama Medical, Augmenix, CHF Solutions, Confluent Surgical, CSA Medical, EBR Systems, EKOS Corporation, HemoSphere, Ivantis, MindFrame, Neurolutions, Ocular Therapeutix (NASD:OCUL), Stereotaxis (NASD:STXS), and TomoTherapy (NASD:TOMO). Prior to attending medical school, she held positions in business development at Medtronic, in finance at Honeywell and as a laboratory research assistant at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She holds a BS in Economics and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Dr. Saklecha is the Managing Director of Cleveland Clinic Ventures where he leads investments into startup companies for one of the world’s top healthcare systems. He currently sits on the boards of Cardionomic, Cleveland Diagnostics, Enhale Medical, Enspire DBS, Mitria Medical, Navigate Cardiac Structures, Neurotherapia, and Zehna Therapeutics.

Prior to joining Cleveland Clinic Ventures, Akhil was a Partner at Artiman Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm with over $1.2 billion under management. While at Artiman, he led investments in early-stage start-up companies and served on the boards of Cellmax Life, Oncostem Diagnostics, Slive, ApplyBoard, DateMySchool, and HomeUnion. In addition to his Board of Director roles, he also served as CEO of Slive, an early stage diagnostics company. Prior to joining Artiman, Akhil served in administrative roles at Aultman Hospital in Ohio as Medical Director of the hospital’s regional transfer program and Chairman of the Emergency Department and Level II Trauma Center. He was also CEO of Canton Aultman Emergency Physicians, a professional services firm that provides physicians, mid-level providers, and coding expertise to multiple hospitals and urgent care centers. In this same time period, Akhil participated at the local, state, and national levels of governing institutions within emergency medicine, healthcare quality, information technology, managed care, and emergency medical services.

Akhil is Board-certified in Emergency Medicine and is a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians. He continues to practice emergency medicine at Cleveland Clinic on a part-time basis where he remains connected to clinical care, patients, and physicians. Akhil graduated from the combined accelerated B.S./M.D. program at Northeast Ohio Medical University. He completed his residency in Emergency Medicine at Summa Health System and holds a M.B.A. from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.