Semi-Final Round Judges

Valerie Pajak

Management Consultant specializing in pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device corporate and product strategy.  Previously, she was a co-founder of StageMark, a biotechnology company that commercialized proprietary peptide biomarkers for the early detection of disease and disease management.  Valerie has also been involved in the start up of other early stage technology companies in the Pittsburgh, PA, and Chicago, IL, area.  Valerie holds a BA in biomedical illustration and neuroscience from the University of Pittsburgh and earned her MBA from Carnegie Mellon University with a primary concentration in entrepreneurship, marketing, strategy, and finance.

Jim Brey

Jim Bray is Assistant Director of the Research Discovery Program at the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences (NUCATS) Institute, where he is working to increase collaboration between basic and clinical scientists, and acting as a liaison to the local entrepreneurial community.  He is also Director of Programs for the Midwest Research University Network (MRUN), a non-profit alliance of individuals from Midwest research institutions dedicated to regional cooperation in the commercialization of research through new business creation.

Prior to NUCATS, he was Assistant Director of New Business Initiatives at the Illinois Technology Enterprise Center (ITEC-Evanston) at Northwestern University, where he helped manage a pre-seed stage investment fund and provided business development support to emerging technology-based companies, focusing on technology with applications in the life sciences.  Client companies obtained over $13.5 million in equity and debt financing, and secured over a dozen government grants totaling more than $4 million during his tenure.  He holds an MS in Biotechnology and a BA in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Northwestern University.

Jeff Coney

Jeff Coney serves as Director of Economic Development at Northwestern University, a position he was appointed to in September, 2007.   Coney joined Northwestern in 2000 as Director of New Business Initiatives.  In that role, he was responsible for day-to-day operation of the Illinois Technology Enterprise Center (ITEC) in Evanston.  ITEC – Evanston delivered of a variety of technology commercialization services to both Northwestern faculty and other local early stage technology companies.  The Center served over 350 entrepreneurs and assisted in the formation of over 50 ventures.  ITEC clients raised over $85M in venture capital and grant funding and created several hundred jobs.

Prior to joining the University, Coney spent 14 years as a software entrepreneur. He co-founded Facility Management Systems, Inc., a local software company, which was sold to a publicly traded company.  He has also had prior employment with Arthur Andersen, Metropolitan Structures and The City of Chicago.  Mr. Coney holds BA and MBA degrees from Northwestern and is a CPA.  He is a founding member of the Midwest Research Universities’ Network.

He can be contacted at j-coney@northwestern.edu

Adam Koopersmith

Prior to joining New World Ventures in 2004, Adam held various operating and business development roles as VP of Business Development at Sportvision, Inc. (a New World Ventures portfolio company) helping the company grow from the “business plan” stage to eight figures in annual revenue. Prior to Sportvision, Adam worked at Berkshire Partners, a leading private equity investment firm with $6.0 billion of capital under management. His experience at Berkshire included investment evaluations and closed transactions in several industries, including business services, retail and manufacturing, in addition to significant work helping portfolio companies achieve their strategic objectives. Before joining Berkshire, Adam worked as an investment banker for Alex Brown (now Deutsche Bank) and participated in a broad range of merger and acquisition and public equity transactions for mid-sized companies.

Adam currently serves on the Boards of Firm58, Inc., HyperQuest, Inc. and Reserve Brands, Inc. and works closely with Univa Corporation and The V.I.P. Tour Company (d/b/a TicketsNow).  Adam received his B.S. in economics with concentrations in finance and international management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and his M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management with concentrations in organizational behavior and decision sciences.

Dr. Ron Kirschner

Ronald L. Kirschner, M.D. is President of Heartland Angels, Inc. Dr. Kirschner has a broad background in healthcare, start-ups and private equity. Dr. Kirschner practiced medicine for 23 years and anesthesia for 17 of those years. He taught at Illinois Masonic Medical Center and was an Assistant Professor at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. He was President of Irving Park Chapter of the Chicago Medical Society.
While practicing medicine, he started 3 companies of his own in the healthcare field dealing with Nutrition, Managed Care, and Utilization Review. He has been a consultant on healthcare issues to the State government and on funding and market strategies to both entrepreneurs and early stage companies. He was the VP of Technology Development for CDIB Biotech, Inc., a Midwest Biotechnology Venture Fund (started by China Industrial Industrial Bank) where his roles was to assist in the discovery and funding of early stage biotechnology in the Midwest and Canada. He was principal in the funding decisions concerning, among others, Aegera Therapeutics, Immunicon, and VitaGen (now Vital Therapies, Inc.). He was active in advising local companies, e.g., Neuronautics, on options relating to funding opportunities and was involved with the Board of Directors for Phytoceutica.
Dr. Kirschner received his BA from Beloit College and was awarded his Medical Degree from St. Louis University. He has completed residencies in Emergency Medicine at the University of Chicago and in Anesthesia at West Virginia University. He received his MBA in Finance from DePaul University.

Emily Miao, Ph.D.

Emily Miao is an IP attorney and Partner at McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff in Chicago, Illinois. She has represented clients in all aspects of foreign and domestic intellectual property practice, including patent and trademark procurement and portfolio management; client counseling on validity, infringement, freedom-to-operate, and patent strategy matters; due diligence reviews; and licensing/secrecy agreements. Her recent cases have involved nanotechnology, pharmaceuticals, biochemistry, molecular biology, drug delivery systems, diagnostic assays, medical devices, and chemical and food processes.

Dan Brown

Dan Brown is the inventor of the Bionic Wrench™ and founder of LoggerHead Tools LLC. He has over 25 years of product development and business experience and holds over 25 U.S. utility patents. As president of LoggerHead Tools, he is responsible for the overall business and is driving future growth.

Brown’s mission for LoggerHead Tools is to aggressively develop innovative, American-made hand tools. Brown is staking a place for LoggerHead Tools in the U.S. hand tool market by actively pursuing novel intellectual property for its products, forming strategic alliances with business partners, and investing in the best-available manufacturing technologies.

Since 1991, Brown has owned and managed Consul-Tech Concepts, Inc., a commercial product development and design consultancy. He has worked on product/process development projects with a wide range of companies -- from Fortune 100 firms to entrepreneurial startups. Brown has developed many new-to-the-world solutions for his clients, resulting in numerous patents.

Prior to forming Consul-Tech Concepts, Inc., he developed and brought many new products to market for his employers. He held a variety of corporate positions of increasing responsibility -- from applications engineer to vice president.
Brown earned a bachelor of science degree from St. Xavier University in 1978 and a master’s degree in product development from Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering in 2005.

Bhavan Suri

Bhavan is an exciting and experienced entrepreneur, having co-founded Elytics, an enterprise software company that provided Web Analytics solutions to Fortune 100 companies, including Bank of America, IBM, SBC, Verizon, and WellPoint. Prior to Elytics, Bhavan was a Director at Answerthink where he was responsible for delivering products and services to the software, financial services, and telecommunications industries. Bhavan has also worked in venture capital and early stage technology commercialization at OCA Ventures and the RPX Group. He is on the Board of Advisors of Next Step Technologies, CoboTech Inc., the Aspire Group, and the One Acre Fund. Bhavan is a graduate of Kellogg and Brown University, and currently is an Analyst at William Blair covering growth technology companies.

Michael Thompson

Michael has a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology. He uses his experience and talents as an Executive/Business Empowerment and Emotional Intelligence Assessment Coach in developing and implementing organizational growth. During his illustrious career, he has worked in various positions, including as the Director DSI of The American Academy of Dermatology and Executive Director of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. He has also been a guest lecturer at De Paul University, Northwestern University and the llinois Institute of Art. He is very involved in entrepreneurship. He is an advisor and principal investor in a startup video company, member of the Corporate Officer team of a company that is bringing to market a medical device designed to improve the healing process for patients after surgery, and a mentor to BeExtraordinary – startup and 3rd place winner in the Kellogg InNUvation program.