Rob Bettigole

Managing Partner, Elm Street Ventures

Rob is the founder and Managing Partner of New Haven-based Elm Street Ventures, a seed and early stage venture capital firm in which Yale is the largest investor.  He serves as Chairman of P2 Science and Samara Innovations.  Rob is also a board member of AxioMx, Inc., and is Elm Street’s observer on the boards of Arvinas, Inc. and Device42.  Previously, Rob was a board member of ShareGrove and Retail Optimization Inc., and served as an observer on the boards of Affomix, BioRelix, and Metagenomix.  Before founding ESV in 2006, Rob ran an infrastructure business and helped found several start-ups.  Earlier in his career, he was a venture capitalist with Rothschild Inc. and Investor AB.  Mr. Bettigole has a BS in Engineering and Applied Science from Yale University and an MPPM from the Yale School of Management, where he is an Executive Fellow and helps teach courses on entrepreneurship.  Rob has served on the Operating Board of the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute since its inception in 2007 and is on the Investment Committee of the YEI Innovation Fund.

Shin Daimyo

Clinical Program Office and Program Manager for Mental Health, Partners in Health

Shin Daimyo  is the Clinical Program Officer for Partners In Health, where he is responsible for the development and management of mental health programs across all of PIH’s sites and provides advisement to senior PIH leadership on program development, implementation, evaluation, and strategy. He currently manages the scale up of community based mental health services in the Central Plateau and Artibonite region of Haiti, and acts as Co-Investigator for the scale up of mentoring and supervision of health center nurses to address severe mental disorders in the Burera District of Rwanda. He also provides advisement for the creation and integration of community based mental health systems into the public sector primary care systems of Lesotho, Malawi, Peru, Mexico, and Russia. Shin is a graduate of the Boston University School of Public Health and the University of Southern California, and is a Humanitarian and Human Rights Policy Fellow of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University

Bo Hopkins

Lecturer, Jackson Institute

Mr. Hopkins has over 25 years of private industry investment, management, and consulting experience. As a Managing Partner with CM Equity Partners he has led and participated in direct equity investments for the past 12 years. During which he has served on the boards of portfolio companies across industries in government services, manufacturing and consumer products. Mr. Hopkins is on the teaching staff of the Jackson Institute at Yale University and at Yale’s Center for Engineering, Innovation and Design. His coursework at Yale has been designed to introduce graduate and undergraduate students to practical issues faced by mission-driven social entrepreneurs throughout the world.

Jay Rajda

Medical Director, Aetna's Innovation Labs
Dr. Jay Rajda is Medical Director at Aetna's Innovation Labs, focused on identifying clinical and technology ideas a few years ahead of the market, testing them to determine success rates and demonstrate measurable value, and quickly expanding the programs that show promise. Prior to this, he was Medical Director at ActiveHealth Management, a provider of population health management solutions and a subsidiary of Aetna. In this role, he was responsible for the development of clinical analytics, clinical decision support, performance improvement and care management programs. Board certified in Internal Medicine and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, Dr. Rajda has served as Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Rochester. He also holds an MBA in Finance and Strategy from the University of Rochester Simon School.

Dave Thomas

Managing Partner, Court Square
Mr. Thomas has been a member of the Court Square Investment Team since 1980.  He joined the Leveraged Finance Group of Citibank in 1976.  Mr. Thomas received degrees in finance and accounting from the University of Akron.  He is currently a director of Cadence Aerospace, Conterra Broadband, Fibertech Networks, Harvard Drug Group, Mspark and Wyle.  He previously served on the boards of Auto Europe Group, Aviall, Brintec, C&H Sugar, DavCo Restaurants, The Devon Group, Flender, Furnishings International, Hancor Pipe, Interface Solutions, International Airmotive, MagnaChip Semiconductor, Mid-Atlantic Coca Cola, Neenah Foundry, Network Communications, Newmarket International, Pamida Stores, People Express Airlines, Smith Alarm, Worldspan Technologies, York International and Zatarains.  Mr. Thomas is currently on the advisory council for the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute and the Yale School of Public Health Leadership Council.

Margaret Yates Thorne

Managing Partner, Sociable Weavers; Owner, Niknats

Ms. Thorne is the Managing Partner of Sociable Weavers, providing seed investing to transformational start-ups in education and healthcare. Margie is also the owner of Niknats, a personalized needlepoint gift business. She has worked for the last twenty years with a wide range of non-profits, providing support in start-up management, fundraising, and finance. Margie has chaired the boards of The Bronx Preparatory Charter School and Peer Health Exchange and served on many boards including Student Sponsor Partners and READ, and is a judge for the Teach for America Social Innovation Award. Margie has a BA from Yale and also studied educational psychology at Columbia’s Teacher’s College. Prior to her work with non-profits, she worked for fifteen years at Citigroup. Margie is married to Nate Thorne, previously head of private equity at Merrill Lynch and Blackrock, and is the mother of two sons. The whole family are Yale graduates.

Martin Klein
Associate Dean for Development and External Affairs and Director, InnovateHealth Yale, Yale School of Public Health

Martin Klein is the Associate Dean for Development and External Affairs at the Yale School of Public Health, and is responsible for the offices of development, alumni relations, and communications. He also founded and directs InnovateHealth Yale . Prior to joining Yale, he was the Associate Dean for Primary Care at New York Medical College, where he co-founded and co-led the Center for Primary Care Education and Research. He received his M.P.H. from Yale and his Ph.D. in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University. He completed additional training in pedagogy as a Harvard Macy Scholar.

Kate Emery
Founder and CEO, reSET

Katherine Emery is founder and CEO of The Walker Group, a technology services firm she started over 20 years ago and is now one of the largest of its kind in New England and ranked one of Connecticut’s Best Places to Work in 2015.  In 2007 Walker became a Social Enterprise, changing its mission from maximizing shareholder profits to maximizing social contribution. The Walker Group was recently awarded the prestigious Nancy P. Roberts Award from the Connecticut Council for Philanthropy for innovation in philanthropy.  Kate is also the founder of reSET, the Social Enterprise Trust, whose mission is to promote, preserve, and protect Social Enterprise.   reSET proudly led the effort to pass legislation in Connecticut allowing business owners to register as social enterprise, and has set up programs and co-working space with services for entrepreneurs of all stripes.  Kate also established the Social Enterprise Investment Fund (SEIF) to help provide early stage capital for newly launched social entrepreneurs.  Her efforts in this area resulted in her being honored by the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame in 2014 and has been nominated as a Woman of Innovation by the Connecticut Technology Council.

Kate Emery is a graduate of UCONN’s business school where she graduated Magna Cum Laude and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where she earned her Master’s Degree in Management Information Systems.

Donna Dubinsky

CEO and co-founder, Numenta Inc.

Donna first partnered with Jeff Hawkins at Palm, Inc. in 1992, where she served as president and CEO. She held this position throughout Palm’s acquisition by U.S Robotics and subsequently 3Com Corporation. In 1998, Donna and Jeff co-founded Handspring, creator of the category-defining Treo smartphone. Handspring merged with Palm in 2003, and Donna continued to serve on Palm’s board until 2009. Previously, Donna spent 10 years at Apple Inc. in a multitude of sales, sales support, and logistics functions—both at Apple and at Claris, an Apple software subsidiary.   Donna earned a B.A. from Yale University, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. She is currently on the board of the Peninsula Open Space Trust, Yale University, and the Computer History Museum.