Board of Directors

R. John Fletcher

Mr. Fletcher has served as Chairman of our Board of Directors since June 2023 and as a director of our company since April 2022.  In 1983, Mr. Fletcher founded Fletcher Spaght, Inc., a consulting firm that provides growth-focused strategy assistance to client companies, and since its founding has served as its Chief Executive Officer. Since 2001, Mr. Fletcher has also served as the Managing Partner of Fletcher Spaght Ventures, a venture capital fund. Mr. Fletcher’s current and past board experience includes both public and private companies. Mr. Fletcher currently serves as the board chairman of Vyant Bio, Inc., and also serves on its Audit and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committees. Mr. Fletcher also serves as the board chairman of Koru Medical and Clearpoint Neuro, Inc., as well as privately-held Metabolon. Mr. Fletcher previously served on the boards of The Spectranetics Corporation, Autoimmune, Inc., Axcelis Technologies, Inc., Fischer Imaging Corp., Panacos Pharmaceuticals Inc., NMT Medical Inc., and Quick Study Radiology Inc., all of which are public companies, and on the board of GlycoFi, Inc., a private company. In addition, Mr. Fletcher has served on the boards of many academic and non-profit institutions. Mr. Fletcher worked on the $2 billion acquisition of Spectranetics by Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Royal Philips) and the $400 million acquisition of GlycoFi by Merck & Co., Inc., and received the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) Director of the Year Award in 2018 specifically for his work at Spectranetics. He is Chairman Emeritus of the Corporate Collaboration Council at the Thayer School of Engineering/Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and serves on the Board of Advisors of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Whitehead Institute at MIT. Mr. Fletcher is a graduate of Southern Illinois University (MBA), Central Michigan University (Master’s Degree in International Finance), and George Washington University (BBA in Marketing) and was an instructor in International Business and a PhD candidate at the Wharton School of Business. He also served as a Captain and jet pilot in the United States Air Force.

Ramy A. Mahmoud, MD, MPH

Dr. Mahmoud has served as our Chief Executive Officer and as a member of our Board of Directors since January, 2023. From 2010 until he assumed the role of CEO, he was the President and Chief Operating Officer of Optinose and shared responsibility for leading all aspects of the Company. This included overall corporate strategy; finance; scientific activities inclusive of product R&D, manufacturing and supply chain; commercial development; and business development. Prior to Optinose, Dr. Mahmoud spent 14 years at Johnson & Johnson where he was Chief Medical Officer and a member of the Global Management Board of the Ethicon group of companies. During his Johnson & Johnson tenure, he also held senior roles in the pharmaceutical sector, and in addition to management board responsibilities at several operating companies, led a range of functions in both R&D and commercial organizations. Dr. Mahmoud served 10 years on active duty and an additional 10 reserve years in the United States Army, earning the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and acting at times as a battalion surgeon or flight surgeon. During this time, he held various patient care, research and academic positions, culminating as head of the Department of Epidemiology at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and as inaugural leader of a policy research and analysis activity in support of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs). Dr. Mahmoud earned a Master’s degree with a focus in healthcare management and policy from Harvard, an MD from the first Honors Program in Medical Education at the University of Miami and board certifications in both Public Health/Preventive Medicine and in Internal Medicine. He holds certificates from the Program in Clinical Effectiveness (Harvard Medical School) and in Advanced Tropical Medicine (Walter Reed). Dr. Mahmoud has been and remains involved with a number of professional societies.

Wilhelmus Groenhuysen

Mr. Groenhuysen has served as a director of our company since October 2017. Mr. Groenhuysen served as Chief Financial Officer of NovoCure Limited from 2012 until August 31, 2020, and has served as NovoCure’s Chief Operating Officer since September 1, 2020. At Novocure, Mr. Groenhuysen has global responsibility for finance, information technology, health policy and strategy. From 2007 to 2011, Mr. Groenhuysen worked for Cephalon, Inc., a U.S. biopharmaceutical company, last serving as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, where he had responsibility for worldwide finance, commercial operations and risk management. Prior to joining Cephalon in 2007, Mr. Groenhuysen spent twenty years with Philips Electronics serving various assignments in Europe, Asia and the United States, the latest of which started in 2002 when he was promoted to Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President of Philips Electronics North America Corporation. Mr. Groenhuysen holds a Master’s Degree in Business Economics from VU University Amsterdam and graduated as a Registered Public Controller at VU University Amsterdam.

Sandra L. Helton

Ms. Helton has served as a director of our company since February 2018. Ms. Helton serves on the Board of Directors of Principal Financial Group (Principal), a global diversified financial institution, where she chairs the Audit Committee and serves on Principal’s Executive Committee and Finance Committee, which she previously chaired. Ms. Helton also serves on the Board of Directors of Covetrus, a worldwide animal health business, chairs their Audit Committee and serves on the Nominating and Governance Committee. Prior to the acquisition of Lexmark International Inc. in November 2016, she served on their Board of Directors and Finance and Audit Committee. Ms. Helton also served on the board of Covance Inc., a leading global drug development services company, prior to LabCorp acquiring the company in 2015. She chaired the Finance and Audit Committee and served on the Nominating and Governance Committee of Covance. Ms. Helton was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and member of the Board of Directors of Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. (TDS) from 1998 through 2006. Her responsibilities included strategic planning, finance and information systems, among other functions. Ms. Helton also served on the Boards of United States Cellular Corporation and Aerial Corporation, TDS’s publicly traded subsidiaries. Before TDS, Ms. Helton was Vice President, Corporate Controller of Compaq Computer Corporation. Prior to Compaq, Ms. Helton held over a dozen increasingly responsible positions during her 26-year tenure with Corning Incorporated. Ms. Helton serves on the Board of Northwestern Memorial Foundation. She previously served on the Board of Northwestern Memorial Health Care, a nationally recognized academic medical center, where she chaired the Audit Committee and was a member of the Executive, Finance and Investment Committees. Ms. Helton holds an S.M. in Finance from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management and graduated with a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Kentucky.

Catherine E. Owen

Ms. Owen has served as a director of our company since July 2020. Ms. Owen is Senior Vice President and General Manager, U.S. Cardiovascular, Immunology and Oncology at Bristol-Myers Squibb. Previously she was Senior Vice President, Major Markets, overseeing commercial operations for the business in 18 countries including Japan, Germany, France, and others across Europe. Ms. Owen joined BMS in 2019 from Johnson & Johnson, where she served most recently as President of Janssen Immunology North America, which launched new products in Crohn’s disease and psoriasis and led the development of J&J’s biosimilars strategy. Prior to leading Immunology, Ms. Owen was the President of the Infectious Diseases business in the US, responsible for the HIV, RSV, Flu, and Hepatitis B pipeline. Prior to that Ms. Owen worked in various functions and businesses at J&J and led the launches of multiple products in both Europe and the US. Ms. Owen began her career in the pharmaceutical industry in 1992 at AstraZeneca in London as a production support pharmacist. Ms. Owen earned her Bachelor of Science degree in pharmacy from the University of Manchester and completed her registered pharmacy degree and was a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, MRPhs. In 2019, in recognition of her efforts as a developer of talent, the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) named Owen an HBA Luminary.

Tomas J. Heyman

Mr. Heyman has served as a director of our company since December 2020. Mr. Heyman held a diverse range of leadership roles across legal, R&D, business development, general corporate management, and equity investments during his thirty-seven-year career with Johnson & Johnson. Most recently, Mr. Heyman served as president of JJDC, the venture capital group within Johnson & Johnson, where he managed approximately $1.5 billion of capital and oversaw investments in more than 120 companies. Prior to leading JJDC, Mr. Heyman led business development for Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceutical group, Janssen, for twenty-three years. Mr. Heyman currently serves on the Board of Directors for Akero Therapeutics. Mr. Heyman graduated as Master of Law from the K.U. Leuven in Belgium. He continued with post-graduate studies in International Law in Geneva, Switzerland, and post-graduate studies in business management at the University of Antwerp in Belgium.

Dr. Eric Bednarski

Dr. Bednarski has served as a director of our company since December 2021. He currently serves as Partners at MVM Partners LLP (MVM), a growth equity firm that has invested in innovative, high growth healthcare businesses since 1997. Before joining MVM in 2008, he was a Partner at Advent Healthcare Ventures and a Principal at Advent International Corporation. Prior to Advent, he was a Director in the Corporate Finance Group of Silicon Valley Bank. Dr. Bednarski has a B.S. in Neural Science from Brown University and a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Irvine.

Dr. Kyle Dempsey

Dr. Dempsey has served as a director of our company since December 2021. He currently serves as Partners at MVM Partners LLP (MVM), a growth equity firm that has invested in innovative, high growth healthcare businesses since 1997. Before joining MVM in 2017, he was a consultant at Bain & Company, working mainly in the healthcare practice to support medical device and healthcare provider clients with commercialization and business development projects. Dr. Dempsey received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He also holds an B.A. in biochemistry from Bowdoin College.