Speakers and Panelists

Binita S. Ashar, M.D., MBA, FACS, MAMSE, is the Founder and Principal of Clarity Surgical Advisors, where she advises medical technology companies on regulatory strategy, evidence development, and innovation in surgical devices, robotics, and AI-enabled technologies. She previously spent nearly 25 years at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, most recently as Director of the Office of Surgical and Infection Control Devices in FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, overseeing a broad portfolio of surgical technologies.

Dr. Ashar is a board-certified general surgeon and has held leadership roles at the intersection of medicine, regulation, and public health, including service as a White House Special Advisor for Medicine and Public Health. She is a Research Professor at Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine and serves on the Board of the Society of Robotic Surgery and Institute for Surgical Excellence. Her current work focuses on helping emerging technologies move from innovation to responsible clinical adoption and on developing regulatory and evidence approaches for the increasingly connected, data-driven future of surgery.

Kyle Ettinger, M.D., D.D.S., is an associate professor of surgery within the Department of Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester.  He is a maxillofacial surgeon specializing in head and neck oncologic surgery and microvascular reconstruction.

Dr. Ettinger’s clinical interests in surgical innovation encompass using image-based tumor modeling, virtual surgical planning, 3D printing, and patient-specific implants to improve patient outcomes in head and neck oncology and reconstruction. Dr. Ettinger has published numerous manuscripts on leveraging virtual surgical planning and 3D printing to provide individualized surgery for patients. He has a keen interest in developing the future of this technology to incorporate augmented reality applications into daily surgical practice. He has developed several novel applications for virtual surgical planning and guided surgery that have been adopted by industry and are employed in modern standard-of-care reconstructive workflows. Dr. Ettinger is also heavily involved in clinical research and is the Mayo Clinic principal investigator of a multi-institutional phase II/III cooperative group clinical trial evaluating sentinel lymph node biopsy versus elective neck dissection in early-stage oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma.

Dr. Ettinger is the director of innovation within the Department of Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Together with Dr. Cornelius Thiels, associate chair of innovation, they lead the department’s innovation efforts to bring together partners in industry, with the goals of fostering product co-development, product commercialization, first-in-human trials, and novel technology adoption within the broader Mayo surgical ecosystem.

Jessica Foley, Ph.D., is Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Profound Medical, a commercial-stage medical technology company pioneering customizable, incision-free ultrasound therapies for the treatment of diseased tissue. In this role, she leads cross-functional initiatives that drive corporate growth, cultivate strategic partnerships, strengthen stakeholder engagement, and advance the company’s advocacy and philanthropic efforts.

A passionate champion for patient-centered care, Dr. Foley created Let’s Huddle, Profound’s patient advocacy initiative that brings together patients, survivors, caregivers, and allies to expand awareness, education, and support for individuals affected by prostate disease.

A healthcare leader with extensive experience spanning medical technology, scientific innovation, and stakeholder engagement, Dr. Foley previously served as Managing Director and Chief Scientific Officer of the Focused Ultrasound Foundation. There, she oversaw scientific strategy, led alliance-building efforts with external stakeholders including governmental policymakers, regulatory agencies, and disease-specific foundations, and became a prominent voice championing the adoption of focused ultrasound as a transformative non-invasive therapeutic technology.

Earlier in her career, Dr. Foley held leadership and scientific roles at Insightec and Medtronic, contributing to the advancement and commercialization of innovative medical technologies. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University and a PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Washington.

Dr. Conrad Heid is co-founder of Symphera and a surgeon dedicated to advancing minimally invasive surgery through technology innovation. Drawing on his clinical experience, Conrad co-founded Symphera to address key limitations of current minimally invasive surgery and enable more continuous surgical workflows.

Monica Jain, MD is a Venture Partner at Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health – an early stage healthcare venture fund, the COO at Boston Health AI – building the world’s first AI clinical intelligence companion, CSO at REGENDO – developing a novel autologous stem cell-derived thyroid organoid alongside an automated biomanufacturing platform, and CEO of Dissect Health – a healthcare strategy consulting firm.

A board-certified former general and endocrine surgeon, Dr. Jain previously served as an Assistant Professor of Surgery and the Surgical Innovation Officer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Additionally, with a background in biomedical engineering and human factors and over a decade of experience across clinical, academic, and entrepreneurial settings, she brings a uniquely integrated perspective to healthcare innovation.

Dr. Jain is passionate about bridging the gap between cutting edge healthcare technologies and their real-world adoption.

Meraj Khan is the Chief Marketing Officer for Surgical Innovations (SI) within GE HealthCare’s Advanced Visualization Solutions (AVS) segment. With over 23 years of experience in the medical device industry and a foundation in biomedical engineering, Meraj brings a deep understanding of surgical technologies and strategic marketing to his leadership role.

Prior to leading SI, Meraj served as Vice President of Marketing for Surgical Visualization and Guidance (SVG), part of the BK Medical acquisition. In that role, he spearheaded global marketing efforts for real-time imaging technologies used in General Surgery, Neurosurgery, and Urology. Meraj played a key role in the global integration of BK Medical into GE HealthCare, aligning both commercial and internal operations. His career also includes a wide range of leadership positions in product support, commercial capital sales, portfolio management (upstream and downstream), and strategic marketing across advanced surgical software, imaging, navigation, and robotics.

Looking ahead, he will be instrumental in shaping the strategic direction of Surgical Innovations under AVS—bringing together SVG and Surgery to develop solutions that address the unmet needs of surgeons and strengthen partnerships with hospital systems worldwide.

Michael Kendrick, M.D., is the chair of the Department of Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester and a surgeon within the Division of Hepatobiliary and Pancreas Surgery. Dr. Kendrick holds the academic rank of professor of surgery at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science.

His research interests include benign and malignant diseases of the pancreas and liver, technical aspects of pancreatic surgery, and minimally invasive hepato-pancreato-biliary surgery. He is frequently invited to give presentations on his work both nationally and internationally and has authored numerous journal articles, book chapters and abstracts. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery and holds reviewer responsibilities for prominent scientific publications.

Dr. Kendrick is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and an honorary member of the Brazilian Society of Surgical Oncology. His additional professional memberships include the American Surgical Association, Americas Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association, the International Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association, and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract.

Dr. Kendrick earned his medical degree from George Washington University in Washington, DC. He completed his general surgery residency at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota. After residency, he received additional training as a Mayo Foundation Scholar in hepatobiliary surgery (Mayo Clinic in Rochester and Paris, France) and minimally invasive surgery (Mount Sinai, New York).

Thomas Knox is co-founder and CEO of VitVio, which digitises the operating room in real-time 3D to deploy AI agents into surgical workflow. VitVio’s platform, Vetro, uses computer vision and ambient sensing to automate surgical phase logging, staff coordination, case duration estimates and operative documentation, and is deployed both the US and Europe. The company is part of Mayo Clinic Platform’s Solutions Studio program and has raised $10M to date.

Thomas spent the previous decade in senior executive roles at three hyper-growth companies: Kiwi.com, AiFi and VusionGroup. As Head of Product at AiFi he scaled autonomous checkout-free stores globally and white-labelled the technology to major retailers, and as Global VP of Product at VusionGroup he led a portfolio responsible over $1B revenue in twelve months. He is now working hand-in-hand with surgical teams to apply that experience to the operating room.

Chas McKhann serves as the Executive Chairman of Distalmotion, a surgical robotics company that is commercializing the Dexter® robot for general surgery and gynecological surgery procedures in the ASC environment. Chas also serves as a Board member of Exagen, Inc., a publicly-traded diagnostics company and Envoy Medical, a publicly traded medical device company that is developing the first fully implantable cochlear implant. He is also a Sr. Advisor to McKinsey & Company, the global strategy consulting firm.

Previously, Mr. McKhann served as CEO and/or Chief Commercial Officer of four companies that have been acquired for ~$3.5 billion. He served as CEO of Silk Road Medical, and prior to that, CEO of Apollo Endosurgery, both publicly-traded medical device companies that were acquired by Boston Scientific.

Mr. McKhann previously served as Chief Commercial Officer at Torax Medical and at Intersect ENT and has held marketing leadership roles at Boston Scientific and Cordis, a Johnson and Johnson company. Mr. McKhann started his career as a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Company.

Mr. McKhann received a B.A. in political science and an M.B.A. from Stanford University.

Pablo Morales, M.D., leads the clinical and medical vision for Veranex’s Innovation CRO (iCRO) business, helping clients navigate the development of innovative medical technologies through patient-centered, scientifically rigorous, and regulatory-compliant strategies.

He brings more than 15 years of clinical, regulatory, and scientific leadership experience spanning medical device development, clinical research, real-world evidence, and regulatory affairs.

Prior to joining Veranex, Dr. Morales served in senior leadership roles at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including Chief Medical Officer in the Office of Clinical Evidence and Analysis and Senior Medical Advisor in the Office of Clinical Policy. During his tenure, he provided clinical and regulatory oversight for more than 1,000 medical device submissions and played a key role in advancing several FDA initiatives, including the Early Feasibility Studies (EFS) Program, the implementation of Real-World Evidence (RWE) initiatives, and the Benefit-Risk Framework, helping balance patient safety with timely access to innovative technologies.

A trained vascular and endovascular surgeon, Dr. Morales earned his medical degree from Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Colombia. He completed advanced clinical training at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London and a research fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic.

Throughout his career, Dr. Morales has remained committed to advancing innovation that improves patient outcomes while upholding the highest standards of scientific, ethical, and regulatory excellence.

Joe Mullings has been building companies and careers since 1989. He is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of The Mullings Group, including TMG Search and Dragonfly. The search firm, with over three decades in the industry, is responsible for more than 9,000 successful searches in medtech / healthtech / life sciences with clients ranging from multi-billion-dollar companies to emerging high-tech organizations worldwide. TMG’s international presence and work with over 900 companies allow them to provide solutions to the clients they partner with across the globe.

As the first search firm to integrate media and talent access, Dragonfly was launched as a media production company, complete with a state-of-the-art studio, for use by clients and partners for attention and awareness. Dragonfly is the media machine behind the 9-time Award winning video docuseries, “TrueFuture,” of which Joe is the host. He is also the founder of TMGPulse, a MedTech news and opinion website.

Joe is an active member of the medtech and investor community. He sits on industry boards and serves as an adviser to many emerging tech startups and technology accelerators as well as being an angel investor. He holds an engineering degree from The University of Dayton, Ohio.

Amel Najjar is the Founder and CEO of MedGEO, a procedural intelligence company transforming how healthcare providers document, understand, and act on what happens at the point of care. Developed by clinicians from the start, MedGEO uses AI, automation, and proprietary smart-vision technology to create a more accurate source of truth across procedural workflows, giving surgical teams and health systems greater visibility into clinical, operational, and financial performance.

With more than 20 years of experience spanning field hospitals and advanced operating rooms, Amel brings a distinctive perspective on where healthcare systems break down, from resource-limited environments to leading institutions. She has led surgical teams in complex settings and consistently focused on using technology to improve accuracy, access, efficiency, and care delivery.

Amel is also the Founder of the Children of War Foundation, an international nonprofit that has reached more than 62,000 children worldwide through access to life-saving medical care and education.

She serves on multiple boards, including with the International Rescue Committee’s Airbel Impact Lab, the IRC’s research and innovation arm. There, she has co-chaired initiatives including the Innovation Fund, which supports socially driven startups and programs developing bold, research-backed solutions for communities affected by conflict and crisis.

Across MedGEO, Children of War Foundation, and her work with NGOs and civil society organizations, Amel focuses on using technology, evidence, and innovation to strengthen complex systems when the stakes are highest.

Amel holds an MBA from the University of Oxford, a certificate in AI in Healthcare from MIT Sloan, and a BA in International Relations and Political Science from UC San Diego.

Will Perry, M.B., Ch.B., M.P.H., FRACS, FACS, FASCRS, is an associate professor of Surgery and colon and rectal surgeon at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He is vice chair of Practice for the Department of Surgery and the director of the International Fellowship in Colon & Rectal Surgery.

Dr. Perry has specialist interests in functional and oncological pelvic surgery and co-directs Mayo Clinic’s Surgical AI2 lab.

He completed his surgical training with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and his advanced fellowship training with Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust and Mayo Clinic. Prior to surgical training, Dr. Perry completed a Master of Public Health at Harvard University as a Fulbright Scholar and worked as an external consultant to the World Health Organization in Geneva. He also served on the Advisory Board of Safe Surgery New Zealand.

Stephanie Polites, M.D., is an associate professor of Surgery and chair of the Division of Pediatric Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Her clinical focus includes pediatric surgical oncology, vascular and lymphatic malformations, and other pediatric conditions.

Dr. Polites leads a precision pediatric surgical oncology clinical trials and technology research program. Dr. Polites’ studies include the investigation of novel fluorescent agents that can help surgeons distinguish cancerous tissues from healthy, noncancerous structures during resection. Beyond the operating room, she studies surgical survivorship, using smartwatches and quality-of-life data to improve long-term cancer and wellness outcomes. Dr. Polites is nationally active in collaborative pediatric surgical oncology research and has extensive experience in collecting and analyzing multi-institutional data to improve outcomes for patients with rare conditions requiring surgery, such as pediatric cancer.

Dr. Polites earned her medical degree from Case Western Reserve University and completed her general surgery residency at Mayo Clinic. Dr. Polites also completed fellowships in vascular anomalies and oncology, as well as pediatric surgery.

Todd E. Rasmussen, M.D., is a professor of Surgery and consultant in the Department of Surgery’s Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery at Mayo Clinic. He is Director of the Clinic Gonda Vascular Center and through an agreement with Mayo Clinic, Dr. Rasmussen serves as Chief Surgical Officer of Humacyte Global, Inc. In this role he leads a team of professionals in the study and safe and effective integration of a pipeline of regenerative medicine products for cardiovascular surgery.

Dr. Rasmussen earned his medical degree from the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine and completed surgical residency with the United States Air Force before returning to Mayo Clinic to complete a vascular surgery fellowship. In 2021, Dr. Rasmussen joined the Mayo Clinic staff after a career as an Air Force surgeon during which he completed deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world, and led research programs and appropriations for the U.S. Department of Defense. Among several awards, he was presented with the Defense Superior Service Medal upon retirement at the rank of Colonel. In addition to his surgical service at Mayo Clinic, Dr. Rasmussen has served as Vice Chair of Education for the Department of Surgery.

His innovation efforts have resulted in more than 350 publications, an h-index of more than 70 and more than 20,000 citations. Dr. Rasmussen has patents in endovascular devices and vascular shunt technologies and has frequently collaborated with industry and the U.S FDA.

Siddarth Satish serves as Vice President, AI at Stryker, where he leads the company’s center of excellence in AI and Spatial Computing and works with Stryker’s commercial divisions on their AI/ML and mixed reality initiatives. Siddarth serves on the executive leadership team of the company’s Ortho Tech Division and chairs the company’s AI Governance Operating Committee. Siddarth previously served on the leadership team of the Digital, Robotics and Enabling Technologies division and served as Vice President, Digital Innovation for the Surgical Technologies Business Unit.

Prior to joining Stryker, Siddarth served as Chairman and CEO of Gauss Surgical, a venture-backed healthcare AI company from its inception through six US and global regulatory approvals (including FDA De Novo clearance), post-market clinical studies, market launch, and its acquisition by Stryker in 2021. Inspired while observing surgeries in graduate school, Siddarth founded Gauss in 2011 to develop a novel method of accurately measuring surgical blood loss using computer vision and machine learning techniques. Under his leadership, Gauss scaled to over 250,000 surgical procedures annually, raised $60 million in venture capital from SoftBank Ventures and several strategic healthcare investors, and received the Apple Design Award, which recognizes the best in design, innovation, and technology on Apple platforms.

Siddarth has served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at StartX, Stanford University’s Startup Accelerator, and has held research roles at Gilead Sciences and at UC Berkeley, where his work in computer-aided drug discovery and molecular modeling was published widely.

Siddarth immigrated to the U.S. from India at the age of seven. He received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.S. in Bioengineering from the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Graduate Group in Bioengineering, and held a SIMdesign fellowship in the Department of Surgery at Stanford University. He holds over 50 patents in the fields of surgery, diagnostics, and computer vision and was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in Healthcare.

Ofer Shalev is the founder and CEO of New Phase Ltd., a company he established in 2013 together with co-founder Dr. Rafi Hof. Prior to founding New Phase, they successfully led Redent Nova, a medical device company that developed disruptive technology for minimally invasive dental treatment.

Their shared experience in building breakthrough medical technologies laid the foundation for New Phase’s mission to transform cancer care.

Throughout his career, Ofer has been driven by innovation and disruptive technologies. Over the past 20 years, he has held executive leadership positions in the medical device industry, following an earlier career in the high-tech sector. Earlier in his career, he was recruited as Vice President of the Jerusalem Bank during its strategic transformation from a specialized mortgage bank into a full commercial bank.

Ofer holds an MBA from Edinboro University.

At New Phase, Ofer has led every stage of the company’s development—from defining its vision and corporate strategy to fundraising, regulatory execution, technology development, and clinical translation. Under his leadership, the company has built expertise in metallic nanoparticles, electromagnetic field-based cancer therapy, preclinical and clinical protocol development, and regulatory pathways in both Israel and the United States.

Dr. Scott Tackett is the CEO and President of AIRA Sciences, a leader in AI-driven, non-invasive, affordable and simple multi-cancer early detection platform utilizing a cheek swab. A seasoned medtech executive with over 25 years of experience, Dr. Tackett specializes in health economics, international market access and development, and the commercialization of robotic and AI health technologies.

During his transformative 11-year tenure at Intuitive Surgical, Dr. Tackett served Global Vice President of Market Access, Value & Economics and Chief of Staff to the CEO and Executive Leadership Team, directly shaping the company’s high-level global corporate strategy and led the strategic market access and development initiatives that systematically dismantled economic and patient access barriers to robotic-assisted surgery worldwide. By designing robust health economic, outcomes and patient access research that demonstrated long-term clinical, economic and patient access value, his organization opened and established new markets across more than 30 countries, directly driving the institutionalization of the da Vinci Surgical System and scaling annual corporate revenues from $2B to $11B.

His deep expertise in health economics, implementation science and global health policy also spans prior leadership roles at Baxter International, Johnson & Johnson, and St. Jude Medical. A dedicated academic, Dr. Tackett is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Tulane University and sits on the international board of the Survey of Medical Assessment for Robotic Technology at Peking University. He holds a Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) from Indiana University, where his research focused on the implementation effectiveness of lung cancer screening, as well as an MHA and MPH from Tulane University in healthcare strategy and economics.

Cornelius Thiels, D.O., MBA, FACS, FSSO, is an associate professor of surgery and associate professor of health services research within the Department of Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

As a surgical oncologist in the Division of Hepatobiliary and Pancreas Surgery, he specializes in managing retroperitoneal sarcomas and pancreatic cancer. He also has extensive training and experience in the treatment of neuroendocrine tumors, gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), gastric cancer and metastatic colorectal cancer. Dr. Thiels has special expertise in multimodality treatment of advanced or metastatic cancers, combining surgery with radiation, chemotherapy, or immunotherapy. Dr. Thiels utilizes minimally invasive techniques to perform various operations (including robotic surgery) and leads the Hepatic Artery Infusion Pump Chemotherapy program at Mayo Clinic.

Dr. Thiels is the associate chair of innovation for the Department of Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Together with Dr. Kyle Ettinger, director of innovation, they lead the department’s innovation efforts to bring together partners in industry with the goals of fostering product co-development, product commercialization, first-in-human trials, and novel technology adoption within the broader Mayo surgical ecosystem.

He is also the associate chair of data and analytics for Mayo Clinic’s Department of Surgery and the director of a Surgical AI2 (“Squared”) Lab.

Karin Tollefson, PharmD, is Chief Oncology Medical Officer at Pfizer, leading the Global Oncology Medical Affairs Division. Prior to Pfizer, she served as Senior Vice President and Head of Global Medical Affairs at Seagen, where she guided the successful launch of three medicines and built a global medical organization.

Dr. Tollefson has over 30 years of pharmaceutical industry experience, including leadership roles at Eli Lilly and Company across clinical operations, clinical development, portfolio & program management, and global medical affairs.

During her career she has contributed to the launch of nine new medicines in U.S. and international markets across multiple therapeutic areas. Dr. Tollefson currently serves on the Board of Verastem Oncology and has been a director on several nonprofit boards. She earned her Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Kansas.