“Your vision, strategic planning, creativity, and persistence were all key to making this event a big success…You and your team are the best kind of partner that we can have. I'm really looking forward to continuing to work together on next steps.”
“Our strategic partnership with Prescience in planning and executing the BioExec Institute has been a very positive experience for our firm. We view this partnership as critical to the Institute's success. They help us and UC-Berkeley, develop a unique, first-class executive program that makes it compelling for senior leaders within the biotech and pharmaceutical sectors to attend. The team at Prescience is hands-on and executes in a cooperative and disciplined manner, enabling the Institute to increase the level of awareness of the issues facing the industry and engaging global leaders in developing the answers.”
Prescience International is a dynamic team that is passionate about creating change through innovative solutions. With a collective expertise that penetrates a wide variety of sectors and issues, Prescience delivers high quality results that fits the needs. Additionally, the Prescience Management Model allows for our team to work more closely on a project by actually becoming part of the team that is on the ground at a designated site.
Melinda Richter - Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Melinda Richter is the Founder and CEO of Prescience International, an award-winning firm dedicated to accelerating the commercialization of science and technology into economic wealth and social impact. Melinda is a serial entrepreneur and seasoned business strategist with over 20 years' dedicated to implementing strategic visions based upon extensive operational experience and in-depth marketing intelligence. She started her career at Nortel Networks, where she spent more than 8 years in an executive fast track program working around the globe on joint ventures, acquisitions, strategic planning, marketing, contract negotiations, engineering and manufacturing, and world trade market development. Following a medical emergency that left her questioning the effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of the healthcare industry, Melinda launched her life sciences career in the San Francisco Bay Area by creating capital efficient ways to commercialize technologies in sectors that require extensive funding and timelines to get to market.
Melinda then established Prescience's innovation center model, which gives early stage companies a big company advantage by providing access to infrastructure, education, and capital. This model is exemplified through the San Jose BioCenter; formerly a 40,000sf state-of-the-art research facility, the Environmental Business Cluster (EBC); one of the first cleantech incubators ever to be established in the U.S., and Janssen Labs a 32,000sf innovation center located at the Janssen R&D West Coast campus in San Diego. As a result, Prescience has supported over 200 companies and facilitated the creation of nearly 1500 jobs and over $2B of growth capital.
Melinda co-founded the UC Berkeley BioExec Institute and currently sits on its Board of Advisors. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada and an M.B.A. from INSEAD in France. She currently resides in San Francisco and San Diego, CA.
melinda@prescienceintl.com
Minh Miran, PROJECT MANAGEMENT & OPERATIONS DIRECTOR
Minh Miran manages all aspects of business operations and project management for Prescience International and its projects to ensure the staff and office continue to operate at the highest level of efficiency and achieve optimal performance. In her role, Mrs. Miran helps to define and continuously improve all business processes and operational flows; oversees executive budgeting and reporting functions; manages the administration of human resources policies, procedures, programs, and best practices and provides general support to the CEO. Mrs. Miran plans, schedules and controls activities to fulfill identified objectives applying technical, theoretical and managerial skills to satisfy project requirements. Mrs. Miran comes to Prescience with over 14 years in business and operations management, having worked for such companies as American Capital, Ltd., Pacific Media, Monster Cable, Blanc & Otus Public Relations and State Farm Insurance. Mrs. Miran has a bachelor of science in Accounting from Saint Mary's College, Moraga, Calif.
minh@prescienceintl.com
Tel (408) 781-8483
Erika Kula - DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND NEW VENTURES
Ms. Kula is the Director of Business Development and New Ventures for Prescience International. As a senior member of Prescience International, Ms. Kula is responsible for the recruitment and screening of the high potential companies housed in the award-winning San Jose BioCenter and Environmental Business Cluster, securing world-class sponsors and partners for the facilities, identifying growth opportunities for Prescience and the ultimate execution of these opportunities.
Prior to Prescience International Ms. Kula was responsible for sales and management of corporate accounts at Equilar, Inc, the market leader for benchmarking executive and director compensation and providing corporate governance related information to over two-thirds of the Fortune 500 companies. In her capacity she was responsible for the management of over 200 accounts such as Eli Lily, Disney, Home Depot, Gap, AutoNation, and Capital One.
Ms. Kula holds a BA in Biological Sciences and Political Science from the University of Southern California and a Certificate from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Center for Executive Education for their 2008 Business Executive Program and 2009 Cleantech Exec Program.
erika@prescienceintl.com
Tel: (415) 828-1498
Chelsea Hewitt - Director OF NEW VENTURES
Ms. Hewitt is the Director of New Ventures for Prescience International, a firm dedicated to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship through innovation centers dedicated to acceleration of cleantech, life sciences, and other technologies utilizing chemistry, biology, and engineering. As a senior member of Prescience Intl, Ms. Hewitt is responsible for the strategy behind market expansion, delivery of services, financing of opportunities, and the ultimate execution of those strategies. Ms. Hewitt also directs the commercialization efforts via the Annual Investor Forum for the National Cancer Institute SBIR and directs the annual UC Berkeley BioExec Institute.
Ms. Hewitt began her career in international incubator management with London-based, multi-media incubator and investment firm, Illuminator Plc., where she was responsible for the market analysis and due diligence to support the funding of prospective portfolio companies. Following her time with Illuminator, Ms. Hewitt lead the entrepreneurial program at Astia, where she managed all marketing communications, oversaw external program development, and directed the Annual Venture Conference; an emerging company showcase to over 400+ attendees. Ms. Hewitt has a BA in History from the University of California Santa Barbara and a Certificate from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, Center for Executive Education for their 2004 Business Executive Program.
chelsea@prescienceintl.com
Tel: (415) 405-6385
AURELIE GAUDIN - MARKETING & EVENTS, PRESCIENCE BAY AREA
As part of Prescience, Ms. Gaudin has been responsible for marketing and events for Prescience and its clients since 2005. Her role include the execution of world-class, year round programming (ranging from one-on-one meetings to large panel series and vendor shows), the creation of all online and offline marketing/communication collaterals for Prescience and its clients (brochures, website, newsletter, PR, email campaigns, trade show materials, etc.).
She took a couple years off from Prescience from April 2010 to April 2012 to work for the "La Rochelle Business School" as the Events Coordinator. There, she developed events with a communication impact on the School such as conferences, sport related events, graduation ceremonies and Galas for up to 1,700 attendees.
Prior to Prescience, she worked at the US MAC to help facilitate its transition from incubator to a high potential consulting firm for foreign entities. In that capacity, Ms. Gaudin worked to reposition all the communication materials and closed several major partnerships for the US MAC.
While completing a BA of Foreign Languages applied to International Business at the University of Nantes, she designed and conducted a market survey for Cedeo – a division of Point P, leader of materials distribution in France. She also worked as a street team supervisor for Globe Diffusion, a direct-marketing company with worldwide famous clients such as Nokia, L'Oréal, Lacoste, Siemens, H&M, and many more. In parallel of going to high school, she was one of the four teenagers selected to complete a professional training in STD prevention at AIDES Vendée. She then created and executed a music festival to benefit the research and to educate the 15-35 y.o. individuals considered as STD high-risk population.
aurelie@prescienceintl.com
MADELAINE HOLDEN – MARKETING & EVENTS MANAGER, JANSSEN LABS
Madelaine is responsible for marketing and events for Janssen Labs. Her role includes coordinating high-quality, diverse and distinctive programming ranging from one-on-one investor meetings, workshops and large panel series to vendor shows and networking events. Ms. Holden is also in charge of managing outside events held at the Janssen Research & Development site.
Prior to Prescience Madelaine was Program Manager at CONNECT, an organization that catalyzes the creation of innovative technology and life sciences products in San Diego County. While at CONNECT, Madelaine worked on a wide variety of programs but mainly focus on planning and coordinating events as well as managing members, sponsors and volunteers for affiliate organizations such as the MIT Enterprise Forum of San Diego. Ms. Holden collaborated with several other groups and organizations throughout her time in San Diego, including the San Diego Zoo, the Wireless Life Sciences Alliance, the Center for Ethics in Science & Technology, the Entrepreneurs Organization, and the Business Executives Council. Ms. Holden has a BA in Communications from the University of Washington.
madelaine@prescienceintl.com
Chelsea Cowden - EH&S and Operations Manager
Chelsea has 10 years of cGMP experience in a manufacturing lab setting at two biotechnology companies and one pharmaceutical company. Her focus was in protein chemistry, fermentation and purification. She also specialized in using and trouble-shooting equipment. She worked at Diversa Corporation (now known as Verenium) for approximately five years, then Favrille Inc. for approximately two years, then Invitrogen (now known as Life Technologies) for approximately three years. While at Life Technologies, she participated in every safety committee and eventually transitioned full time into the EH&S department for the last two and a half years of her tenure there. Her responsibilities crossed all Global departments including Manufacturing, R&D, Maintenance/Engineering/Facilities, and Distribution/Shipping & Receiving. Also during her time at Life Tech, she participated in a one year Nurse Internship program at Palomar Hospital, took 6 classes towards her Professional Occupational Health and Safety certificate through UCSD Extension, and completed her 40 Hour HAZWOPER class for spill response. Chelsea has a BS in Biochemistry with an emphasis in Cell Biology and a minor in Sociology from UCSD. Post-graduation, she attended Palomar Community College for first aid and also took an EMT-basic level course.
CCowden@prescienceintl.com
Victor Chang - Market Research Manager
Victor brings over 5 years of marketing research experience, primarily in the life sciences industry, to Prescience. He's worked on both syndicated and custom market research reports, and is well-versed in qualitative and quantitative research techniques. Prior to Prescience, Victor worked for Health Strategies Group and most recently AlphaDetail, a Symphony Health Solutions company, providing market research solutions for companies such as Genentech, Pfizer, Alcon, and Johnson and Johnson.
Victor holds a Bachelor of Science in Management Science from the University of California, San Diego and a Master of Bioscience (MBS) from the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences in Claremont, CA. In his spare time, Victor dabbles in photography and (as a former personal trainer) tries to live the life of fitness both at the gym and by training for and participating in triathlons, most notably Ironman Canada in 2011.
victor@prescienceintl.com
Tel: (415) 264-9780
Nicholas Stoll, MS - CONTROLLER
Mr. Stoll has been Controller of Prescience International since February of 2012. Since joining Prescience Mr. Stoll has played a key role in the development and implementation of accounting processes and controls. He is responsible for the financial reporting of the company and general oversight of all accounting functions.
Mr. Stoll started his career in Europe, participating in the fundraising and development of companies in the fashion and leisure industries. As Director and General Manager Mr. Stoll gained experiences including operations, strategy, and finance while negotiating over 50 exclusive agreements and participating in the market introductions of several major brands in Europe including Burton Snowboards, Smith sport goggles, Simple shoes and Santa Cruz Skateboards.
After 12 years abroad Mr. Stoll returned to the US to complete a Master's degree in Management. For the ensuing 7 years Mr. Stoll directed the finances and administration at Multigig, Inc., a Silicon Valley Fabless Semiconductor start-up company. At Multigig, Mr. Stoll was instrumental in the company's successfully raising four rounds of funding and helping to drive the company towards their acquisition by Analog Devices in 2012.
Mr. Stoll holds an Associate of Arts degree in Accounting from Cabrillo Community College at Aptos, California, Bachelor of Arts degrees from UC Davis in English and Political Science, and a Master's of Science degree in Management of Technology from Golden Gate University. Mr. Stoll also completed the coursework for the Master's in Economic Policy at the University of Maryland in Catonsville and is currently enrolled in the Masters of Finance program at Golden Gate University.
nicholas@prescienceintl.com