Team
Team
Management Team
Tivic Health management is grounded in deep expertise. Tivic’s team of motivated professionals have a talent for innovation and a deep conviction for developing health-tech medical devices that are non-invasive, drug-free and address chronic healthcare conditions.
Jennifer Ernst
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder
Jennifer is a co-founder and has served as our Chief Executive Officer and as a Director. Jennifer served as the CEO and Chief Strategy Officer of the U.S. subsidiary of Thin Film Electronics ASA. She worked for Xerox PARC for over 20 years, where she held multiple go-to-market roles, including as the Director of Business Development. Ms. Ernst previously served as a director of FlexTech Alliance, the U.S. national consortium for flexible and printed electronics, for three years, including one year as the Chair. Ms. Ernst earned her Master of Business Administration degree from Santa Clara University.
Jennifer has been featured in Inc., The HealthCare Technology Report, and Thrive Global as a female leader who is shaking up things in the industry.
Jennifer Ernst
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder
Lisa Wolf
Ms. Wolf brings over 30 years of financial leadership experience in both public and private companies across industries. Her background includes experience in public accounting and industry experience in technology, life sciences, SAAS and others. Ms. Wolf recently served as Chief Accounting Officer of Resonant, Inc. (NASDAQ: RESN) where she played a pivotal role in the company’s growth and ultimate sale to Murata Electronics North America, Inc. Ms. Wolf also serves as Vice President at Murdock Martell, a consulting and recruiting firm offering cutting-edge finance, accounting and HR solutions focused primarily on life science and technology sectors. Ms. Wolf holds a B.S. in Business Administration from California State University, Northridge and earned her CPA while working at Arthur Andersen. She replaces Kimberly Bambach, who served as interim Chief Financial Officer since April 2023, and continues to support the company in an advisory role.Lisa Wolf
Interim Chief Financial Officer
Blake Gurfein, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Blake leads Tivic Health’s clinical and scientific research. In addition to his full-time role at Tivic Health, he is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine at UCSF. Blake is an expert in neuromodulation device development and has served as a research executive and consultant for medical device and pharma companies including Rio Grande Neurosciences and EMD Serono/Pfizer. Blake’s prior research in neuroscience and immunology has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and philanthropic donors, yielding high-impact journal publications.
Ph.D., Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Sc.B., Neuroscience, Brown University.
Blake Gurfein, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Chandrasekhar Durisety, PhD
VP, Engineering and Manufacturing
Chandrasekhar is in charge of product development, supply chain, procurement, manufacturing as well as identifying, building and optimizing partnerships with vendors related to product design and production. Since joining Tivic Health as the 1st full-time employee, Chandrasekhar has played an important role in the product development and manufacturing. Prior to Tivic Health, Chandrasekhar worked as Director of Field Applications Engineering at Thinfilm Electronics Inc. and built field teams across APAC, EMEA and North America. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Instrumentation from Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS, Pilani) , Master’s and Doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Chandrasekhar Durisety, PhD
VP, Engineering and Manufacturing
Board of Directors
Our Board of Directors bring their expertise and contributions in consumer health and technology to the Tivic Health team, as we scale up commercial operations and develop new bioelectronic therapies.
Jennifer Ernst
Jennifer is a consummate hi-tech business developer with a history of developing markets from new technologies such as Thin Film Electronics ($480M market cap in 5 yrs) with Xerox PARC. With over 20 years at Xerox PARC, she held multiple go-to-market roles and marketed multiple award-winning products. MBA, Santa Clara University. Jennifer has been featured in Authority Magazine and Thrive Global as a female leader who is shaking up things in the industry.
Sheryle Bolton
Sheryle is Professor of Entrepreneurship, Hult International Business School. She is an experienced public company CEO, international Board Member and serial entrepreneur. As CEO and Chairman of Scientific Learning Corporation, a neuroscience technology company, she built the company from pre-product to a highly successful IPO. Previously, she was vice president at Merrill Lynch Capital Markets, and a senior executive at Home Box Office and Rockefeller and Co. Two Stanford Business School cases have been written about her career, and she has been recognized as one of the most influential female Harvard Business School graduates.
Dean Zikria
Dean Zikria has served as a director on our board since July 10, 2019. Mr. Zikria brings deep industry experience in allergy and asthma as well as other chronic diseases to the board. Since August 2019, Dean has been the Founder, CEO, and Chairman of Mind Machine LLC, a Silicon Valley-based marketing/advertising agency – focused on the MedTech industry. From June 1, 2021, until January 2023, he served as the Chief Commercial Officer at Intuity Medical Inc., a Silicon Valley MedTech company launching a highly disruptive glucose meter in the diabetes industry. In addition, he has served as Chairman of DZ Advisors, LLC, a company founded by Mr. Zikria in 2017 that provides consulting and advisory services to the medtech, biotech, digital health, and pharmaceutical industries, since inception, where he also served as President from December 2017 until May 31, 2021. Mr. Zikria also sits on the boards of the following privately held companies: AsthmaTek, Inc., a startup digital health company in the asthma space; Paneau Inc., a technology company placing targeted advertising in ride shares; Brev.Dev, Inc., a technology company developing a disruptive platform to aid developers. Dean previously served as Chief Executive Officer of Spirosure Inc., a FeNO detection company for asthma diagnostics, from 2014 to 2017. Additionally, he previously served as head of global marketing for Johnson & Johnson’s Animas Corporation within their medical device & diagnostics division. He was head of strategy for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals U.S. Cardiovascular Unit, a division with approximately $7 billion in annual revenues. Mr. Zikria brings experience in strategic planning, scenario planning and analysis, and mergers and acquisitions, including sourcing, transactions, and integration.
Christina Valauri
Christina Valauri has over 30 years of experience in the capital markets holding leadership roles as a senior healthcare equity research analyst, US and Global Head of Equity Research, Co-Head of Capital Markets, and serving for nearly 8 years on the equity capital markets operating committee of a publicly traded broker dealer. As a Managing Director she has held senior equity research management roles at firms including Cantor Fitzgerald, ING, Credit Lyonnais and Natixis. Her career as a senior healthcare equity research analyst has provided a deep base of knowledge and experience in pharmaceutical, biotech, and med-tech companies. She has been recognized by the Wall Street Journal’s “Best on the Street” All-Star Analyst Survey. Ms. Valauri is the founder and CEO of Sagestone Advisory, LLC, a business strategy-focused consultancy. She is currently a director on the board of Precipio Inc. (NASDAQ: PRPO), is an advisor to several early stage private companies and is an Entrepreneur In Residence at Weill Cornell Medicine BioVenture eLab. Ms. Valauri earned her B.A. in Biology from Reed College and an MBA from Cornell University.Advisors to the Board
Kim Bambach
Interim Chief Financial Officer
Ms. Bambach brings over 30 years of financial leadership experience in both public and private companies across industries. Her background includes financial leadership in medical and retail markets, manufacturing, wholesale distribution, licensing, digital media, and broadcasting. Bambach most recently served as Chief Financial Officer of Jushi Holdings Inc., where she played a pivotal role in the company’s rapid growth driving over a dozen acquisitions in a complex regulatory environment. Since leaving Jushi as CFO, Bambach has continued as an advisor to the company while providing consulting services to several private companies. Before Jushi, Ms. Bambach held executive leadership and finance positions in both public and private equity companies. She replaces Veronica Cai, who served as Chief Financial Officer of the Company since April 2022. Ms. Bambach holds a BA from SUNY Brockport and an MBA from Pace University.
Karen Drexler
Karen Drexler has served as a director on our board since July 16, 2019. Ms. Drexler is a serial entrepreneur with expertise in the fields of digital health, medical devices and diagnostics. From September 2014 to June 2020 she served as board member of, and from June 2016 until June 2020, she was the Chief Executive Officer of, Sandstone Diagnostics, Inc., a private company developing instruments and consumables for point-of-care medical testing. Ms. Drexler also serves on the boards of ResMed (NYSE: RSMD), OutSet Medical (NASDAQ: OM), EBR Systems (ASX: EBR), VIDA Health, a leading company in Al-powered lung intelligence solutions and analytics, and Huma.ai, a medical intelligence company. From 2011 to 2017, she served as Chair of the board of Hygieia, Inc., a digital insulin therapy company, where she remains involved as an advisor to the chief executive officer. She also acts as a senior strategic advisor for other early-stage companies and spent 11 years on the board of the Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education at Princeton University. Ms. Drexler has served on numerous private company boards in the fields of diagnostics, medical devices, and digital health. She is an active mentor and advisor with Astia, a global nonprofit that supports high-potential female founders. She is a founding member of Astia Angels, a network of individual investors who fund such founders, and a lead mentor with StartX, the Stanford University incubator. She is also on the Life Science and Women’s Health Councils for Springboard, an accelerator for women-led technology-oriented companies. Through her work with Astia, Springboard, and StartX, she interacts with many promising young medtech companies. Ms. Drexler was a founder, president, and Chief Executive Officer of Amira Medical Inc., a private company focused on minimally invasive glucose monitoring technology, from 1996 until it was sold to Roche Holding AG in 2001. Before joining Amira Medical, she held management roles at LifeScan and played a key role in its sale to Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ). Ms. Drexler graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University and earned a Master of Business Administration with honors from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
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