Team Mentorship Program
Based on the model developed by the MIT Venture Mentoring Service (VMS), the Team Mentorship Program matches companies with skilled mentors who are experts in their fields to provide practical advice on key issues and strategic support, relevant to a company’s stage of development, to advance their business objectives.
The gold standard in mentoring programs, MIT VMS model is unique in its methodology, using a strict code of ethics to assure objective, conflict-free and confidential advice. The MIT VMS model has a proven set of best practices for supporting company development through the selection and training of a community of highly qualified and committed volunteer mentors.
Emergence Client Expectations:
Emergence clients that are selected to participate in the Team Mentorship Program have demonstrated rapid growth and transformation, and could benefit from the professional advice, strategy sessions and expertise of the Emergence mentors.
For more information on the Team Mentorship Program and to submit interest, contact jennifer@peibioalliance.com.
Our Mentors
Betsy Bascom
Betsy Bascom, M.B.A., is President & CEO of Global Connectworks, a business consulting firm in Toronto. She has a strong track record and a broad scope of experience in business development, negotiations, management, board governance, marketing, product development, business communications and strategy, lobbying, conference and event management. Betsy has superior leadership, project management and organization skills, and is a results and detail oriented, strategic thinker. She is known for helping companies find innovative and resourceful solutions to challenges.
Tanya Chapman
President & CEO of the Chapman Group
Tanya founded The Chapman Group to help individuals, teams and organizations transform to perform. Her boutique consulting company tailors custom solutions for each client, aligning strategic human resources practices with the overall organizational goals and vision. Tanya is committed to leading positive, progressive, and sustainable growth in New Brunswick and across Atlantic Canada. She encourages leaders to think big about their businesses, their teams, their plans and their purpose. As president and CEO of the Chapman Group, she leads by example. Her experience is deep and diverse. Along with being an entrepreneur, Tanya has worked as an oil and gas executive and a university lecturer. An insightful and inspiring facilitator, she helps individuals and teams find focus and clarity to achieve their professional and personal goals. Tanya holds a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Bachelor of Education degree from St. Thomas University. She has a certificate in Human Resource Management and an MBA from the University of New Brunswick. She is a designated Certified Human Resource Professional and has completed the ICD Directors Education Program at the Rotman School of Business.
Byron Beeler
As company founder and president of Beeler Consulting, Byron brings his broad management and consulting experience to the table. His career path has included positions as Director of the Soils and Crops Branch, Ontario Department of Agriculture; General Manager of Stewart Seeds; Vice-President of Ciba-Geigy’s agricultural division; and President of Novartis Animal Health. Byron has played key leadership roles in many of Canada’s professional agricultural associations. Since establishing his consulting firm in 2001, he has worked with governments as well as with local, national and international companies. Beeler Consulting offers an extended range of consulting advice to the life sciences industry.
Byron was made a Fellow of the Agricultural Institute of Canada (1995) and inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame (2005). Additionally, McGill University honoured him with a Distinguished Alumni Award in 2009 and the E.P. Taylor Outstanding Service Award in 2010.
Ron Keefe
Ron has been a member of the PEI BioAlliance since its inception and served as its chair for a number of years. He is currently counsel to Stewart McKelvey having previously been a partner in the firm. He is also a partner in the general partnership of Island Captial Partners, a venture fund providing equity funding to early-stage life science and other companies. He is the former CEO of BIOVECTRA and Diagnostic Chemicals Limited (now Sekisui Diagnostics), two of the largest businesses in the PEI bioscience cluster. Ron is a present and past board member of many companies, several of which are engaged in life sciences. He also spends a considerable amount of time mentoring founders of new businesses.
Wayne Fisher
Wayne has over 40 years’ experience in the North American healthcare industry. He has led multinational organizations in the pharmaceutical and consumer health markets as well start-up ventures in the electronic health care records, health information and supply chain markets. He has held senior management positions in sales, marketing and general management including President of Novartis Consumer Health. He co-founded Plexus 360, a SaaS company where he created an innovative web-based marketing supply chain solution for the Canadian Healthcare market. Wayne served on the Boards of the Consumer Health Products Association (Chair 1996-97) and the Council of Drug Abuse.
Throughout his career he has successfully grown his businesses through a combination of organic growth, acquisitions, licensing, and mergers. Wayne’s experience working with large multinationals as well as early-stage companies provides him with a good perspective on the needs of companies at each stage of their corporate life cycle.
Robert Kincaide
Bob has mentored MBA students and their subsequent new ventures, and has led brand strategy workshops throughout the US for the American Marketing Association.
Kenneth J. Rotondo, DVM, MBA
collaborated with a variety of groups and organizations to optimize business and
personal performance. Recognized as an expert in practice management and the dynamics of successful practices and businesses. He specializes in effective client communication, customer experience engineering, and consumer insights. He has owned and operated 5 veterinary hospitals in New York, is a Past President of the NY State Veterinary Medical Society and has served on numerous boards within local, state and national veterinary organizations. He served as an adviser to veterinary pharmaceutical companies, reference laboratories and veterinary corporate ownership groups. He has represented New York State to the AVMA House of Delegates. Most recently he served on the AVMA Futures Commission and collaborates with the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine applying behavior economics principles and machine learning to improve patient compliance.
Dr. Rotondo has been a featured presenter on the topic of “patient/client engagement” at Thought Leadership Summits and conferences for such diverse industries as Auto, Insurance, Pharma, Financial Services, Medicine, and international marketing. He currently serves on the Canadian Bio-Alliance Mentoring Board providing advice and counsel to entrepreneurs and startups in agriculture, aqui-business, pharma, medicine, and veterinary medicine. He has presented at IBM THINK Conference, IBM Watson Conference and HIMSS19, HIMSS20, AVMA Veterinary Economic Summit.
Ken has lectured extensively throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Dr. Rotondo lectures annually at the Wharton Business School and other universities on such diverse topics as behavioral economics, marketing analytics and applying machine learning principles to patient/client communication.
Dr Rotondo holds a DVM degree from Cornell University and MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
He resides in historic Saratoga Springs, NY with his wife Jill and their dog Lucy.
Kent Summers
Kent Summers is a seasoned technology entrepreneur with four successful startups (three as founder & CEO) and a 30-year contribution to the Boston entrepreneurship community in operating, volunteer and board roles. Kent’s passion is working with talented founders to navigate early-stage company formation and growth challenges. Since 2002 Kent has been an active volunteer mentor with MIT Venture Mentoring Service (VMS), and volunteer Instructor with the VMS Outreach team, where he works closely with organizations around the world — universities, business accelerators, economic development and investment consortia — to successfully adopt and scale the VMS Team Mentoring model.
Kent teaches the B2B Sales for Startups IAP course at MIT and is a regular lecturer at the Harvard Business School, where he also serves as an Executive Leadership Coach with the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative (ALI). Kent is on the teaching faculty of TiE Boston, the Kellogg Mastering Sales Exec. Education program, and serves on the boards of Sigma Additive Solutions (NASDAQ: SASI) and several private companies.
Dale Zajicek
Dale joined BIOVECTRA in 1995 as Engineering & Biochemical Operations Manager and was promoted to Chief Operating Officer & Vice President, Business Development in 1998 and later to President from 2011 until he retired in 2015. Dale is currently a director of the Regis Duffy Bioscience Fund, and has served as a Director for publicly traded biotech companies and a number of start-up companies locally.
Cathy Bennett
An award-winning former CEO and seasoned entrepreneur, Cathy’s focus today is innovation and growth. With over 35 years of business leadership, her own company Bennett Group of Companies grew from a small group of service businesses to operations in commercial and industrial construction, industrial manufacturing, human resource support, service, retail, industrial supply, and real estate investments and operations.
She has served on numerous private and public corporate boards with interests in real estate, natural resources, manufacturing, industrial construction, technology, and business services. She is currently an Independent Board Director with Vigilant Management, Marathon Gold and the Business Development Bank of Canada, as well as TaskForceNL.
Focused on supporting start-ups Cathy is an associate fellow with the Creative Destruction Lab, and a board member with Propel, Atlantic Canada’s Virtual Accelerator, a member of the advisory board for the Women’s Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub (WEKH).
She is Co-Founder and General Partner of Sandpiper Ventures, a venture capital fund created and launched to invest in women and women’s innovation. Sandpiper was one of the first venture funds in Canada investing in women-led companies at the seed stage, and the first on the east coast.
She has served as a Member of the Newfoundland & Labrador House of Assembly serving in Cabinet as Minister of Finance, President of Treasury Board, Minister Responsible for the Status of Women, and the Office of the Chief Information Officer.
David Hankinson
David Hankinson is the CEO at Avivagen Animal Health.
Growing up, David remembers always being surrounded by animals. He lived on a small farm with two cows, two pigs, sheep, dogs, cats, and chickens. After graduating as a pharmacist, David spent the bulk of his career in the health care industry. Following several years as the CEO of a major Canadian pharmaceutical company, he retired.
When the opportunity arose to join Avivagen and be part of an exciting venture to bring a new type of product to the animal health market, he gladly joined the management team. David brings years of experience to Avivagen as the former President and CEO of Solvay Pharma Inc. He also co-founded a pharmaceutical distribution operation as VP of Kingswood Canada Inc. and has 15 years of experience in various positions at Eli Lilly.
In Davd’s spare time he enjoys tending to his lawn and gardens. David and his wife are both musical and enjoy participating in several local amateur musical groups. They also love spending time with their 7 wonderful grandchildren.
Dr. Tom Turi
Thomas Turi, Ph.D. currently serves as the Chief Scientific Officer for Flagship Biosciences developing and implementing Spatial Biology and Digital Pathology solutions to accelerate drug development programs. He previously served as the Chief Scientific Officer for Nexelis where he assisted in the development of multiple approved and authorized COVID vaccine programs in addition to overseeing R&D activities in biomarkers and preclinical sciences.
Dr. Turi served Vice President Companion Diagnostics for LabCorp Drug Development (formerly Covance Central Laboratory Services). He joined LabCorp in 2008 to establish the Biomarker Center of Excellence and was integral to the acquisition of the Seattle based Genomics Laboratory and the formation of the Discovery and Translational Services business unit. He has led LabCorp Drug Development’s expansion in Companion Diagnostics (CDx) and support in excess of fifty CDx programs. Previously, Dr. Turi spent fifteen years at Pfizer, where he held a broad array of scientific leadership positions of increasing responsibility. Most recently he served as the Senior Director of Translational Biomarkers and Mechanistic Biology at Pfizer’s laboratories in Groton, Connecticut.
In addition to his current responsibilities, Dr. Turi has served on the Board of Trustees for The Life Sciences Foundation and as a member of the Global Health Research Roundtable of the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. He has previously served on the Board of Directors for Caprion Proteomics (CellCarta) and led several external partnerships including those with Rules Based Medicine, Celera, Incyte, and Affymetrix. He has also served on grant and program project review boards for NASA’s Section for Biotechnology and Tissue Engineering.
Dr. Turi received bachelor’s degrees in Biochemistry and Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his doctorate in Molecular Genetics from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. He completed postdoctoral training at the Yale University School of Medicine applying molecular genetic techniques to investigate the mechanisms of protein transport.
Branko Jankovic
Branko has been a CPA (Chartered Accountant) since 1985 and has spent much of his career in senior financial roles for various companies and organizations. He has been the Chief Financial Officer of two TSX-V listed companies focused on the development, manufacturing, and sale of ingredients to the global personal care, cosmetic, and food industries. He has served on the board of a TSX listed biotechnology company focused on the development of plasma based and oral therapeutics. In addition to his senior financial roles, Branko has been a financial consultant and has led major project for clients including provincial government departments, a major oil sands producer, and an Alberta first Nation. He has enjoyed mentoring several early stage and start-up companies.