Council of Advisors
Douglas Augenthaler
Highbrace Capital, LLC
Doug currently co-manages a fund of hedge funds for Highbrace Capital, LLC and manages separate accounts for individual and corporate investors. Previously, Doug was a senior equity analyst at Oppenheimer & Co./CIBC (1989-2002), Dean Witter Reynolds (1987-1989) and EF Hutton (1980-1987) and began his investment career at Moody’s Investors Service rating municipal bonds. During his sell-side career, Doug covered the environmental, industrial biotechnology and technology sectors and on numerous occasions was named to the Institutional Investor All American Research Team and as a Wall Street Journal All-Star. Doug has a B.S. degree in Finance from Boston College and an M.S. in Investment Management from Pace University. He is also a CFA charterholder and a CFP® Certificant.
Mark B. Bardorf, JD
Bardorf & Bardorf
Mark is an attorney with the firm Bardorf & Bardorf in Newport, RI. He was admitted to the New York bar in 1991 and to Massachusetts and Rhode Island Bar in 1998. Mark received his B.A. from Lehigh University and his law degree from Boston University. He is a member of the Newport County and Rhode Island Bar Associations.
Raphael Blum
Pfizer Oncology
Raphy has been a marketing director in the Worldwide Oncology group in Pfizer since 2003 holding several leadership positions. He currently is Senior Director, Team Leader in the Oncology Worldwide Commercial Development Group responsible for the commercial development of Axitinib and Torisel for the treatment of patients with different tumor types. He was responsible for driving the strategies of the Camptosar (irinotecan) worldwide team, which had global sales of approximately $1.0 billion as well as driving the launch of Sutent in Japan. Raphy was previously responsible for the strategic development of the oncology portfolio in Japan. He also identifies opportunities and develops/ refines strategies for key customer initiatives including opinion leader and managed care strategies, competitive strategies and disease management initiatives.
He was a member of the Pfizer country team for Israel from 1998-2003. Prior to joining Pfizer, Mr. Blum was an Oncology Business Director for Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, a pharmaceutical company he worked for from 1989-1998. Raphy has a MA in Public Policy & Administration from Tel-Aviv University and a B.Pharm from Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Mr. Blum works in New York City and lives in Dumont, New Jersey.
Lucylee Chiles, EdD
Lucylee Chiles holds a doctorate in Art and Education from Columbia University and has extensive experience in non-profit governance. She has served as the Director of a non-profit institution for many years. These include having been the Director of the Isabel O’Neil Studio Workshop and Foundation from 1994 – 2002; having served as adjunct Art faculty at Kean University from 2003-2005; and having served on the Board of Trustees of International House in New York and the University Council for Arts Education.
Kathleen Denis, Ph.D.
The Rockefeller University
Dr. Denis is the Associate Vice President of Technology Transfer at The Rockefeller University, a premier biomedical research institution located in New York City. Managing the intellectual assets of the University, she works with their elite group of researchers to establish partnerships with industry in order to develop and commercialize technologies for the public good. Formerly a consultant specializing in the management of intellectual assets in the life sciences, she worked with academic and industry clients to manage intellectual property portfolios, evaluate new technologies, market and license technologies and start new technology-based businesses.
Dr. Denis is active in numerous professional organizations and speaks frequently about early stage technology evaluation, formation of start-up companies, conflict of interest and other issues of academic technology transfer. She is a Past President of the Licensing Executives Society USA/Canada (LES), and has served on the Board of Directors of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) and the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Association.
From 1995 through 1998 Dr. Denis was Vice President, Technology Development at Allegheny Health, Education and Research Foundation. She managed the intellectual property and research assets of the Medical College of Pennsylvania and Hahnemann University, as well as Allegheny General Hospital and Allegheny Singer Research Institute. Responsibilities of this position included the evaluation and marketing of technologies, building collaborative relationships with the biomedical and biopharmaceutical communities and promotion of economic development in Pennsylvania.
Dr. Denis was a Director at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Technology Transfer from 1991 to 1995, where she managed a large portfolio of biotechnology and pharmaceutical related technologies. Previously, she was an investigator at the Molecular Biology Institute at UCLA for eight years, and a Senior Scientist at Specialty Laboratories, Inc. She has over thirty scientific publications.
Dr. Denis holds a Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in Human Genetics from University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and an undergraduate degree in genetics from Cornell University.
Charles B. Holmes
Oppenheimer & Co.
Charles is a Managing Director and Head of Equities at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. He oversees a team of 400 professionals in sales, trading, research and capital markets. This includes the equity employees in our Tel Aviv, London and Hong Kong offices. He had already been serving since 2005 in this capacity when, in January 2008, Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. acquired the U.S. Institutional Equity Division of CIBC World Markets. Prior to taking over as head of the Equities group at CIBC World Markets, he had worked as Head of Institutional Sales for five years and Associate Head of Research from 1999 to 2000. Charles Holmes has 30 years of experience in finance.
Mr. Holmes’s work history demonstrates a career-long involvement with Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. and the companies that have been connected to it. He began his banking career in 1980 with First Union Bank, where he served in several capacities, including commercial credit management and foreign exchange trading. Then, in 1984, he joined Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. First, he worked in institutional equity trading in New York. Subsequently, he opened and headed a Sales and Trading office in Atlanta. Mr. Holmes graduated from the University of North Carolina with a B.A. in 1979.
Bill Jacklin RA
Royal Academy of Art
Bill is renowned for his portraits of the city, particularly New York and London, and more recently Hong Kong and now Venice. Bill primarily resides and works in New York City and Newport, RI.
Jacklin, born in London in 1943, attended Walthamstow Art School in Essex from 1960-61 and in 1967 received an M.A. from the Royal College of Art. In 1991 he was elected a Royal Academician and in 1991 he spent three months in Hong Kong as the British Council’s first artist-in-residence. The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, honored him with a retrospective exhibition Urban Portraits 1986-1992, which then traveled to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
Jacklin’s work can be found in many public collections including: The British Museum; Boymans-van-Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Tate Britain; Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid; Victoria & Albert Museum; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven.
Bill is represented by Marlborough Galleries, where he has had numerous exhibits in New York, London and Madrid.
Marc Lewinstein
Marc Lewinstein is a restructuring attorney in the New York office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP and a member of the bars of New York and Massachusetts. Prior to joining Kirkland, Marc worked at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, Lehman Brothers, Inc., Dickstein Shapiro LLP and Berkshire Capital Corporation. Marc was graduated from Cornell Law School and Dartmouth College.
In addition to serving as the co-chair of the Hope Funds 2008 Gala Junior Committee, Marc is Vice Chairman and Benefit Committee Co-Chairman of the Special Olympics New York Junior Committee and a member of the Cornell Law School Annual Fund Young Alumni Committee and Dean’s Leadership Council. He has received the Dartmouth College Fund’s Mark Alperin Award for Outstanding Class Leadership.
Adrian G. Looney, PhD, JD
Pfizer
Adrian received his B.Sc. degree in Chemistry from University College Cork, Ireland in 1988. Upon graduation he commenced studies at Columbia University in Chemistry and was awarded three degrees, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. He then joined a law firm in New York in 1993 as a scientific advisor and subsequently studied for a degree in law from New York Law School. In 2000 Adrian joined Pfizer and is currently the Global Intellectual Property Leader for Cancer. Adrian is a trustee of International House, where he co-chairs the Council of World Members and serves on the Development Committee.
Alessandro Papa, M.D.
Newport Hospital
Alex is a hematologist/oncologist practicing at Newport Hospital in Newport, RI. Dr. Papa received his BS and MD from Brown University.
J. Beresford Packham
James Beresford “Berry” Packham is a managing director with Carl Marks Advisory Group since 1996 in New York City. His prior experience includes executive partner/COO/CFO of a privately owned quality sailboat manufacturer in Newport, RI and CEO of a New York based publicly owned security and protection organization. His management education includes NYU, Northwestern and Harvard Business School. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and he received his BA, in economics at Manchester University, England.
Mr. Packham is a trustee of the International Environmental Research Foundation (IERF), which is a publicly supported organization, dedicated to undertaking scientific research into complex environmental science problems. The IERF provides grants to support environmental research and actively follows developments in the medical and scientific literature in occupational and environmental diseases. In addition, IERF transfers this knowledge to communities when such information is critical to public health decisions.
Berry is an accomplished court tennis player and an avid gardener.
Bettie Bearden Pardee
Bettie is a writer, editor, and producer. She is the author of Newport At Home and in the Garden, as well as several books on entertaining and travel. For eleven years Mrs. Pardee was a contributing editor for the magazine, Bon Appetit, where she produced the on-location feature Entertaining With Style. She hosted the PBS series The Presidential Palate: Entertaining at the White House. Bettie was raised in Beverly Hills, and has lived in Atlanta, Boston and New York City. A talented gardener and floral designer, Mrs. Pardee chairs the Newport Flower Show and is a flower-arranging judge with the Garden Club of America. She is also the Garden Club of America Zone II chairman for Garden History and Design. Her personal garden at Parterre is being documented for the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Gardens.
Mrs. Pardee received a BA in Fine Arts from the University of California in Los Angles. She has served as a trustee of the Redwood Library and Athenaeum and the Boys & Girls Club of Newport and is a member of the House Committee of Rosecliff, the Preservation Society of Newport County’s property that adjoins her gardens.
Michael Rhea
Northeast Securities
Mr. Rhea has a background in financial services, with a focus on the biopharmaceutical industry. Mr. Rhea served as a Managing Director, Institutional Sales at Merriman Curhan Ford and Soleil Securities, and a Vice-president, Institutional Equity Sales at CIBC Oppenheimer and Lehman Brothers. In addition to institutional sales, Mr. Rhea served as a Managing Director in Investment Banking at Paramount Biocapital. Prior to beginning his financial services career in 1986, Mr. Rhea practiced corporate and securities law with Lester Schwab Katz and Dwyer and with Conboy Hewitt. Mr. Rhea holds a B.A. and J.D. degrees from Tulane University.
Stephen M. Ritoch
Blaise Group International
Stephen M. Ritoch is the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Blaise Group International, Inc. (BGI), a global leading retained Executive and Board level Search and Strategic Services firm exclusively focused within the Life Sciences industry.
BGI’s clients are considered to be some of the world’s most prominent pharmaceutical and medical device companies, prestigious academic and not-for-profit organizations, well known middle market and emerging biotechnology, pure-play device, combination product, diagnostic, and Life Science service companies. In addition to Executive and Board search, BGI’s Strategic Services assists clients with business development transactions, as well as their organizational development needs.
Prior to co-founding BGI, Mr. Ritoch served on the senior executive search team of Lucas Group, a national executive search firm founded in 1970. Mr. Ritoch has been an executive advisor and coach to many high profile and influential professionals in senior leadership roles within the Life Sciences industry, academia and government institutions. He is also an investor and collaborative partner in several Life Science corporations.
Mr. Ritoch has served as a Director of the Board of MyPage (the predecessor to MySpace®) and Chairman of the Board of MedEx, The Radiology Company™.
Richard L. Robbins
AG Edwards, retired
Richard recently retired from a 30-year career on Wall Street. He started his career in institutional sales at Oppenheimer & Co. and then moved to Lehman Brothers. After Lehman Brothers, Richard opened the Boston office for AG Edwards and remained there until his retirement in the fall of 2006. Richard attended Hamilton College and Duke Law School.
Mr. Robbins has been a strong cancer patient advocate and supporter. Richard resides in New York, Newport and Palm Beach. He is an avid tennis player.
Nathan Robison, M.D.
Dr. Robison has been a Clinical Fellow in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Childrens Hospital, Los Angeles. He received his medical degree from University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and his undergraduate degree from Williams College. Dr. Robinson is Board Certified in Pediatrics. In addition to his work at Childrens Hospital, Dr. Robison has done two volunteer tours in Rwanda. Dr. Robinson is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha honor society, Association of Pathology, Christian Medical Association, American Society of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, American Association of Cancer Research, and the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplant. Nathan currently holds a Hope Funds for Cancer Research Post Doctoral Fellowship, which ends in June, at the time he accepts his appointment as a Fellow at Childrens Hospital/Harvard University.
Rockefeller University
Eric Sawey is a member of the editorial review board at Rockefeller University in New York City. Dr. Sawey received his doctorate degree from Stony Brook University and his University at Buffalo. From 2008-2011, Eric was Postdoctoral Fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the laboratory of Scott Powers, PhD. From 2009-2011, Eric was a Hope Funds for Cancer Research Fellow. His findings were published in the journal Cancer Cell in 2011. Eric is a member of American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) and American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET). He volunteers for the Long Island Science & Engineering Fair (LISEF) and the West Babylon Fire Department.
Xiaoxing Wang, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute & The Broad Institute
Dr. Wang is working at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the laboratory of William Hahn, MD, PhD. She is studying treatment options for metastatic pancreatic and colorectal cancers. Dr. Wang is an alumae Hope Funds Fellow. She received a post doctoral fellowships from Hope Funds in 2009. Today, she is continuing the work she started with Hope Funds under a grant from the US government.
Orest Zaklynsky, MD
Newport Hospital
Dr. Zaklynsky is a general surgeon practicing in Newport, RI. Orest grew up in New York and trained at New York Hospital. He is Chief of Surgery at Newport Hospital and a member of the Lifespan system, which also includes RI Hospital and Brown University. Dr. Zaklynsky takes care of many cancer patients in the Newport Community.