Leadership

Executive Team

Peyton Anderson, MBA
Chief Executive Officer

Peyton is a successful entrepreneur who co-founded SciQuest, Inc. in 1995 as its founding CEO. SciQuest raised over $175 million in capital, including a successful Initial Public Offering in 1999. His responsibilities included raising capital, recruiting the management team, doing strategic partner deals, and orchestrating 8 acquisitions. SciQuest has continued to thrive and currently has greater than 150 employees.

Peyton joined Affinergy in September 2003 as founding CEO. Since that time, Affinergy has secured $5m in investor funding, been awarded numerous peer-review grants, added 23 employees, recruited a strong team of advisors / Board members, and committed to developing multiple products in the orthopedic and soft tissue repair markets.

Peyton will continue to expand Affinergy's leadership team by recruiting professionals in quality, manufacturing, clinical, sales, and marketing.

Peyton currently serves on the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center and the NC Biosciences Organization. Previously, he served on the executive committee of the Board of Directors for the Council for Entrepreneurial Development.

Peyton is a frequent speaker at entrepreneurial conferences and MBA classes. Peyton graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the U. of Richmond in 1989 and earned his MBA from UNC's Kenan Flagler Business School in 1995.

Jonathan Gindes, MBA, RAC
Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice-President of Business Development

Jonathan and Affinergy's scientific co-founders (M. Grinstaff, D. Kenan) began working together in 2002 to form Affinergy while Jonathan pursued his M.B.A. at Duke's Fuqua School of Business. Jonathan developed Affinergy's initial business strategy, negotiated the technology license from Duke University, and recruited a senior management team along with other scientific staff and business advisors.

Presently, in addition to managing Affinergy’s daily financial affairs, Jonathan focuses his time procuring sufficient capital to enable the rapid growth of Affinergy, whether through grants and other growth capital sources. Jonathan plays an active role on the operations side of Affinergy, as well, and supervises the sourcing of all of Affinergy’s equipment and supplies. He also is responsible for securing relationships and supply agreements with component suppliers for Affinergy’s future products.

Prior to attending Fuqua, Jonathan spent several years working alongside senior management in the corporate strategy group at Deutsche Bank. His work focused on merger integration, growth and consolidation strategies, and business plan development for potential spinouts.

Jonathan received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Rutgers University. He serves on the board of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development as well as Fuqua’s Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Club and is a frequent lecturer to Global Executive and Full-Time MBA programs at the Fuqua School of Business. He also became certified in regulatory affairs (RAC) in 2009 and was recently a recipient of the Triangle Business Journal’s CFO of the year award.

Bruce Lamb, Ph.D.
Senior Vice-President of Research & Development

Bruce brings to Affinergy over 23 years of leadership experience in developing medical devices in the biosurgical area. He was most recently SVP of R&D and Regulatory Affairs at Lifecell which was acquired for $1.8 billion in 2008. Previously, Bruce was VP of Worldwide R&D for Biosurgicals at J&J's Ethicon division. Bruce also previously held leadership roles in product development at Convatec as well as Pfizer's Hospital Products Group.

Bruce earned his Ph.D. in Polymer Chemistry at SUNY College of ESF, Syracuse. He earned his M.S. in Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and his B.S. in Chemistry at Bradley University.

Laura Kiefer, Ph.D., J.D.
Director, Intellectual Property

Laura combines her scientific and legal training to strategically manage and build Affinergy's patent portfolio. She received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Duke University and a law degree at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Laura has over 10 years combined experience as a research scientist and patent agent/attorney in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

Prior to joining Affinergy, Laura practiced as an intellectual property attorney at the law firm of Jenkins, Wilson, Taylor & Hunt, P.A., where she focused on helping clients identify and obtain patent protection for their inventions. Previously, Laura held roles as in-house patent agent at Paradigm Genetics, Inc and research scientist at Triangle Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Laura has published over 15 scientific manuscripts.

Daniel Kenan, M.D., Ph.D.
Scientific Co-Founder

Dan is an Assistant Professor of Pathology at Duke University Medical Center. Dan received his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology at Duke. He later received his M.D. at Duke where he continued residency training in Pathology.

In 1997, Dan became the Director of the Combinatorial Sciences Center at Duke. Dan has published more than 30 manuscripts and is the principal investigator on 4 NIH grants.

Mark Grinstaff, Ph.D.
Scientific Co-Founder

Mark is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering at Boston University. This professorship is funded by a $14MM Whitaker Foundation Leadership Award. Mark received his Ph.D. from U. of Illinois and was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology.

Mark has published over 60 manuscripts. His awards include the ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award, NSF Career Award, Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship.

Board of Directors

The Affinergy Board includes Peyton Anderson (CEO), Jonathan Gindes (CFO and Senior VP of Business Development) and four external Directors:

Jeffery C. Basham, MBA

Mr. Basham holds an undergraduate degree from The American University, Washington, DC and an MBA from Keller Graduate School (Chicago, IL). He has 30 years of experience in the healthcare product sector, including sales and marketing positions with Searle Pharmaceuticals and Ketchum Medical Advertising.

Since 1981, Mr. Basham has been involved in the founding and business development of various medical product and service companies. He has held the position of CEO or President of various early stage companies including Colmed Ltd, CRX Medical, and TriPoint Medical (now called Closure Medical). Other business development activities have been associated with AAI, Oasis Biosciences, Inceutica, and Flologic Inc.

Currently, Mr. Basham serves as VP of Sales & Marketing for Metrics, Inc., a contract research company that specializes in pharmaceutical product development

Bruce J. Boehm, MBA

Mr. Boehm is an independent venture capitalist, an advisor to several specialty venture capital funds, and an adjunct lecturer at the Kenan Flagler School of Business at UNC, Chapel Hill. From 1992 to 1996 he created and directed the Masters of Engineering Management Program at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Prior to 1992, Mr. Boehm was a General Partner of U. S. Venture Partners in Menlo Park, California, with responsibility for a portfolio of approximately 20 healthcare and technology investments. Prior to 1982 he was employed by a number of Silicon Valley and Route 128 companies as an engineer and project manager.

Mr. Boehm received a BS from MIT, and an MS and an MBA from Stanford University. During his career he has been a director of more than 25 publicly and privately held companies.

Daniel A. Pelak

Mr. Pelak is currently working with Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, a leading private equity group. He was previously the CEO of InnerPulse, Inc., a privately held medical device company that is pioneering a disruptive technology for the treatment of patients with heart disease. Prior to InnerPulse, he was CEO of Closure Medical, which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson for approximately $400 million.

Previously, he spent a long career at Medtronic, Inc. rising through levels of greater responsibilities in sales and marketing. He was ultimately responsible for the general management of several operating divisions at Medtronic.

During his tenure at Medtronic, he was the Vice President of Cardiovascular Marketing, Vice President and General Manager Nortech, Vice President and General Manager Perfusion Systems, and Vice President and General Manager Cardiac Surgery Technologies.

David P. Rizzo

David P. Rizzo is President and Chief Executive Officer of NC IDEA. A 13-year IBM veteran and successful entrepreneur, David joined NC IDEA (formerly known as MCNC Ventures) in June 2002. He brings more than 20 years of leadership experience in general management, strategic planning, acquisitions and divestitures, and corporate finance and investment in technologically-sophisticated business environments to NC IDEA.

As the president and CEO of MCNC, David led the launch of two independent companies, MCNC Research and Development Institute (MCNC-RDI) and MCNC Grid Computing and Networking Services (MCNC-GCNS). The companies have since unveiled a major new corporate strategy to stimulate economic development and growth in North Carolina.

David is now focused on leading NC IDEA as the company pursues its economic development mission, helping to create a vibrant North Carolina technology economy.

Key Advisors