Medicine ReEnvisioned™

ABOUT CVRx

Board Of Directors

A. Jay Graf: Mr. Graf serves on the Board of Directors for American Medical Systems, Inc., Lifenet, CABG Medical, Intermagnetics and CVRx. He is a past director of ATS Medical and the National Association of Manufacturers. Mr. Graf was Group Chairman of Guidant's four operating groups: Cardiac Rhythm Management, Cardiac Surgery, Endovascular Surgery and Vascular Intervention from 2000 to 2004 and retired in July, 2004. Prior to this position, he was President of CPI, which is now part of Guidant's Cardiac Rhythm Management Group (1992 to 2000) and was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of CPI from 1990 to 1992. He held a variety of management positions with Eli Lilly's Medical Devices and Diagnostic Division between 1976 – 1990 including: Vice President of Sales and Marketing and Senior Vice-President of Operations at Physio Control Corporation. He was a district sales manager with Eli Lilly from 1976-1980. He is a graduate of Boston University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics. He served in the United States Air Force and achieved the rank of Captain prior to his honorable discharge. He earned a Master of Business Administration degree in finance from Indiana University.  

Robert Kieval, CVRx, Inc: Dr. Kieval is the Chief Technology Officer of CVRx.  He is a company founder and served as President and CEO of CVRx from its inception in 2001 through October, 2006. He has over 14 years of medical device industry experience from previous positions including Business Development Director at ProtoStar, Inc. and divisional Medical Director at Medtronic, Inc. He completed his undergraduate and graduate training at The University of Pennsylvania, where he received doctorate degrees in Veterinary Medicine and in Physiology.  In 2006, Dr. Kieval was named an Innovator of the Year by Twin Cities Finance & Commerce. 

John Nehra, New Enterprise Associates: Mr. Nehra focuses on a wide range of high-technology companies with an emphasis on healthcare services, information systems and medical devices. In addition to CVRx, his current board of director memberships include Aradigm, Evalve, Nutron Medical, Primax Recoveries, Proxima Therapeutics and TargetRx. His prior board memberships include Bridge Medical, Celeris Corporation, EndoMatrix, Integrated Telecom, Optical Sensors, Surgical Health, Telogy Networks, TransVascular and Vivra. Prior to joining NEA in 1989, Mr. Nehra was a Managing Director of Alex. Brown & Sons, with primary responsibility for developing the firm's healthcare research, investment banking and capital markets businesses. Mr. Nehra also serves as the Managing General Partner of Catalyst Ventures. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan.

James Shapiro: Mr. Shaprio has been a general partner of Kearny Venture Partners and its predecessor funds since January 2000. He focuses on investments in the medical device industry. Jim currently serves on the board of directors of CVRx, Eyeonics, Hansen Medical, SpinalMotion, and TranS1. He is a co-founder of SpinalMotion. He has previously served on the board of directors of companies including Appriva (acquired by eV3 [NASDAQ: EVVV]), Fox Hollow Technologies [NASDAQ: FOXH], LuMend (acquired by Johnson and Johnson [NYSE: JNJ]), TriVascular (acquired by Boston Scientific [NYSE: BSX]) and X technologies (acquired by Guidant [NYSE: BSX]). From 1984 to 1999, Jim led Alex. Brown's healthcare investment banking practice on the West Coast, providing financing and M & A advisory services to both emerging growth and established healthcare companies. During this time he developed a deep network in the medical device space; including entrepreneurs, clinicians, lawyers, and venture capitalists involved in emerging company creation and management. In addition, he developed relationships with the natural acquirers of these companies, both as clients and as counterparties to clients he represented as sellers. The resultant relationships have enabled him to provide differentiated value to portfolio companies of the funds. Before joining Alex. Brown, Jim was an associate at Goldman Sachs and a financial analyst at Bank of America. He holds an A.B. with laboratory research honors from Princeton University, and an M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Joseph Slattery: Mr. Slattery is currently on the boards of Micromet, a biopharmaceutical company, and TranS1, a medical device company. He served as senior vice president and CFO of Digene Corporation, a molecular diagnostics company focused on women's health, which was acquired in July 2007. He joined Digene in 1996 as controller prior to its initial public offering, was appointed senior vice president of finance and information systems in 2002, and promoted to CFO in October 2006. Earlier, Slattery was an audit manager at KPMG and a staff auditor at Ernst & Young. He brings more than 20 years of executive and operating experience with a professional focus on device and diagnostic industries. He holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from Bentley College and is a certified public accountant.

Michael Sweeney, InterWest Partners: Mr. Sweeney joined InterWest's Life Sciences Group in 2001. In this role, Mr. Sweeney focuses on technology where he sources and leads new investments. In addition to his Board role at CVRx, Mr. Sweeney is Chairman of the Board of Epicor Medical and serves on the Boards of InterWest portfolio companies Corgentech, Medluminal Systems, Paracor Surgical and Cardiac Dimensions. Mr. Sweeney was a medical device entrepreneur-in-residence at InterWest in 1998 and in 1999 became CEO of Epicor, an InterWest portfolio company focused on medical devices to treat atrial fibrillation, a common and potentially life-threatening heart disorder. Mr. Sweeney is also a founder of the highly successful InterWest portfolio company Ventritex, which was acquired by St. Jude Medical. While at St. Jude he served as Executive Vice President and General Manager. Mr. Sweeney is a pioneer of multiple anti-arrhythmia cardiac devices, and has more than 20 years' experience in the field of cardiovascular technology. He received his B.A. degree from Drake University.

Brad Vale, Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation: Dr. Vale has served as Vice President of Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, Johnson & Johnson's venture capital subsidiary, since 1992. Dr. Vale established the Silicon Valley office in 1997 to provide a local presence for investing in healthcare deals in the western United States. Dr. Vale was employed by Ethicon, a J&J company from 1982 to 1989. He joined J&J's Corporate Office of Science and Technology in 1989. Dr. Vale holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Iowa State University and a D.V.M. from Washington State University.

Nadim Yared, CVRx, Inc.:  Mr. Yared is the President and CEO of CVRx. He previously had served as Vice President and General Manager of Medtronic Navigation, the leading supplier of integrated image-guided surgery products in the world, from 2002 - 2006. He also worked at GE Medical for 10-years, were he held both engineering and marketing management positions. He had been Vice President of Global Marketing for the OEC Medical Systems and Vice President and General Manager of GE's European X-ray business based in Paris. Nadim has an engineering degree from Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications, and an MBA from Insead in Paris, France.