Hi, I’m Lisa Suennen. Here is my background:
I see it as my job to seek out brilliant people with great ideas and help transform them into exceptional companies with great leaders. Basically I’m looking for those who want to break the rules to make healthcare better. I am a venture capital investor and healthcare industry advisor and have worked broadly across the fields of healthcare IT, medical technology, healthcare services and especially where these fields converge in digital health.
My current role is as Managing Partner of Venture Valkyrie, LLC, an advisory firm that works with healthcare and other companies on investment and innovation strategies that capitalize on the significant opportunities presented by today’s evolving healthcare system. I am also co-founder of CSweetener, a not-for-profit organization that uses technology and know-how to connect women new to and nearing the C-Suite with female and male mentors who have been there, done that and have a desire to give back.
I have served on numerous private and not-for-profit boards of directors throughout my career and am currently a Board Member of Health Reveal, and the Dignity Health Foundation.
I am also currently a member of the Advisory Boards of the the California Health Care Foundation Innovation Fund, the NASA Translational Research Institute (where I serve as Chair), and HealthXL, an international digital health partnering organization. In 2018, I was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to the Advisory Council of State of California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine.
I am also a Fellow of the inaugural class of the Aspen Institute’s Health Innovators Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
I am a member of the Editorial Board of Health Transformation, a peer-reviewed journal about the changing healthcare system. I previously served as a member of the Advisory Board of the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of the National Coordinator Investing in Innovations program.
In 2018 I was named Top Digital Health Evangelist by Goldman Sachs, Rock Health, Fenwick and West & Square 1 Bank, and the fund I lead for GE Ventures was named the most prolific corporate venture fund. In 2018 I was also named #2 in the Global Corporate Venturing list of 100 Rising Stars, which designates the top 1% of the corporate venture capital industry chosen from 100 corporate venturing units. In 2018 I was also included in the Female Health IT Leaders to Know, a list created by Becker’s Hospital Review.
In 2017, I was named to Becker’s Hospital Review as one of 110 women to know in medtech. In 2015, I was proudly featured as a Tech Superwoman in this Forbes article. I was also named to Onalytica’s List of Top Digital Health Influencers and Brands in 2015 and 2016. In 2014 I was named as one of the Top 50 People in Digital Health by Rock Health, Goldman Sachs, Fenwick & West and Silicon Valley Bank and also as one of 5 Disruptive Women to Watch in 2015 by Disruptive Women in Healthcare . In 2013 I was named to the Healthcare IT News HIT Top 100 List. In 2011 I was the recipient of the Director of the Year Award (Companies in Transition) from the Corporate Director’s Forum. In 2011 I was also was awarded the U.C. Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies Outstanding Alumni Award. Go Bears!
I write a widely read blog on healthcare and healthcare investing found here at www.venturevalkyrie.com, and I am proud to note that this blog has been highlighted on the Forbes/Women 2.0 VC Women Who Blog List, on MedCity News’ list of 12 powerful female voices in healthcare innovation and social media, and on Health IT News’ list of the Top 10 bloggers to follow on Twitter.
I am also the co-author, along with Dr. David Shaywitz, of the book Tech Tonics: Can Passionate Entrepreneurs Heal Healthcare with Technology, published in 2013 by HyperInk Press and available at Amazon.com. Together David and I also produce a very popular twice-monthly podcast, also called Tech Tonics, focused on the intersection of the people and passion behind digital health. The podcast can be found HERE on iTunes.
Prior Work
My most recent previous role was as Senior Managing Director of GE Ventures. In this role I was responsible for leading GE Ventures healthcare venture investing activities, including investments in healthcare IT, healthcare services and their points of intersection with medical technology and pharma (and particularly where these worlds collide in what we now call digital health).
From 1998-2013 I was a partner of Psilos Group, a healthcare-focused venture capital firm. I headed Psilos’ West Coast office from the firm’s founding in 1998 and focused on the healthcare information technology, healthcare services, medtech and digital health sectors.
Prior to Psilos, I had a turn as a healthcare entrepreneur, primarily at Merit Behavioral Care (formerly American Biodyne, Inc.), where I held various senior executive roles including Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Senior Vice President/General Manager of the Public Sector Division (a $300 million business unit) and Senior Vice President of Pacific Region Operations. I joined Merit in 1989 while the company was still in its early start-up period and, during my nine-year tenure, played a key role in its growth to an $800 million revenue/year company. While at Merit, I also participated in the acquisition and integration of various behavioral healthcare companies, the company’s IPO in 1991, and the company’s sale to Magellan Health for $800 million in 1998.
Previously, I served as Worldwide Product Manager for INGRES/Relational Technology, Inc., a relational database company, where I had responsibility for development, marketing and distribution for the company’s UNIX PC software product. Prior to INGRES, I served as Director of U.S. Market Development and as a Manager, U.S. Government and Industry Relations for X/Open, an international computer industry standards setting and lobbying consortium. Earlier, I spent several very formative years at Regis McKenna, Inc. (the former firm led by Regis McKenna), a legendary high technology marketing and public relations firm, where I was responsible for marketing, public relations and public sector strategy for client companies in the software and healthcare areas.
I hold an M.A. in political science, a B.A. in political science and a B.A. in mass communications, all from the University of California, Berkeley. I am delighted to be on faculty at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business where I teach the annual class on healthcare venture capital in the changing healthcare economy.
And the Rest
I am fortunate to be a sought-after speaker at a broad range of industry and private healthcare and investing venues and you can see where I am speaking next by looking HERE.
I live in Marin County, California with my family and a small posse of unruly pets.
If you haven’t had enough already, here is some recent press where I am featured:
CNBC: 11 women who prove that health tech investing isn’t a boys’ club
NASDAQ: Meet a VC – Lisa Suennen
Oliver Wyman Health – Q&A with Lisa Suennen
How CSweetener is Helping Women Healthcare Leaders Succeed
About the Venture Valkyrie Blog
I started the Venture Valkyrie blog to have a forum to talk about my thoughts about our changing healthcare system as well as the private equity/venture capital field in which I work.
I also like to write about innovation and entrepreneurship generally and the evolving world of health tech and its points of intersection with medtech and biotech. I have worked in the healthcare field as an entrepreneur, operator and investor longer than I care to admit and try to take a new perspective on what I see.
I also have a particular interest in how women fare in my fields of interest, as this topic can certainly be interesting in ways both good and bad.
I strive to bring good information combined with humor, as it can make essays about some very dry subjects worth reading all the way to the end. Plus I can’t help myself but to point out the humor in my field of work – sometimes you can’t make up things that are more ridiculous than what healthcare and/or venture capital come up with on their own. Everything in the blog and on my podcast is a product of my own thinking and does not represent any other organization with which I am affiliated.
Contact Lisa
Lisa can be reached at lisasuennen@venturevalkyrie.com or through the comments section of this blog or you can follow me on Twitter @venturevalkyrie or find me on LinkedIn. Thanks for reading!
