Pat Flavin, JD

President

An entrepreneur, investor, and attorney, Patrick brings more than 20 years of experience in health tech and life sciences, including executive leadership positions at Arches Technology, Outcome Health, and closerlook. Patrick was a Co-Founder and Executive Director of MATTER, a Chicago healthcare technology startup center and innovation hub. He helped build biotechnology companies MediChem Life Sciences and Advanced Life Sciences, both of which he helped take public as chief legal executive.

John Flavin, MBA

Founder & CEO

John is a proven leader with a track record of bringing valuable corporate, academic, and civic enterprises from concept to reality, including Advanced Life Sciences, Chicago Innovation Mentors, MATTER, and the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago. John is Co-Founder and Chairman of Pyxis Oncology, Executive Chairman of ClostraBio, and Board member at Grove Biopharma. Over the course of his career, John has successfully raised more than $345 million of private and philanthropic capital to fund the development of transformative organizations.

Yuan Zhang, PhD, MS

Senior Director, Scientific Operations & Strategy

Dr. Zhang brings a passion for moving science from lab bench to patient bedside, and expertise in immunology and animal models of disease. She most recently cofounded Seurat Therapeutics, a biotech startup spun out of the University of Chicago, focused on developing an intranasal repurposed biologic for treating migraines, seizures, fibromyalgia, and other chronic pain conditions. Dr. Zhang raised $1.5 million and led the company to pre-IND, while managing business development, operations, therapeutic R&D, and strategy.

Ula Widawska

Director of Finance & Controller

As a Director of Finance & Controller for Portal Innovations, Ula oversees financial reporting and daily financial operations for the company. Ula has spent most of her career in healthcare finance, most recently as a Controller at Swedish Hospital part of NorthShore, where she was responsible for managing financial operations and overseeing financial reporting, accounting, accounts payable and treasury for several corporations. Ula’s strong business acumen aided her in leading several strategic initiatives that resulted in improvement of efficiency, reporting and daily financial operations. She brings a fresh perspective to building and leading finance teams, focusing on collaboration, empowerment and business growth.

Michael Schultz, PhD

Venture Operations Analyst

Dr. Schultz is a scientist by training. He assesses new investment opportunities and supports companies within the Portal/Fulton Labs ecosystem. Before joining Portal, he was a life sciences consultant where he advised therapeutics, diagnostics, and medical device companies on indication prioritization, competitive landscape analysis, and revenue forecasting. He completed his PhD at Harvard Medical School where he researched mechanisms that underlie the aging process, with a focus on biomarkers, inflammation, and metabolism.

E.J. Reedy

Director of Platform & Ecosystem

E.J. oversees Portal’s membership experience, administration, and ecosystem development work. E.J. is a leading global expert in entrepreneurship having spent his career growing people, creating companies, and understanding the ecosystems that drive entrepreneurial success. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and many other leading global outlets. Previously, E.J. contributed to entrepreneurial growth through the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago. Additionally, E.J. spent more than a decade building the global footprint of the Kauffman Foundation, the world’s leading philanthropic agent supporting entrepreneurial change.

Steve Lehmann, MBA

Director of Venture Operations

Steve is a "startup midwife" who has spent the last decade helping inventors turn their discoveries into businesses, whether in a startup, a university, or even a refugee camp. He most recently led the George Shultz Innovation Fund at UChicago, where he nucleated and invested in University spinouts. Prior to UChicago he was an Associate for Ocean Tomo's Innovation Management practice, where he advised companies on how to acquire, develop, and commercialize technologies.

Rose Jones-Boyd

Executive Assistant to the Founder & CEO

Rose Jones-Boyd is the Executive Assistant to the Founder & CEO.
She is a seasoned professional with over 25 years of experience in professional office executive assistant positions and a track record of strong performance in high-volume, high-pressure environments. She has extensive experience with all administrative tasks including scheduling and correspondence.
As Executive Assistant, Rose ensures the smooth operation of the office. Having held several positions in the University and business fields, Rose can tailor her skills to meet the needs of colleagues and clients. Before joining Portal, Rose worked 13 1/2 years as an Executive Assistant at the University of Chicago.

Deonta Jones

Experience Manager

Deonta welcomes Portal visitors, members, and partners with a smile and pours positive energy into every interaction. From onboarding assistance to office and lab deliveries and all other administrative matters, Deonta creates a seamless and enjoyable experience for everyone. Prior to Portal, Deonta worked as an educator and caretaker.

Elizabeth Harney, MS

Manager of Lab Operations

As the Lab Manager at Portal, Elizabeth works closely with Yuan to support daily operations within the lab space and to provide a safe environment for our member companies.  Prior to Portal, Elizabeth was a bench scientist with a particular affinity for analytical chemistry.  In her lab work, she developed a strong understanding and respect for spreadsheets and documentation – her reliability in performance of this understanding (both in quality and consistency) makes her a particularly powerful asset in a safety-focused, scientific environment.

By switching paths from scientist to manager, Elizabeth is able to address the core motivations that had always fueled her pursuit of scientific exploration: to help people. Her starting point contributes to her ability to develop, communicate and teach processes that respond to the actual pain points of scientists.

When not running around the lab or furiously typing on her laptop, Elizabeth enjoys listening to all kinds of podcasts and reading books to unwind.

Kevin Flavin

Operations and Expansion Manager and Producer, Lab Rats to Unicorns

Kevin is working to help create scalable systems and practices that can be implemented and standardized across all Portal locations as we expand to Boston and Atlanta. His main goal is to design and/or implement tools that can help foster community and collaboration in co-working environments.

Additionally, Kevin works on all content capture, design, editing, and audio production for Lab Rats to Unicorns (a podcast created by John Flavin).

Ashley Kim, MS

Director of Growth Operations

Ashley Kim is a Director of Growth Strategy and Operations at Portal Innovations. She started her career in New York at a healthcare investment firm where she helped build a drug discovery and development group. She subsequently joined two start-up companies in the gene therapy and genome editing space with a focus on business development, corporate strategy, and alliance management. She hopes to bring her experience to help Portal expand into other regions by focusing on understanding life science ecosystems beyond Chicago and helping to implement the Portal playbook to cities of interest. 

ashley.kim@portalinnovations.com

Suna Lumeh, MS/MBA

Director of Operations

As Director of Operations for our Atlanta expansion, Suna is establishing and leading Portal Innovation’s platform in Atlanta at Science Square Labs. Previously, Suna held clinical R&D roles in pharma, across both early and late stage biologics development. She grew her specialty in pharmacovigilance (safety & efficacy) and immunogenicity assay development at scale—sourcing, developing, and integrating novel diagnostic technologies and robotics platforms—before moving into the early venture space. She has since served as a biomedical science consultant for early-stage startups, ultimately cofounding two VC-backed biotech and digital health startups. In addition to supporting diverse founders, Suna remains an active advocate for youth STEM outreach, having established hands-on afterschool programs in Greater Philadelphia, Washington DC, and a girls' science mentorship program in Kenema, Sierra Leone. Suna intends to continue supporting and building the pipeline of incredible life science founders and teams capable of bringing life-saving solutions to patients, and scaling innovative biomedical and healthcare ventures that will feed into the economic development in Atlanta and beyond.

suna.lumeh@portalinnovations.com

Anna Tomaszewski

Director of Business Development

Anna spearheads the growth of Portal's membership and partnership portfolio. Previously, Anna specialized in scaling growth-stage biotechnology companies with scientific talent. Her focus began in the Chicago ecosystem and quickly expanded into many other emerging biotechnology hubs. Anna is inspired by entrepreneurial motivation, disruption, and - most importantly - the patient who benefits from the scientific breakthroughs.

anna.tomaszewski@portalinnovations.com

Gianina Varea

Director of Portfolio Development

Gianina is a Biotech entrepreneur passionate about bringing scientific discoveries to patients. She has experience in developing biotech start-ups from the ground up, ranging from strategy to operations and project management, as well as direct involvement in seeking non-dilutive and private funding from institutional and strategic investors. The most recent startup she helped build was Pyxis Oncology. As a Technology Venture Fellow at the Polsky Center at The University of Chicago she worked closely with Pyxis’ founding team to develop the strategic and financial materials to support Pyxis’ formation and $22M Series A. As Pyxis’ first employee, she worked as project and alliance manager, and in business development. She also supported the $150M Series B, several partnerships, and the IPO in October 2021. Gianina obtained her Masters’ degree in Bioscience Enterprise (MBE) at The University of Cambridge and a B.S. in Molecular Biotechnology Engineering from The University of Chile.

gianina.varea@portalinnovations.com

Angie Gill

Event and Workplace Manager

Angie Gill is Portal's Event and Workplace Manager working on the Membership, Operations, and Ecosystem Team. Angie most recently was at Built In where she was a Workplace Operations and Experience Lead where she oversaw a variety of activities from space planning, creating a diverse and inclusive in-person and hybrid workplace, and systematization of processes for Built In’s fast-growing staff. Previously Angie was also a member of the CBRE team which helped to open 1375 W. Fulton and contributed significantly to large events such as Portal’s grand opening.

Angie is working to systematize and grow Portal’s presence in our existing and emerging ecosystems as we begin regularly doing events and other programming in more markets – working closely with Deonta and E.J. Additionally, Angie will be supporting Portal’s internal growth, working to support workplace culture, new processes for our growing team, and generally supporting a growing Portal team during our expansion.

angie.gill@portalinnovations.com

Ritu Shah

Managing Director

Ritu Shah is joining Portal as Managing Director, focused on portfolio company development and value creation by providing interim leadership to position and accelerated seeded companies to the next round of funding.

She has a proven track record in the biopharma industry with success in leading four successful mergers & acquisitions along with new company formation and operations. Ritu has led several drug development campaigns with emphasis on strategic and therapeutic portfolio management across private and public pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Ritu has spent over two decades in pharma drug development, of which the last five years were in biotech.

Nick Pennebaker

Director of Marketing and Communications

Nick is in charge of helping grow the Portal brand on a national level. He joins Portal with more than 10 years’ of experience in marketing and communications within a variety of industries, including financial services, commercial real estate development, and oil & gas, with his most recent role focused on building marketing campaigns at Northern Trust Asset Management. His background consists of public relations, email and web marketing, SEO/SEM, social media, and content development. Nick grew up in Austin, Texas, graduated from The University of Kansas, and still tries to fool himself into thinking Chicago winters aren’t that bad. 

Mike Faulman

VP of Operations

Mike joins Portal to help build consistency in the firm’s day-to-day logistical operations. His background has been dedicated to helping organizations and campaigns manage extreme growth, while thinking through problems before they occur. Mike’s prior roles include Director of Corporate Business Development and Licensing at Shinola where he led a national growth through new market opportunities, Personal Aide to former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and served as National Advance Coordinator for President Obama in The White House and '08 Presidential campaign. Mike is originally from Michigan, graduated from Michigan State University and has resided in Chicago since 2010 with his wife and two children.

Shahila Christie, PhD

Vice President Growth Strategy

Shahila Christie is the Vice-President of Growth Strategy and Operations at Portal Innovations. Over her 20 yr career Shahila spent the first decade as an academic researcher and then moved into the startup space where she enjoyed driving scientific strategy from a business perspective. She has held various roles including founding two startups as spinouts from universities, consulting for startup companies, followed by leading the clinical efforts for a medical device company in the oncology diagnostic space. In her current role Shahila ties these varied experiences together to help Portal Innovations grow and expand. Her role focuses on understanding life science ecosystems in cities beyond Chicago and building and implementing the Portal playbook to launch the platform in cities of interest nationwide.

In addition to her professional role, Shahila is an active Women In Bio member functioning in leadership roles over the years and also served as the Chicago Chapter President in 2020. Shahila has a PhD in Biochemistry from Loyola University in Chicago and did her postdoctoral work in drug discovery and development at University of Illinois.

Parth Rao, PharmD, MS

Director of Lab Operations

Parth Rao is an accomplished pharmaceutical professional with over a decade of experience in the industry. He has a proven track record in managing laboratory operations and facility maintenance for startups and established companies in the life sciences industry. Parth is known for his ability to streamline operations and improve efficiencies, his expertise in managing lab infrastructure, and his strategic vision for achieving growth and success. In this role as the Director of Lab Operations at Portal Innovations, he is responsible for formulating and executing strategic goals, developing operational and capital budgets, and managing relationships with life science startup companies and strategic partners. He will ensure everything will run smoothly and succinctly in our labs at both 400 N Aberdeen and 1375 W Fulton.

Throughout his career, Parth has held various leadership positions within the Biotech and Pharma industries focusing on biologics and novel gene therapies. He earned his Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Master of Science from Northern Illinois University. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, traveling, and spending time with his family

Krisha Panchalingam

Krisha is the Director of Lab and Scientific Operations where she oversees day-to-day operations of the Boston Southline site.

Krisha’s role focuses on being a bridge between the Portal Venture Operations team and member companies by providing the operations support required for member companies to reach their scientific milestones and goals for growth and expansion. She has a track record of setting up labs for startup companies, space planning, and buildouts while managing existing lab and facilities operations.

As part of Portal Innovations operations team, she believes in building highly functional operations team to run at optimum efficiency while allowing scientists to focus on what matters most, bringing new therapies to patients.