Leadership & Team
Seema Chaturvedi, Founder & Managing Director
Ms. Chaturvedi has over 20 years of capital markets and financial management experience as an investment banker, corporate finance advisor, investor and an entrepreneur.
Prior to founding Accelerator, she was Senior Consultant at Amherst Capital Partners, LLC an investment-banking firm. She worked on merger, acquisitions and business combination transactions with companies. Prior to this she worked with Shearson Lehman and JM Financial Services (Indian affiliate of Morgan Stanley).
Ms. Chaturvedi has successfully initiated, promoted and co-founded entrepreneurship and technology platforms including Detroit and Miami Chapters of The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE) an organization to foster entrepreneurship, Chairperson of I-Team’s MI IT Summit 2002. She has served on the Board of TiE Global, Automation Alley, Marygrove College, Urban Debate League. She has spoken at several national & international forums including the 1st Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, IFC Healthcare Conference, Ministry of Women & Child Development. She was a member of the Economic Advisory Council of the Center for American Progress.
Ms. Chaturvedi holds a Masters degree in Finance from Boston College and an undergraduate degree with honors in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College of Delhi University in India. Ms. Chaturvedi was named to Crain’s Detroit Business “40 under 40”, Crain’s Detroit Business “Detroit’s Most Influential Business Women”, ‘Detroit’s Most Enterprising Women’ by Detroit Historical Society, Michigan Hall of Fame for Enterprising Women. She also received a certificated of recognition form the US House of Representative – Ms. Brenda Lawrence’s Office. In 2015, Crain’s Detroit listed Ms. Chaturvedi as one of a select group of Influential Women in Tech.
G.N. Bajpai, Member, Board of Advisors.
Mr. Bajpai is member of the Board of Advisors of Accelerator Group and is leading the health insurance initiative. He has very rich and significant experience in India‘s capital and insurance markets. He is currently Chairman of Intuit Consulting, a firm based in Mumbai India.
Chairman, Securities and Exchange Board of India – SEBI (Feb 2002 – Feb 2005) SEBI.
Chairman, Life Insurance Corporation of India – LIC (Sept, 2000 – Feb. 2002) India’s premier financial conglomerate with an asset base of over Rs 4.8 Trillion ((US $ 100 Billion). Served on the Boards of many prestigious organizations of India and outside, across diverse industries including Finance, Chemicals, Steel and Energy such as National Stock Exchange of India Ltd., Stock Holding Corporation of India as Non – Executive Chairman, Chairman of Corporate Governance Task Force of International Organization of Securities Commission (IOSCO) and Director of ICICI Limited (now ICICI Bank), Unit Trust of India, India International Insurance Pvt. Ltd., Singapore, Ken India Assurance Company Limited, Nairobi, Kenya, Tata Chemicals and Jindal Vijay Nagar Steel.
President - Insurance Institute of India.(2002-04) Serving on the Board of Governors of prestigious institutions like - National Insurance Academy and Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow.
AWARDS & CITATIONS
Awards include Outstanding Contribution to the Development of Finance conferred by CNBC TV 18 and handed over by the Hon. Prime Minister of India Dr. Man Mohan Singh.
Dr. Vinod K. Sahney, Member, Board of Advisors
Dr. Vinod (Vin) Sahney served as Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer for Corporate Strategy, Planning and Business Development at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Prior to joining BCBSMA in May 2006, Vin spent 25 years at Henry Ford Health Systems in Detroit, Michigan as Senior Vice President.
Vin is a founding member of the Institute for Health Care Improvement (IHI) and currently serves as the Chairman of the Board. For the past 28 years, he has been a visiting professor at the Harvard University School of Public Health. He has also taught in the Executive Programs in Health Policy and Management at Harvard University, Case Western Reserve University, the University of Michigan, the University of Sydney in Australia, and the Stockholm Institute of Economics in Sweden.
Vin has published more than 50 articles in peer review journals and authored two books and ten chapters in books on health care administration. He has a Doctorate degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a Master's degree from Purdue, and a Bachelors degree from the Birla Institute of Technology in Ranchi, India. He is an elected member of both the Institute of Medicine and The National Academy of Engineering. He has been elected as a Fellow in the Health Care Information and Management Systems Society and the Institute for Industrial Engineers. In 1995 he received the Distinguished Service Award from the University of Wisconsin, and in 2006, he was the recipient of the lifetime achievement award from the Engineering Society of Detroit. Vin served on many not-for-profit Boards in Detroit, including St. Joseph Mercy Oakland, St. Joseph Mercy–Macomb Hospital, Cranbrook Horizons-Upward Bound, and Michigan’s Children.
Dr. Pravin Chaturvedi, Member, Board of Advisors
Dr. Pravin Chaturvedi is an experienced drug developer and a seasoned biotech entrepreneur. He is the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board for San Francisco-based Napo Pharmaceuticals and Jaguar Health. He is the CEO and Director for Boston-headquartered IndUS Pharmaceuticals and Oceanyx Pharmaceuticals, both of which he also co-founded. Previously, he has served as the President and CEO of Vancouver-headquartered Pivot Pharmaceuticals and Boston-based Scion Pharmaceuticals. He is also the Chairman of the Board for Boston-based Cellanyx, a first-in-class, live-tumor cell, phenotypic testing entity. In addition to his responsibilities on the boards of IndUS, Oceanyx and Cellanyx, he also serves as a board member for Boston-based Resolute Bio, Houston-based FuelEd Schools and Hyderabad-based Sindu Research Laboratories.
He has previously served on the boards of Pivot, Scion, Bach Pharma, PRADAN USA, Sindu Pharmaceuticals and TiE Boston. He also serves on several advisory boards including Enlivity and MAG Optics. Prior to his biotech entrepreneurial journey, he served as the Head of Lead Evaluation at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, where he had oversight for drug candidates from lead discovery through clinical proof-of-concept clinical trials. Prior to Vertex, he was in the Product Development groups at Alkermes and Parke-Davis/Warner-Lambert (now Pfizer). Over his career, he has participated in the successful development of several new drugs and has participated in the successful drug approval and commercialization of seven drugs indicated for the treatment of CNS, viral and gastrointestinal disorders.
He is as an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown Medical School. He holds a Ph.D. from West Virginia University and a Bachelor’s in Pharmacy from the University of Bombay.
Dr. Brian Harvey, MD, PhD., Member, Board of Advisors
Brian E. Harvey, MD, PhD is a physician and biochemist with academic research, clinical practice, U.S. FDA regulatory, bio-pharmaceutical industry and non-profit experience. He specializes in providing regulatory advice for biologics, drugs and medical device development programs. In addition, he volunteers as the Executive Vice President, Science and Regulatory at the non-profit Global Liver Institute (www.globalliver.org) based in Washington, DC. Prior to his current activities, Dr. Harvey held positions as Vice President of U.S. Regulatory Strategy at Pfizer and Vice President of U.S. Regulatory Policy at Sanofi-Aventis, including during the period of the Genzyme merger (https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-harvey-14788910/). Dr. Harvey also held several senior roles at FDA, serving in the medical device (CDRH), biologic (CBER) and drug (CDER) Center from 1995 to 2007. As Director of CDER Division of Gastroenterology Products Office of New Drugs (OND), he headed the regulatory review teams for NDA and BLA submissions and chaired FDA meetings with regulated industry on a regular basis. As Director, he created the Inborn Errors of Metabolism Team within the GI division to focus on rare disease product approvals. Prior to this, he served as Deputy Director for the Office of Drug Evaluation 5 (CDER) and CBER Associate Director for Policy, Office of Therapeutics Research and Review (OTRR).
Brian graduated with honors from Middlebury College, MD at the University of Connecticut. He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at Harvard’s Beth Israel Hospital, which included clinical rotations at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, West Roxbury Veterans Hospital, clinical research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health. . This was followed by a three year gastroenterology fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD, which included hepatology training and being a member of the Liver Transplant Service.
Cliff Ansel, Member, Board of Directors.
Cliff is a seasoned strategist with a diverse skill set, developed over 25 years of business experience in medtech, finance, and retail sectors. A strong motivator and team player that can operate in a demanding and complex environment, and is capable of developing key relationships to drive business forward. He is current CEO of Respinova Ltd. in Israel. Prior experiences include CEO & President of Thornhill Research, Canada, CEO of Adjuvant Therapeutics Inc.