It’s Me
Hi, I’m Lisa Suennen. I am a founding partner (we call ourselves Managing Members) of Psilos Group Managers. I started this 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 how women fare in these fields, as it is certainly interesting at times. I have worked in the healthcare field longer than I care to admit and in the investing field for the past 15 years since co-founding Psilos Group. Of course I’ve been a woman even longer.
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 private equity come up with on their own.
My views as expressed here are mine and mine alone, not those of Psilos Group.
I can be reached at lisasuennen@psilos.com or through the comments section of this blog. Thanks for reading!
Psilos Background
Psilos is a venture capital and growth equity firm focused on providing capital to companies operating in the healthcare economy. The firm believes that successful healthcare innovation must reduce cost, improve quality and align incentives across payers, providers and patients. Founded in 1998, Psilos has $600 million under management and invests across three core healthcare sectors: healthcare services, healthcare information technology and medical technology.
Funds managed by Psilos have invested in companies such as ActiveHealth, AngioScore, Definity Health, Extend Health, InSound Medical, Mauna Kea Technologies, OmniGuide, Patient Safe Solutions, SeeChange Health, and Veralight, among many others, which have played, and continue to play, key roles in the transformation of the U.S. healthcare economy. Psilos has offices in New York, the San Francisco Bay Area and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Lisa’s Detailed Background:
Lisa Suennen is a co-founder and Managing Member of Psilos Group, a healthcare-focused venture capital firm with approximately $600 million under management. Ms Suennen has headed Psilos’ West Coast office since the firm’s founding in 1998 and focuses on the medical device, healthcare information technology and healthcare services sectors. She currently serves as a Director on the Board of several Psilos portfolio companies, including AngioScore, PatientSafe Solutions, OmniGuide and VeraLight.
Prior to Psilos, Ms. Suennen was at Merit Behavioral Care (formerly American Biodyne, Inc), where she 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. Lisa joined Merit in 1988 while still in its early start-up period and, during her nine-year tenure, played a key role in its growth to an $800 million/year company. While at Merit, she also participated in the acquisition and integration of regional managed care companies, the company’s IPO in 1991, and the company’s sale to Magellan Health for $800 million in 1998.
Previously, Lisa served as Worldwide Product Manager for INGRES/Relational Technology, Inc., a relational database company, where she had responsibility for development, marketing and distribution of the company’s UNIX PC software product. Prior to INGRES, Lisa served as Director of U.S. Market Development and as Manager, U.S. Government and Industry Relations for X/Open, an international computer industry standards setting and lobbying consortium. Earlier, Lisa spent several years at Regis McKenna, Inc., an international high technology marketing and public relations firm, responsible for government relations and public relations strategy for client companies in the software and healthcare areas.
Lisa holds 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. Lisa is also Vice Chair of the National Advisory Council of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and a visiting lecturer at the U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business where, together with Dr. Jeff Rideout, she teaches the annual course on healthcare venture capital.
In 2011 Lisa was the recipient of the Director of the Year Award (Companies in Transition) from the Corporate Director’s Forum. In 2011 she was also was awarded the U.C. Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies Outstanding Alumni Award. Lisa has also been named to the Advisory Board of the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of the National Coordinator Investing in Innovations program and the to Advisory Board of Qualcomm Life.
As you know since you are reading this, Lisa also writes a widely read blog on healthcare and healthcare investing at www.venturevalkyrie.com.
