Independent non-executive Chairman from 3 April 2008. Independent non-executive Director since August 2001 and member of the Nominations Committee. Chairman of the Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee until 3 April 2008 and Chairman of the Remuneration and Nominations Committees since that date.
John is a professional Company Director and management consultant. He was formerly Managing Director and Chief Executive of Qantas Airways Limited. This culminated a 25 year career with the airline in a variety of corporate and line management roles covering Australia, Asia, Europe and North America. Subsequent to that, he spent seven years at News Corporation where his focus was primarily on the development and commercialisation of convergence opportunities in media, technology and communications.
John is currently Chairman of Wolseley Private Equity, a Director of Adelaide Airport Limited and Brisbane Airport Holdings Limited. He is an Honorary Life Governor of the Research Foundation of Information Technology. His other positions during the past three years were as Chairman of Transonic Travel Limited and Director of Tourism NSW.
Peter Crosby Chief Executive Officer
Appointed Chief Executive Officer from 1 July 2006, and Managing Director from 1 August 2006, and a member of the Nominations Committee. Peter was Chief Operating Officer of Ventracor Limited until his appointment as CEO and has been President of Ventracor Inc since January 2005.
Peter has more than 25 years’ experience in bringing medical devices to the global market. He is a dual citizen of Australia and the USA, and has served on several public and private company Boards. Prior to joining Ventracor, he served as CEO of four medical device companies in three countries. Until mid-2004, he was President and CEO of Ischemia Technologies, a US-based company, which developed a new diagnostic test for cardiac ischemia.
From early 1996, he was the president and CEO of Seattle-based NeoVision Corporation, a development stage medical device company working in the diagnosis of breast cancer, which was sold in 1997 to US Surgical Corp. Until 1995, he held leadership positions at Telectronics Pacing Systems, an Australian company that was a pioneer in the development and commercialisation of cardiac pacemakers and implantable defibrillators, which was sold to St Jude Medical in 1995. Prior to that he was CEO of Ausonics Limited in Sydney, and was one of the founding team of Cochlear from 1981. He is an inventor on 18 Issued US patents in the field of medical devices and diagnostics and has authored numerous papers on biomedical engineering topics. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Master of engineering Science from the University of Melbourne.
Ross Harricks Non-Executive Director
Independent non-executive Director since November 2004 and member of the Nominations and Remuneration Committees.
Ross has extensive international medical device experience. He is the founder and a former Executive Director of AtCor Medical Pty Ltd, an Australian Cardiovascular medical device company active in the USA and Europe.
Ross was a director of Resmed for five years until 1995. Prior to this, he was Group Marketing Executive with the Nucleus Group responsible for international markets and based in the USA from 1985. There were no other directorships held over the past three years other than those indicated above.
Elizabeth Nosworthy AO Non-Executive Director
Independent non-executive Director since July 2002 and member of the Audit, Risk and Compliance and Nominations Committees.
Elizabeth is a lawyer and a former partner of national legal firm, Freehills. She had more than 20 years experience as a commercial lawyer before she left the law in 1995 to follow a career as a full time non executive director.
Elizabeth has held a number of Directorships in both the private and the public sectors. She is currently Chairman of the Queensland Water Commission, Commander Communications Ltd and Babcock and Brown Ltd and an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Queensland.
Other directorships during the past three years are Director of GPT Group until August 2008, Chairman of Stanwell Corporation Ltd and Council Member of the National Gallery of Australia.
Her previous appointments also include Directorships of Telstra Corporation Ltd, Australian National Industries Ltd, Port of Brisbane Corporation, Australia TradeCoast, Brisbane Airport Corporation Limited, Queensland Treasury Corporation, David Jones Limited and Prime Infrastructure Management Ltd.
She is an ex-Chairman of the Qld Biotechnology Advisory Council and ex-Deputy-Chairman of the Clean Coal Technology Board and was a member of the National Competition Council for five years.
Elizabeth is the winner of the AICD (Qld Division) 2001 Gold Medal Award for Outstanding Director.
Jeffrey Goodman Non-Executive Director
Appointed non-executive Director from 15 August 2007, Jeffrey is a member of the Nominations and Remuneration Committee.
Jeffrey is a US-based Australian executive with extensive experience in the global medical device industry, who until January 2008 was Executive Vice President and President International of Boston Scientific Corporation which he joined in 1999 after 25 years with Baxter International Inc, starting in Australia. With Baxter, Jeffrey started as an Area Manager in Sydney then advanced to become the Director of Australia and New Zealand before being transferred to the United States as President, Biotech North America. He is also currently a Director of Lionbridge Technologies Inc which operates in over 40 locations in 26 countries with over 4,600 staff and CathRx Ltd, an Australian medical device company.
William E Curran Non-Executive Director
Appointed non-executive Director from 2 May 2007, William is the Chairman of the Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee and a member of the Nominations Committee.
William is a New York-based company director with extensive experience in the medical device industry, including a successful career with Philips from 1976 until 2004, involving a mix of functional and senior general management experience. His ten years at Philips Medical Systems included positions of Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer, and while at Philips Electronics North America, he was President and Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer.
William is presently Chairman of Resonant Medical, a company specialising in three dimensional ultrasound image guided adaptive radiotherapy products. He is a director of 3D Systems Corporation, a leading provider of 3-D Modeling and rapid prototyping manufacturing solutions. William was formerly Director of the listed companies: FEI Company; MedQuist, and Navigation Technologies.
Ash Attia Vice President, Asia Pacific Business Development Ash has over 20 years experience in the medical device industry where he has developed a broad range of business management skills including; global market expansion, start up operations, distribution management, strategic planning, financial management, sales & marketing management, R&D, and team building across the Asia Pacific region. Before joining Ventracor, Ash founded Biotronik Australia Pty. Ltd. and held the position of Managing Director and Vice President Asia Pacific where he built and managed businesses in Cardiac Rhythm Management devices, Interventional Cardiology and Electrophysiology throughout the Asia Pacific region. Prior to this, Ash was General Manager of Sulzer International’s Cardiovascular division where he managed a group of companies in the areas of Cardiac Rhythm Management devices, Vascular grafts, Cardiac Surgery and Electrophysiology. Ash is responsible for Ventracor’s growing Operations and Business in the Asia Pacific region and is located in Chatswood, Australia,
Graeme Fallet Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary Graeme has a broad range of commercial skills and experience working in international markets. Prior to his appointment in August, Graeme was Chief Financial Officer with GasNet where he held responsibility for all treasury functions, accounting, information technology and taxation. He was previously Group Controller Finance at CSL Limited where he worked on a number of successful acquisitions and cross-border corporate actions.
Thomas Gould Vice President, US Sales & Marketing Tom was previously Head of Field Support for MicroMed Cardiovascular where he directed the initiation of over 30 Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) implant centres for the DeBakey VAD. Before joining MicroMed he contributed to the success of ThermoCardio Systems where he was responsible for sales and support of the HeartMate1 LVAD and supervision of the US field support team. ThermoCardio Systems was acquired by Thoratec. Tom is responsible for all field support staff in the US, hospital site initiation, implant support and other marketing functions.
Roman Greifeneder Vice President, Technical Operations Sydney Roman Greifeneder is responsible for production, procurement, manufacturing engineering, test engineering and facilities management at Ventracor. He has extensive experience in the design, manufacture and quality assurance of class 2 medical devices and class 3 implantable medical devices. Roman has more than 11 years’ medical device experience across three separate companies at Telectronics, ResMed and now Ventracor and was previously manufacturing engineering manager with ResMed Ltd. Roman is responsible for the rapid transition to large-scale manufacturing of devices and has qualifications in Industrial Engineering, Production Engineering and Quality Supervision.
Jeffrey Lee Vice President, Quality Assurance and Regulatory Compliance Jeffrey Lee has more than 18 years’ experience in the development, implementation and maintenance of quality assurance systems to satisfy US FDA, TGA and European regulatory requirements. Jeffrey began and spent several years in senior Research & Development roles. Before joining Ventracor, Jeffrey held positions of Quality Assurance and Regulatory Manager with Tuta Healthcare Pty Ltd and Director, Quality in Manufacturing and Quality Control Manager with ResMed.
Robert C. Petterson Business Director, Europe Rob has over twenty-four years experience in the medical device industry, with extensive experience in mechanical circulatory support devices in Europe. Before joining Ventracor, Rob held the positions of the European Director of Operations and Sales with WorldHeart, and Business Development Director with Baxter Healthcare and Edwards Lifesciences, where he was responsible for the business and support of the pioneering first generation Novacor LVAD in Europe. Rob is responsible for Ventracor’s Operations and Business in Europe and located at Ventracor’s European headquarters at Heesch in the Netherlands.
Dr John Woodard Chief Scientific Officer John has more than 20 years cardiovascular device experience, 14 of which involved engineering and clinical aspects of four other ventricular assist devices. He has numerous publications and patents in the field. John is an Adjunct Professor at the Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering at the University of NSW and holds an honorary appointment at the Monash Medical School, Melbourne. John is an accredited representative for Australia at the International Standards Organisation.
Helene Zintak Vice President, Clinical Affairs Helene has substantial experience in the implementation and execution of US and European clinical trials for mechanical circulatory support devices. Before joining Ventracor in 2007 she was responsible for leading the team effort to obtain CE Mark for the LionHeart LVAS as well as the initial clinical experience of the CorAide centrifugal VAD. She is a graduate of Hahnemann University’s Physician Assistant program.
