About us
Leadership Team
A management team with deep experience in medical devices and orthopedic surgery
Robert Ball
CEO & Executive Chairman
Rob has spent more than two decades bringing medical device technologies to market, including proprietary orthopedic materials. He served at Tornier NV as Global Vice President, Research and Development, during which time Tornier grew from approximately $70M to $300M in annual revenues through organic growth of new products. He holds more than 30 issued or pending patents.
Jeff Points
Chief Financial Officer
Jeff has over 25 years of successful financial leadership experience, primarily with high growth companies in the medical device industry. Prior to Shoulder Innovations, Jeff was the CFO at Cardiovascular Systems. During his time at Cardiovascular Systems, the company grew to over $250 million in annual revenues prior to being acquired by Abbott in April 2023.
Matt Ahearn
Chief Operating Officer
Matt is an entrepreneurial business leader with 15+ years of experience building and managing dynamic technology companies. He has a proven track record of successfully bringing innovative products and services to market. Prior to Shoulder Innovations, he was COO of Conpoto, and VP of Finance, COO and President of LeanLogistics.
David Blue
Chief Customer Experience Officer
David is an entrepreneurially driven healthcare executive with over 30+ years of experience in the medical device industry and healthcare services companies. He has served in various national senior executive leadership positions and key roles through-out a wide variety of different staged healthcare companies.
Jon Osborne
Vice-President, Commercial Development
Jon is a transformational executive who has led organizations and successful teams for over 25 years in the orthopedic device space. He has worked in sales management, global marketing, and general management in both domestic and international markets with companies such as Arthrex, Tornier, and ArthroCare. Prior to Shoulder Innovations, Jon served as Vice President of Commercial Marketing at Smith and Nephew, Inc.
Robert Ball
CEO & Executive Chairman
Read Robert Ball's Bio
Rob has spent more than two decades bringing medical device technologies to market, including proprietary orthopedic materials. He served at Tornier NV as Global Vice President, Research and Development, during which time Tornier grew from approximately $70M to $300M in annual revenues through organic growth of new products. He holds more than 30 issued or pending patents.
Matt Ahearn
Chief Operating Officer
Read Matt Ahearn's Bio
Matt is an entrepreneurial business leader with 15+ years of experience building and managing dynamic technology companies. He has a proven track record of successfully bringing innovative products and services to market. Prior to Shoulder Innovations, he was COO of Conpoto, and VP of Finance, COO and President of LeanLogistics.
Paul Buckman
Chairman, NeuroOne
Read Paul Buckman's Bio
48 years of medical device experience in general management, sales, marketing, finance, international and operations. Paul is currently CEO of Rhythmlink International and also serveson a number of medical technology boards.
Prior to Rhythmlink, Paul was the North American President for LivaNova and President of the Cardiovascular Divisions of both Boston Scientific and St. Jude Medical, where he implemented significant growth strategies in both core and emerging technologies.
He was also a co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of ev3, which was eventually sold to Covidien for $2.5B. Paul has also had previous CEO roles with Conventus Orthopaedics, SentreHeart, Pathway Medical (sold to Bayer Healthcare), and Devax (sold to Biosensors Intl.), in addition to executive management roles at DVI (sold to Eli Lilly) and American Hospital Supply.
Presently, Paul serves as a Director on the Boards of Rhythmlink, NeuroOne (Chairman), Helius Medical, Shoulder Innovations, AMX Medical, and SC Bio.
Casey Tansey
Board of Directors
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Casey Tansey joined USVP as a general partner in April 2005. A veteran of the medical device industry, Casey brings over 25 years of entrepreneurial, early-stage medical device and seasoned operating experience to USVP. Casey’s extensive operations experience brings more to the table than strategic counsel — he adds empathy to that mix. “As a CEO, it was important to me when board members really shared our passion and understood organization-building focused on improving healthcare for patients. CEOs need venture capitalists that leverage their network of contacts, help identify the best partners, and share the company’s vision. USVP takes this approach.”
Casey’s investment strategy is a lot like his strategy as a CEO: identify unmet clinical needs where patients are in need of new and improved products and services. At USVP, Casey focuses on the trend toward the miniaturization of devices and the development of minimally-invasivetechnologies that promise innovations in the delivery of medical products and services, especially in cardiovascular products, orthopedics, spinal care and neurology.
Casey’s passion is to strive for delivery of medical services with fewer traumas to the patient and improved quality of life. Innovations shaping this trend include minimally invasive technologies. During his tenure as CEO, President and board member of Epicor Medical from 2001 to 2004, Casey, along with a dedicated team, pioneered a minimally invasive treatment for atrial fibrillation and transformed the Company into a recognized market leader, and he led Epicor’s acquisition by St. Jude Medical.
Prior to Epicor, Casey was CEO, President and board member of Heartport, a public company that helped pioneer minimally invasive cardiac surgery, which is now a Johnson & Johnson company. Before that, he was with Baxter Edward’s Cardiovascular Division for nearly tenyears, holding various sales and marketing positions. During his tenure at Baxter, Casey was involved in launching innovative heart valve products that have grown to be the market leaders.
Casey’s notable board activities have included Inspire Medical (IPO), IntersectENT (IPO), AtheroMed (sold to Volcano), Nanostim (sold to St. Jude Medical), PlaceIQ (acquired by Precisely) and SentreHeart (sold to AtriCure). Currently, he serves on the Board of Directors for Cagent Vascular, Contego Medical, Dstillery, HeartFlow, Highlife Medical, Inspire Medical, Luminopia, MicroTransponder, Neochord, Neuros Medical, Shiratronics and Shoulder Innovations. In addition, Casey served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the World Heart Foundation, an organization dedicated to advancing humanitarian efforts in heart surgery worldwide through education and collaboration. Casey holds a B.S. and M.B.A. from the College of Notre Dame in Belmont, CA.
Mike Carusi
Board of Directors
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Mike is a General Partner and Team Leader of Lightstone Ventures (LSV) and focuses on investments in the biopharmaceutical and medical device sectors. He is based in the firm’s Portola Valley, CA office, where he also serves as a General Partner at Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV). His representative investments include Allay Therapeutics, Altura Medical (acquired by Lombard), Ardian (acquired by Medtronic), Cala Health, EndoGastric Solutions, Gynesonics, MediSix Therapeutics, MicroVention (acquired by Terumo), Nuvaira, Plexxikon (acquired by Daiichi Sankyo), PowerVision (acquired by Alcon), Second Genome, Shoulder Innovations, Tallac Therapeutics, and Willow.
Featured on the Forbes Midas List of top technology and life science investors, Mike is a recognized thought leader in the industry and a frequent speaker at healthcare conferences. He serves as an Adjunct Professor at the Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College. In addition, Mike has been heavily involved with several programs at Stanford University including the Stanford Biodesign Program and, more recently, the Stanford Center for Clinical and Translational Research and Education (Spectrum). Lastly, Mike served as a Director on the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) Board of Directors and remains active in helping to shape policy affecting both innovation and healthcare.
Earlier in his career, Mike served as a Director of Business Development for Inhale Therapeutic Systems (now Nektar Therapeutics, NASDAQ: NKTR), a venture-backed pulmonary drug delivery company that went public in 1994. At Inhale, Mike led partnering activities with a number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Mike also was a Principal at The Wilkerson Group, a leading management consulting firm focused exclusively on healthcare. At The Wilkerson Group, Mike helped establish the firm’s offices in London and San Francisco.
Kevin Sidow
Board of Directors
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Kevin has 40 years of experience in Orthopedic and other medical device companies.
He previously served on the Board at Rotation Medical, Ceterix, and Pivot Medical and is currently on the Board Of Carlsmed and The West Virginia University Foundation. Kevin is the former CEO of St. Francis Medical Technologies, Moximed, as well as past Worldwide President of Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy Orthopedics family of companies.
Geoff Pardo
Board of Directors
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Geoff Pardo joined Gilde Healthcare in 2011 and is a General Partner leading Gilde’s US Investments out of Boston, MA. He led the investments in Inari Medical (NASDAQ: NARI), Axonics Modulation Technologies (NASDAQ: AXNX), CVRx (NASDAQ: CVRX), Eargo (NASDAQ: EAR), InovaLabs (acquired by ResMed), BionX (acquired by Ottobock), Vapotherm (NYSE: VAPO), and Vesper Medical (acquired by Royal Philips), serving on the board of each company. Most recently he has led investments in and serves on the board of Alleviant Medical, Mainstay Medical, Ablative Solutions (Chairman), Nalu Medical (Chairman), Spire Health (merged with Wellinks), VS3, Shoulder Innovations and GT Medical.
Previously, he was a Partner at Spray Venture Partners where he led investments into Interlace Medical (sold to Hologic), Solace Therapeutics, TearScience (sold to J&J) and Cascade Ophthalmics. He served on the board of Solace, TearScience and Cascade, and was actively involved in Interlace and Conventus Orthopedics.
Geoff also served as President & CEO of Facet Solutions, a spinal implant company focused on treating lumbar spinal stenosis until the company was sold to Globus Medical in 2011. He has also worked at Cardinal Partners as an Associate leading their investing activity in the medical device sector.
Geoff began his career in medical devices as a product manager with Synthes USA.
He has a B.A. with honors in History from Brown University and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business. He is a US citizen based in Gilde Healthcare’s Cambridge, MA office.
Geoff is the host of the MedTech Talk podcast in which he interviews entrepreneurs and other MedTech investors.
Geoff is also Chairman of Advamed’s Medtech Investor Working Group which focuses on the key issues that affect emerging medtech companies and the investors which support them.