Jeff Sachs retired as the North American senior managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle’s Hotels and Hospitality Strategic Advisory and Asset Management Group. Before joining JLL, Sachs was a founding partner of Strategic Advisory Group, which was acquired by JLL in early 2016. Prior to forming Strategic Advisory Group in 1998, he was the national director of the public assembly consulting practice and the southeast director of the hospitality practice for Ernst & Young. He earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in accounting from the University of Iowa. Sachs has been a volunteer with LLS since 2005, one year after surviving a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia.

Kathleen Meriwether is retired from Ernst & Young, LLP, where she served as Americas Life Sciences Leader for the firm's Forensic and Integrity practice. She specialized in assisting health sciences companies with internal and government investigations, global risks and compliance assessments and regulatory compliance analyses. Prior to joining Ernst & Young, she served as an Assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, specializing in health care fraud matters. She previously spent more than 16 years with Bristol-Myers Squibb Company in a number of legal, regulatory affairs and compliance positions, including division counsel for the Oncology and Immunology franchise. Kathleen has a bachelor's degree in economics from LaSalle University and earned her J.D. from Villanova University School of Law. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Novartis Corporation and is a cancer survivor.

Freda Wang is a managing director in Goldman Sachs’ Public Sector & Infrastructure Group within the investment banking division. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, she was a managing director and head of structured banking within the Municipal Securities Group at UBS. Wang has spent over two decades providing investment banking services to some of the country’s largest public sector organizations, including state and local governments, public utility systems, transportation and mass transit agencies and other public and quasi-public organizations. Over the course of her career, she has helped numerous governmental, corporate and nonprofit clients solve complex financing challenges related to public projects. Freda was named the 2018 Woman of the Year candidate for LLS’s Connecticut Westchester Hudson Valley Chapter. She currently serves as treasurer and board member of FUSE Corps, and as vice chair of the board and chair of the finance committee of New York City Health & Hospitals. Freda earned a bachelor’s degree in urban studies with a concentration in economics from Columbia College of Columbia University in New York City.

Dr. Mesa is president at Enterprise Cancer Service Line Atrium Health and executive director of the NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical center. Dr. Mesa is also the Vice Dean for Cancer at Wake Forest School of Medicine. Dr. Mesa has been principal investigator or co-principal investigator in more than 100 clinical trials for patients with myeloid disorders and played a lead role in various FDA approvals. He has been a funded investigator of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) on several projects in myeloproliferative neoplasms and is appointed to the NCI Clinical Trial Advisory Committee. Dr. Mesa plays a range of leadership roles with the American Society of Hematology and elected to the Board of the American Association of Cancer Institutes. Dr. Mesa completed his undergraduate training in nuclear engineering and physiology at University of Illinois and attended Mayo Medical School in Rochester, MN, where he completed his internal medicine residency and hematology & medical oncology fellowship. He was then on the faculty of the Mayo Clinic in hematology and later served as deputy director of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center from 2012-2017, and executive Director of the NCI Designated Mays Cancer Center in San Antonio from 2017-2023.

Rich Bagger served as executive vice president of corporate affairs and market access for Celgene from January 2012 through December 2019, where he oversaw communications, patient advocacy, government relations and policy, market access, global health and corporate responsibility. Before joining Celgene, Bagger was chief of staff for New Jersey governor Chris Christie. His public service also includes 11 years in the New Jersey senate and assembly, where he was chair of the appropriations committee and majority conference leader. Previously, Bagger worked at Pfizer for more than 16 years in a series of positions of increasing responsibility within the company’s U.S. pharmaceuticals, corporate affairs and worldwide pharmaceuticals divisions. He currently teaches at the Rutgers University Eagleton Institute of Politics and is a Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He received a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs and a law degree from Rutgers University Law School.

Leroy M. Ball is president and chief executive officer of Koppers and serves on the company’s Board of Directors. Under Ball’s leadership, Koppers is focused on safely and sustainably delivering customer-focused solutions through the development and application of technologies to enhance and preserve wood. Ball joined Koppers in 2010 to serve as vice president and chief financial officer and subsequently moved into the role of chief operating officer in 2014. Prior to Koppers, Ball spent 10 years with Calgon Carbon Corporation, an international chemical company. During this time, he served as controller before being named senior vice president and chief financial officer in 2002. He also served as president of the company’s majority-owned Japanese joint venture. Previously, he was employed with Carmeuse Lime Co./Dravo Corporation for nine years, where he held several positions in the finance area. Ball is also a member of the Board of Directors for Allegheny Technologies Incorporated and Highmark Inc. Active in the local community, he serves as the treasurer for the Allegheny Conference on Community Development Board of Directors and is a member of The Advanced Leadership Initiative CEO Council. In 2016, Ball was honored with the Board Diversity Ambassador Award from 2020 Women on Boards, Pittsburgh. In 2018, he was selected as an Outstanding CEO by the Pittsburgh Business Times. In 2019, he was recognized with the Safety in Action ICON Award from DEKRA Organizational Safety and Reliability. Most recently in 2020, he received the Chuck Cooper Foundation Leadership Award for his commitment to promoting diversity and making a positive community impact. Ball received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Florida International University and earned an MBA from Robert Morris University.

Mark J. Barrenechea joined OpenText as president and chief executive officer in January 2012 and serves as a member of the Board of Directors. In January 2016, Barrenechea took on the role of chief technology officer and was appointed vice chair in September 2017. As CEO of Canada’s largest software company, he oversees the strategic and operational direction of the organization and upholds the company’s position at the forefront of the industry. Under his direction, OpenText has grown through innovation and strategic acquisitions into a multibillion-dollar cloud company. A prominent thought leader, Barrenechea’s extensive experience in information technology and business affords him unique insights into today’s world of rapid disruption and evolving technological change. Before joining OpenText, Barrenechea was president and chief executive officer of Silicon Graphics International (SGI) Corporation, where he also served as a member of the Board. Prior to SGI, Barrenechea served as executive vice president and CTO for CA, Inc., formerly Computer Associates International, Inc. and as a member of the executive management team. He also served on the executive management team at Oracle Corporation as senior vice president of applications development, responsible for managing a multi-thousand-member global team. He has also served in several other positions, including vice president of development at Scopus, a software applications company, and vice president of development at Tesseract. Barrenechea received his bachelor’s degree in computer science from Saint Michael’s College in Burlington, VT.

Renzo Canetta, M.D. has more than 35 years of clinical and regulatory cancer research experience at Bristol-Myers Squibb. At the forefront of cancer research, he has seen firsthand how innovation has transformed cancer treatment. His experience includes direct patient care, diagnosis and experimental treatment of cancers that affect blood, bone marrow and lymph nodes, as well as solid tumors, methodology of clinical trials and new drug development. He has held multiple leadership roles, including head of Clinical Cancer Research, head of Development on the Life Cycle Management team and head of Regulatory Oncology Research Policy. Dr. Canetta and his team developed 16 new drugs to treat cancer and two to treat viral infections, and received approval of more than 50 regulatory dossiers for additional indications and formulations. Dr. Canetta retired from Bristol-Myers Squibb in August, 2015.

Casey Cunningham, M.D. is the chief scientific officer of Santé Ventures, a venture capital fund focused on creating and investing in companies in healthcare and life sciences. Dr. Cunningham received his fellowship training in oncology and hematology at Harvard Medical School, where he subsequently served on the faculty. He was also one of the founding members of the Division of Experimental Medicine at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. Dr. Cunningham received his medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School with a residency in Internal Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He returned to Texas in 1999 as the Associate Director of the Mary Crowley Cancer Research Center in Dallas, a position he held until 2007. He joined Santé Ventures shortly after its founding. He has served in operating roles in Terapio, Molecular Templates and Beta Cat Pharmaceuticals and has served on the Boards of Terapio Corp., Molecular Templates, Lyric Pharmaceuticals, AbVitro and Mirna Therapeutics.

Janice L. Gabrilove, M.D. is The James F. Holland Professor of Medicine, associate director, Education & Training for the Tisch Cancer Institute and director of the Clinical Research Education Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She previously served on the faculty at Memorial Sloan Kettering. Dr. Gabrilove is the recipient of a patent for the discovery of human granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF), and was the first to demonstrate that it could alleviate certain harmful effects of chemotherapy on blood cell production. She has worked closely on the development of novel therapeutics for fostering leukemic cell maturation, and has been awarded patents for two additional drugs, approved by the FDA, for the treatment of myeloid leukemia. She is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, has served as a member of the Editorial Boards for the journal Blood, UpToDate, Clinical Cancer Research & Leukemia; and on the FDA Advisory Committee for approval of Biologics, among others. She has also served as an elected councilor on the executive committee for the American Society of Hematology. Dr. Gabrilove graduated from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai where she held the highest academic standing in the graduating medical school class.

Helen E. Heslop, M.D., DSc (Hon), is the Dan L Duncan chair, a professor of medicine and pediatrics, and the director of the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston Methodist Hospital, and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, TX. She also holds the role of the deputy director of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Heslop is a physician-scientist engaged in translational research focusing on adoptive immunotherapy with gene-modified effector cells to improve hemopoietic stem cell transplantation and cancer therapy. She focuses on reconstituting antiviral immunity post-transplant and has led an NHLBI-funded multicenter trial of allogeneic multivirus specific T cells. She has extensive experience in developing and conducting transplant studies and cell and gene therapy studies and currently holds over 20 INDs. Dr. Heslop serves as a principal investigator on several peer-reviewed research programs, including an NCI SPORE in Lymphoma, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) Award, and the Meg Vosberg Stand Up to Cancer Dream Team in T-cell lymphoma. She is also the principal investigator on an NHLBI-funded training grant in cell and gene therapy. Dr. Heslop is a past president of the American Society for Gene and Cell Therapy, the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplant, and the Foundation for Accreditation of Cell Therapy. She is the past chair of the BMT CTN Steering Committee and is an elected member of the American Association of Physicians and the National Academy of Medicine. She received her medical training at the University of Otago School of Medicine in Dunedin, New Zealand.

A proven marketing leader and strategic advisor with 30 years of experience, Jennifer Marley solves the highest-level, toughest strategic challenges for her clients at the marketing advisory firm, Sklar Wilton & Associates (SW&A). In her 18 years at SW&A, Jennifer has been honoured to act as strategic and insights advisor to some of Canada’s finest companies to collaboratively solve tough business challenges to unlock growth and build stronger brands. Her vision has been a driving force behind many successful culture, engagement and coaching initiatives at SW&A leading the firm to be named as one of Canada’s Best Workplaces, as well as, an Employee Recommended Workplace in 2017 and 2018. The blood cancer cause is a personal one for Jennifer. She is a 14-year leukemia survivor and is dedicated volunteer for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada. She is also a keen adventurer who enjoys new challenges including biking, hiking, trekking, and zip-lining in some of the most exotic and beautiful parts of the world. She is a mother of two, Matt 22 and Kate 20, who she is helping transition through university to adulthood. Her husband Murray enjoys accompanying her on her adventures.

Ari Melnick, M.D., is the Laurel Gebroe Family professor of hematology/oncology and a professor of medicine, immunology and pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM) in New York City. He earned his medical degree from the University of Buenos Aires School of Medicine. Dr. Melnick’s long-standing research interests include oncogenic epigenetic mechanisms, biology and molecular targeting of B-cell lymphomas and acute leukemias, targeting transcriptional and epigenetic repressors for cancer therapy, and identifying the epigenetic basis of hematologic malignancies. He and his research associates have developed several novel therapies to correct aberrant transcriptional regulation and signaling in these tumors. These have led to early phase as well as phase III cooperative group clinical trials and FDA approvals. He has created novel infrastructures for translational research and created dynamic bench to bedside teams of clinical investigators with laboratory scientists. He also has an interest in health disparities in hematologic malignancies and is developing precision medicine approaches to address some of these challenges. Dr. Melnick has authored more than 340 published manuscripts in journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, Cancer Discovery, Cancer Cell, Nature Medicine, Nature Immunology, and the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Melnick has been Scientific chair of the American Society of Hematology annual meeting and chair of the AACR Lymphoma Meetings in 2018 and 2020. He also has organized a number of other international scientific meetings in the areas of epigenetics and hematologic malignancies. He has participated in numerous study sections for the NIH and other organizations and is a member of the editorial board for journals such as Cancer Discovery, Blood Cancer Discovery and Science Advances.

Lynne F. O'Brien worked as a policy analyst with the White House Cancer Moonshot office under former Vice President, Joe Biden. Previously, she worked as director of the Washington government affairs office of DuPont Merck, working with members of Congress on issues involving the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, tax legislation, and health care reform. She started her career in D.C. with Williams and Jensen, a law firm in Washington, DC, focusing on healthcare clients. She is on the board of the Potomac School in McLean Virginia and member of Princeton's Alumni Schools Committee. She was formerly on the board of the National Organization for Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. O'Brien graduated cum laude from Princeton with a degree in political science and earned her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.

Marla S. Persky retired as senior vice president and general counsel of Boehringer Ingelheim USA Corporation in 2013. She launched WOMN LLC, a company dedicated to diversifying the legal professions by helping women succeed in the business of law by increasing their knowledge of and acuity with leadership principles, financial drivers and strategy. Through years of mentoring and executive coaching, she has shared her experience and observations with other attorneys and professionals to assist them in building valued, inclusive legal departments, career development and achieving business excellence. Persky’s leadership and efforts to improve diversity and inclusion in the legal profession have been recognized by elite organizations such as the Lawyer’s Collaborative for Diversity and the Connecticut Appleseed Foundation. She was recognized as one of the ten most innovative in-house counsel for her strategy and efforts to increase the opportunities and visibility of women in high profile litigation.  Additionally, Persky serves as an independent director on several for-profit and other non-profit boards.

Jim Reddoch, Ph.D. is Executive Vice President, Investments, and Chief Scientific Officer at Royalty Pharma, where he has identified and analyzed new biopharma investment opportunities and partnerships for over 14 years. Prior to joining Royalty Pharma in 2008, Dr. Reddoch was Head of Healthcare Research at FBR Capital Markets. Previously, Dr. Reddoch was a biotechnology analyst at Bank of America and CIBC World Markets. He is on Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center's external review board for its Technology Development Fund. Dr. Reddoch has a bachelor's degree from Furman University, a PhD in biochemistry and molecular genetics from the University of Alabama medical school and was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University.

Richard M. Rendina is chairman and chief executive officer of Rendina Healthcare Real Estate, where he has led all strategic and operational functions of the company since December 2006. Under his leadership, Rendina continues to develop, acquire and manage a premier portfolio of healthcare real estate throughout the country. He has personally overseen the development and acquisition of nearly two million square feet of real estate in 13 states, representing project costs of approximately $500 million. In 2013, he received the “Ultimate CEO Award” from the South Florida Business Journal, and was the recipient of the 2014 “Legacy Award” from the Palm Beach County Medical Society. He earned a bachelor of business administration degree from University of Notre Dame, majoring in management and entrepreneurship.

Robert Rosen is a managing member of Greyhawke Capital Advisors LLC, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based company which invests capital in, and applies management expertise to, selected investment opportunities generally involving net leased real estate properties. Since 2012, he has also served as an independent director of KLS Diversified, a hedge fund specializing in trading multiple debt strategies. Prior to this role, he was chief executive officer and at Odin Management Company, LP and Newkirk Limited Partnership. He has also practiced real estate and securities law as a senior partner at Hertzog, Calamari & Gleason and Rosen, Hacker & Nierenberg. Rosen is a graduate of Columbia Law School where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. He graduated cum laude with departmental honors in political science from the University of Massachusetts. Rosen is a member of the Dean’s Council at Columbia Law School and the Advisory Board of the Richman Center at Columbia University for Business, Law and Public Policy.

Bart Sichel’s interest and passion for LLS is deeply personal: His son is a leukemia survivor, and in 2005 he lost his father to lymphoma. Sichel was formerly the Chief Marketing Officer at Burlington Stores, where he was instrumental in shaping the strong bond between Burlington, a national off-price retailer, and LLS, a relationship that has generated more than $25 million for blood cancer research and patient services. Prior to Burlington, Sichel was a principal at McKinsey & Company, where he specialized in marketing and e-commerce for clients in a wide range of industries. It was his work with the firm's social sector office that strengthened his passion for making a difference in nonprofit settings. Sichel received a bachelor's degree in political science and economics from Vassar College and an MBA in marketing from Columbia University. 

Alessandra Tocco has over 30 years of experience in the alternatives investment industry. Most recently, she served as a managing director focusing on business strategy for a fixed income asset management firm, Good Hill Partners. Prior to joining Good Hill Partners, she was a managing director at J.P. Morgan, sitting on the prime brokerage management committee, where she was responsible for creating and overseeing the Global Capital Advisory Group. Before that, she was a director of US capital introduction at ABN-AMRO, focusing on macro and fixed income strategies. In 2015, she was honored as one of the “50 Leading Women in Hedge Funds” by The Hedge Fund Journal. Outside of the office, she supports several local charities and civic organizations and is the current president of the New York Alternative Investment Roundtable, an organization tasked with promoting education and best practices within the alternative investment industry. Prior to joining the LLS Board, she sat on LLS’s investment committee and the youth development committee of the NYC Chapter of the YMCA. Tocco holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Mercy College and continues to work closely with the development office at Mercy, where she helps students prepare for a career in finance.

Yvette Tremonti is the chief financial and administrative officer of Moffitt Cancer Center, the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center based in Florida. Tremonti is responsible for overseeing the financial and administrative operations of the center. Tremonti has worked for Moffitt Cancer Center since 1996, initially as the director of accounting. As vice president of human resources, she introduced several innovative programs including flexible work arrangements and employee benefit redesigns that helped Moffitt earn an Employer of Choice Award and be named one of Working Mother Magazine’s 100 Best Companies. Prior to Moffitt, she spent nine years with Ernst & Young in the audit practice focused on for-profit and nonprofit health care entities. She was also awarded the 2018 Chief Financial Officer of the Year by the Tampa Bay Business Journal and the 2019 The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Woman of the Year for Tampa Bay. She is a member of the American and Florida Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Tremonti has a personal connection with cancer. Her son, Michael, was diagnosed with leukemia at eight years old. He went into remission in 2015 and in September 2022, he relapsed and is currently in his second remission. Tremonti holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of South Florida and an MBA from Auburn University.