Business Advisors

James Jorasch is the founder of Science House, an organization dedicated to supporting science by bringing scientists and business people together for talks and workshops, and by making seed stage investment in high tech companies. His Science House Foundation funds projects around the world which get kids excited about science. James is a parallel entrepreneur and a named inventor on more than 300 issued patents. Some of those patents support his latest entrepreneurial venture, HealthPrize, which he co-founded with Tom Kottler and Katrina Firlik. James is also a co-founder of HandHold Adaptive, a company dedicated to bringing 21st century technologies to the disabled community. He is a trustee of the Math Museum, an organization focused on creating the nation's first museum exclusively for math. James is a frequent speaker at conferences and has appeared on CNN and in Forbes magazine.

Scott Friesen is the Founder and CEO of three new health care startup companies currently in stealth mode. Scott previously served as Regional Vice President of Provider Services for the global revenue cycle management firm Apollo Health Street. While at Apollo, Scott established Apollo as the premier provider of globally sourced physician revenue cycle management services. Scott has extensive experience providing global solutions such as visioning, transition, implementation and delivery of services. Some of the clients where Scott established long-term global partnerships include Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, University of Pennsylvania Health System, North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, NYU Medical Center, The University of Virginia, and The University of Mississippi, amongst others. Prior to working at Apollo, Scott worked as a senior revenue cycle consultant at Stockamp & Associates and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Scott has a MA from Yale University (2000) and a BA in History (1996) and a BA in Philosophy (1996).

Elliot Favus is the founder of Favus Institutional Research. He has been working as a healthcare equity research analyst on Wall Street since 2006, at Lazard Capital Markets and Och-Ziff Capital Management Group. Prior to working on Wall Street, Dr. Favus was an Instructor in Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He attended The University of Michigan (B.A., 1996), The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine (M.D., 2001), and the NYU-Bellevue Hospital Internal Medicine Residency Program (2004). He is board-certified in Internal Medicine (2004). In addition to being board certified in Internal Medicine, Dr. Favus has 10 years of basic science laboratory experience, working on human genetics projects at Harvard Medical School, The University of Chicago, and the University of Pittsburgh.

Angelo Del Parigi, M.D., has been leading clinical and translational research projects in metabolic/endocrine and cognitive disorders in academic and industry settings for more than 15 years. Angelo’s main focus is on the contribution of the central nervous system, investigated with functional and structural neuroimaging, to the control of energy homeostasis. He has gained international stature in the field of neuroimaging applied to obesity and diabetes mellitus.

Peter Sorgenfrei started his career with Nordea, a Scandinavian financial services conglomerate in his native Denmark. He left Denmark for the U.S. and DaimlerChrysler's captive finance company. After DaimlerChrysler Peter continued his career with Toyota in the U.S. where he quickly became responsible for the market research activities at Toyota's North American holding company. Peter then moved to Wall Street, covering automotive stocks for the global financial firm, UBS. After years of interaction with research vendors, Peter decided it was time to develop a different kind of market and competitive research firm. To address this need, he founded Sorgenfrei LLC, an adaptable format providing clients with whatever they need, be it a little creativity and inspiration, or the short, sharp facts.

Peter holds a B.S. and M.S. degree, both in Economics, from the University of Copenhagen, where he also taught. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Analysts, Society of Automotive Engineers, the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals, and the World Future Society.

Tom Kottler is an experienced start-up founder and former manager of a variety of healthcare ventures. Tom's latest entrepreneurial venture, HealthPrize Technologies, founded together with James Jorasch and Katrina Firlik, aims to help people get healthy and stay healthy by motivating them to take their prescription medications. He has served as the COO and General Counsel of IPR, a mid-sized clinical research organization that was sold to a Fortune 500 company, as the COO of Celadon Science (now called Advanced BioHealing), a company that markets and develops cell-based wound care products, and was co-founder and COO of MedAptus, a healthcare IT company that develops and sells handheld software solutions for physician practice groups. Most recently, he was the co-founder and CEO of VeinAid, a company that is developing non-invasive devices to treat superficial venous disease.

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Tom spent nine years in private legal practice with firms in Chicago and Connecticut.  He received a BS from Middlebury College and a JD from George Washington University.

Dr. Diana Yousef comes from a background in life sciences, strategy consulting, venture finance, and emerging markets private sector development. She specializes in the commercialization of early-stage technologies in the areas of cleantech and life sciences. Currently, she is working with startups that are transitioning university-generated technologies in the clean tech, sustainability, life sciences and global health spaces, where she serves in the role of acting COO/CSO. Prior to her current work, she has worked with Kidd and Company, Batelle Ventures, the International Finance Corporation (the private-equity arm of the World Bank) and McKinsey & Company. She is one of five Advisory Board Members for the TED Fellows Program, and a founding member of the Working Group for NASA’s “Launch: Water” and “Launch: Global Health” Accelerators. She also serves on the Investment Selection Committee for the cleantech and healthcare practices at Triana Venture Partners and co-developed the Executive Education curriculum for the NYC Accelerator for a Clean and Renewable Economy (ACRE). She co-founded and runs the NY-Chapter of the McKinsey Alumni in Development Network. Diana trained as a biochemist at Harvard University (B.A.) and Cornell University (PhD in Structural Biology and Biochemistry). She also holds an MBA and an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University.