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Susan is an investor in start-up companies. She has been involved in sourcing and evaluating investment opportunities and has served on boards. Susan enjoys judging start-up competitions and working with MBA students who are evaluating investments in early stage companies. Susan has both operating leadership experience and a background in investment banking. She was the COO of the Global Impact Investing Network. Previous to this, she was the COO of the Credit Suisse’s worldwide investment banking division. In her investment banking role, Susan was a managing director at Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette focused on M&A. Susan holds a BS from the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University and an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Susan is active in her community and has served on a number of non-profit boards. Currently, she is serving on the IYRS Board and the Newport County Fund Advisory Board. She and her husband live in Jamestown, RI and are very active sailors.

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Rob is President of Grays Point Investments LLC, a family office focused on private equity and real estate investments. He serves or has served on the boards of Cartcraft, Narragansett Brewing, Smartcells, Avaxia, Intica Biomedical, Respiratory Motion, Windgap Medical, Nodar, and has acted as a senior advisor to Item (now Ximedica). Additionally, he serves as the Treasurer and Chair of the Finance Committee of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra and Music School, and he is on the board of the Rhode Island Hospital Foundation.

Formerly Rob was a Managing Director and Division Executive in Citigroup’s Corporate and Structured Finance businesses, as well as a Corporate Senior Credit Officer. During his 26 years with Citi, he had market or country management leadership positions in the US, Japan, West Africa, Turkey, and the Middle East. His areas of expertise are international bank management, corporate and structured finance, leasing, securitization, real estate finance, and credit. In recent years he has focused on early stage company development and corporate capital structuring, particularly in the bioscience area.

Rob holds a B.A from Brown University and an M.A from Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

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After a 25-year career in government service, culminating in a six-year stint as Canada’s Ambassador to China, Howard founded and ran a successful merchant banking firm that supported both state-owned and private Chinese firms in their overseas acquisitions and investments, as well as international firms investing in China. Resources, healthcare, education, and alternative energy were sectors of primary activity. His firm was ranked as China’s leading boutique bank for several years and was acquired by the larger Canaccord Financial in 2011.

Following the sale of his firm, Howard continued to run a Beijing-based private equity fund focused on young Chinese education and health care companies. Following its successful winding-up, Howard joined Hong Kong based PacBridge Partners, specializing in providing early stage and growth capital, as well as advice, to companies seeking to leverage disruptive technologies in the building of scalable businesses.

Howard has served as a director of a number of public and private companies and on the WEF Global Council on Metals and Mining, and was President and then Vice-Chairman of the Canada China Business Council.

Howard received a BA in Economics and Political Science and an MA in International Relations, both from McGill University, and continued his graduate studies at the University of Toronto and at the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques in Paris. He is married with four grown children.

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Jennifer is the Director of Strategic Planning for New Ventures at Altus Dental and manages the corporate venture initiatives for the company and its sister companies through their fund, Altus Ventures. In addition to her role with Altus, she is responsible for strategic planning for Chewsi, the free dental app that helps patients realize significant savings from a participating dentist. She analyzes emerging industry trends and recommends expansion opportunities, partnerships, and business process improvement.

Prior to joining Chewsi, Jennifer managed Cherrystone's operations. Jennifer serves on several boards including UMASS Dartmouth's Center for Innovation, the RI Business Plan Competition, and the Chamber's Innovation Providence, while also mentoring for the MassChallenge and Social Enterprise Greenhouse programs.

Jennifer graduated Summa Cum Laude from Bryant University with a B.S. in Finance and a minor in Legal Studies. She received the Delta Sigma Pi Scholarship Key, awarded to the graduating senior with the highest cumulative academic average, as well as the Jack H. Rubens Leadership in Finance Award.

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Dr. Watson has more than 35 years of experience in the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, holding a number of senior positions in business development, M&A, licensing and R&D management. He is a co-founder of Akston Bioscience Corporation in Beverly, MA, and formerly was Chairman and a Board Director of Targeson, Inc. in San Diego, CA. He is a former Executive-in-Residence at venture firm Oxford Bioscience Partners in Boston and currently consults for a number of early-stage biotechnology companies. In his role as a member of Cherrystone, he is a Board Director of portfolio companies Advanced Silicon Group, Inc. and Hilltop Biosciences, Inc.

Previously, Dr. Watson was VP of Business Development at SmartCells in Beverly, MA where he negotiated the sale of the company to Merck & Co for $500M in upfront and milestone payments plus royalties. His prior appointments include Chief Business Officer at Elixir Pharmaceuticals, SVP of Corporate Development at Cubist Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Merck & Co) and SVP, Intellectual Property and Licensing at Nycomed Amersham (acquired by General Electric Co). He previously held a variety of scientific, R&D and business management positions at Nycomed AS, Salutar. and DuPont Pharmaceuticals. where he invented the brain imaging drug NeuroLite.

Dr Watson received his B.Sc. (Hons) from the University of N.S.W. in Sydney, Australia, his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia and carried out postdoctoral research in the U.K. and at Harvard University. He also obtained an M.B.A. from Northeastern University in Boston.

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Maddie is actively involved in all of Cherrystone’s due diligence processes -- coordinating meetings and supervising the production of final reports. Prior to joining Cherrystone, Maddie worked at start-up companies -- Micro Guard 47 as a Project Director, and The Makery Brookline as an Engineering & Operations Manager. She graduated from Cornell University with a BS in Mechanical Engineering (2019) where she was a member of the Varsity Track and Field team. In 2022, she received a joint Master's degree in Design Engineering at Brown and RISD. Maddie is co-founder of FRUITfull, a not-for-profit donation platform that aims to increase funding for food-related nonprofits.