Team

Management Team

Mark A. Lester

Managing Director, Forge Partners, LLC

Managing General Partner, Provenance Venture Partners, LLC

Mark has over 25 years of leadership, management, strategic business development and operations experience, including 17 years experience in entrepreneurial services and technology development and delivery in the technology and life sciences industries. Over the past 9 years, his venture investment-related responsibilities have evolved from that of senior executive for venture-backed start-ups to his current role as Managing General Partner of Provenance Venture Partners, a pre-seed to mezzanine stage venture investment firm. He currently serves on the board of SiGNa Chemistry, Passport Systems and Trophos Energy.

Mark received a B.S.E. in Naval architecture and Marine Engineering from the University of Michigan, a Masters in Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, and was certified Chief Engineer of Navy Nuclear Propulsion Plants while serving as a U.S. Navy Nuclear Submarine Officer.

Talent Network

To fulfill the “human capital” requirements for Forge engagements, we supplement our internal staff with our growing network of experienced, team-oriented individuals with one or more demonstrated core competences covering a range of relevant scientific, technical and commercial disciplines. Depending on the blend and level of talent required, the financial capacity of the engagement sponsor and individual risk profiles, the requisite consulting “talent” will be retained on a fee-for-service, partially “at-risk”, or fully “at-risk” basis. Advantages to this approach include:

  • Known and proven pool of talented resources
  • Extended virtual staff affording greater breadth and depth of technical, operational, managerial and tactical/strategic business development expertise
  • Ability to quickly respond to growing yet dynamic project demands
  • Ability to engage senior level talent and/or academics that may not otherwise be accessible or affordable
  • Provides network members the opportunity to benefit from active participation in a diverse array of engagements, without first having to commit to a full-time obligation
  • For engagements involving established corporate entities, the company has the opportunity to engage the services of experienced executive level talent in an acting capacity until or unless a full-time commitment is justified

The Forge Executive Talent Network is an attractive opportunity for qualified individuals to participate in the commercialization process for promising innovations, while being free and encouraged to entertain full-time opportunities within the corresponding entities should they be made available.

 

Advisors

B. Nicholas Harvey

Mr. Harvey is currently Chief Financial Officer for Radius Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Prior to joining Radius, he served as Managing Director of Shiprock Capital LLC, a venture capital firm managing investments for the Shipley family. He continues to serve on the Boards for a number of the fund’s portfolio companies. As Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and CFO of Transfusion Technologies, a medical device company, Nick was instrumental in the execution of strategic initiatives culminating in its strategic acquisition by Haemonetics (NYSE: HAE) in 2000. From December 1992 until its merger with Keravision in June 1999, Mr. Harvey served as CFO and later President of Transcend Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical development company. During his tenure at Transcend, he raised $25MM of venture capital and corporate financing, closed a $46MM worldwide licensing and development agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim, and managed a successful initial public offering on NASDAQ in 1997. Mr. Harvey holds an undergraduate degree in economics, a law degree from the Australian National University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

P. Michael Masterson

Mr. Mike Masterson has been an entrepreneur in the pharmaceutical, biotech and industrial technologies industries for over 24 years. Mike currently serves as the Chairman and CEO of ALD NanoSolutions, Inc., Board member and former CEO of Xcellerex, Inc., as well as Founding Director of Preferred Times, Inc. Prior to founding ALD NanoSolutions, he was a Venture Partner at Flagship Ventures where he was the founding CEO of Beyond Genomics, engeneOS, and Genstruct. Before joining Flagship Ventures, he was CEO and President of KMI/Parexel, an internationally recognized FDA compliance consulting and automated systems validation testing firm, which was acquired by Parexel International (NASDAQ: PRXL). In his early career, Mike held technical and management positions with Dupont, Pfizer, and Procter & Gamble. He holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts and an M.S. in the same discipline from the University of Colorado. In addition, he completed the Owners/Presidents Management (OPM) Program at the Harvard Business School.