Leadership Team
Chief Executive Officer
Richard Foust
Richard is an entrepreneur and investor with over 20 years of global commercial leadership experience in the healthcare industry. He has expertise in building organizations to successfully execute GTM strategies with medical devices and digital health platforms. Richard previously worked at Abbott, Analyte Health, Honor, Velano Vascular and 3D Strategy Consulting, where he held roles in engineering, sales, marketing, and general management. He currently resides in San Francisco, CA. Richard holds a BS in Applied Physics from Emory University and MSME in Bioengineering from Georgia Institute of Technology.
Co-Founder, Chief Scientific Officer
Navzer Engineer, MD, PhD
Navzer has been instrumental in developing the Paired VNS™ technology platform. Navzer’s research in neuroplasticity and VNS laid the foundation of our stroke therapy. He has been the recipient of several grants from the NIH related to the VNS therapy and his research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals including Nature, and The Lancet. Navzer completed his medical training in India and then earned a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Texas at Dallas.
Co-Founder & President
Jordan Curnes, MBA
Jordan is a serial entrepreneur with expertise in building companies and recruiting successful management teams to accelerate growth. Jordan co-founded MicroTransponder in 2007 and has provided leadership during the commercialization process. Jordan previously worked at Huron Consulting Group where his clients included large healthcare corporations. Jordan holds a finance degree from Notre Dame and an MBA from Duke University.
Chief Commercial Officer
Doug Ellison
Doug has over 33 years of successful sales, marketing, new program development and executive management experience in the medical device industry encompassing minimally invasive technologies, oncology and cardiology. He most recently served as National Director, Hybrid Therapies at AtriCure post acquisition of SentreHEART. Prior to acquisition, Doug was VP of Sales at SentreHEART for 11 years. Previously, he served as VP of WW Sales and Marketing for Cardica Inc. Between acquisitions, he consulted with CardioVations, a division of Johnson and Johnson/Ethicon and Bard Biopsy System a division of C.R. Bard. He previously served as the VP of Sales at Artemis Medical, Inc., Sales Director at Heartport, Inc., and with Guidant Corp. in sales and sales management. He also served at Davol (C.R. Bard) in a variety of sales and sales management positions. Doug was instrumental in the integration of the Guidant Vascular Interventional sales forces from the Eli Lilly Corp. and development of the broad Heartport franchise. Doug received his B.S. in Engineering from Purdue University.
Chief Financial Officer
Bunker Curnes
Bunker joined MicroTransponder with 15 years of experience in finance and operations roles in various industries. He has worked with MicroTransponder since 2011 in various roles in Finance before eventually taking over as CFO. Prior to joining MicroTransponder, Bunker worked as the CFO for HEMCO Development, an oil and gas development company. Before HEMCO, Bunker worked as CFO/COO for TEGA Technologies, an early stage tech company focused on digital marketing and communications. And prior to TEGA, Bunker worked at the Boston Consulting Group working in a variety of projects in the healthcare, energy, and retail consumer spaces. Bunker holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.
Chief Operating Officer
Prashant Rawat
Prashant has over 25 years of global experience in building and leading teams to deliver novel therapies in the neurostimulation, neurovascular and cardiac fields. He previously worked at Boston Scientific, Mainstay Medical, CSF Therapeutics and CVRx. His experience spans management of research and development, clinical and regulatory operations, manufacturing and distribution, and building intellectual property portfolios. Prashant has a BS in Electronics Engineering from the Maharaja Sayajirao University in India, and a MS in Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics from Case Western Reserve University. He is the inventor on over 85 patents and patent applications.
Vice President, Clinical Affairs
Brent Tarver
Brent has 30 years of clinical expertise with vagus nerve stimulation (VNS). He was the third person hired at Cyberonics (now LivaNova) and directed 14 VNS device trials across 11 countries. Brent has been involved in more than 10 neurostimulation IDE submissions, and was very active in providing clinical input for the research program at Cyberonics during his 18-year tenure. Brent led the effort to formulate and successfully complete the pivotal US IDE trial for stroke, VNS-REHAB. Brent holds a degree in electrical engineering from Rice University.
Vice President, Market Access & Reimbursement
Spencer Bailey
Spencer is an experienced leader in Market Access and Reimbursement, with nearly 20 years in the healthcare industry. His breadth of experience in the medical device reimbursement space comes from providing consulting services to 70 medical device clients over 7 years. Spencer previously worked in hospital and health system administration, overseeing various reimbursement functions of small, mid-sized and large integrated health systems nationwide. Spencer holds a BS in accounting and MBA from the University of Vermont and is a Certified Professional Coder.
Vice President, Commercial Ops & Analytics
Mary Kathryn Williams
Mary Kathryn has over 15 years of medical device experience using innovative thinking and data analysis to optimize performance and support new business development. Prior to MicroTransponder, Mary Kathryn held a variety of commercial operations and sales roles at Abbott and Terumo Aortic. She holds a BS in Biology from Washington & Lee University and an MBA from Duke University.
Vice President, Sales – East
Rob Hadley
Rob has over 27 years of successful sales, marketing, product management, new program development, and executive leadership experience in the biotech and medical device industries including minimally invasive technologies, structural heart, digital health, interventional cardiology, and electrophysiology. Rob most recently was the Vice President at Avail Medsystems developing and implanting the ASC/OBL strategy for the U.S. operations. Previously he served at Vice President of Sales at SentreHeart for 10 years which was acquired by Atricure in 2019. Prior to SentreHeart, he was Vice President of Sales covering the Southeast at Abbott Vascular which included the Peripheral Vascular and Coronary Interventional product lines. Rob also developed and implemented a new division for Abbott Vascular named Emerging Accounts in which he was National Director of the Year in 2009. Prior to Abbott Vascular, Rob worked with Guidant Corporation in a sales and sales leadership capacity, he won rookie of the year, 4 President Clubs, and territory manager of the year twice. Rob’s team also lead the nation in revenue for the first two years of the launch Xience V, the best-in-class drug eluting stent. He also developed over 20 individuals who are now in upper-level leadership roles at several organizations. Prior to Guidant, Rob had a highly successful sales, product management, and leadership career at Merck Human Health. Rob received B.A. from Millersville University and resides in South Carolina.
Vice President, Sales – Middle America
Sharon Gilberto
Sharon has over 30 years of medical device and sales experience, which began as a CVT/CCRN. This sparked the passion to learn new cardiovascular therapies, moving into industry that included companies such as Edwards Lifesciences and Guidant/Abbott as an Executive Sales Representative. She rejoined Edwards Lifesciences on the inaugural TAVR team, then continued with Structural Heart at SentreHeart and Medtronic CoreValve, serving the VP as the first Field Effectiveness Consultant. Sharon brings her experience of strategic program building to launch new start up technologies that she has gained at 4 start-up companies, which include HeartFlow as Director of Strategic Solutions and now MicroTransponder. She has also built out several field training programs and especially enjoys preparing new teams to change patient care pathways. Sharon holds a B.S. in Allied Health Sciences from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee and an AD-RN from Excelsior College in Albany, NY.
Vice President, Marketing
Philip Freed
Philip brings over 30 years of extensive healthcare experience spanning medical devices, hospital leadership, and consulting for start-up medical companies. His career began as a physician associate (PA) specializing in surgery and critical care at Cornell University Medical College. He has held significant hospital leadership roles at Montefiore Medical Center and served as Chief of Surgical Services at Lenox Hill Hospital in NYC. Diverse marketing and sales roles and experiences mark Philip's career journey. He started with Johnson and Johnson in US and global marketing, global professional education, and mergers/acquisitions expertise. He has led sales teams at Intuitive Surgical, Cardica, and Stryker. His marketing roles include Director of Marketing at Cardica, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Maquet/Getinge, Vice President of Marketing at Cardiovascular Solutions Inc., and most recently, Head of US Marketing at Abbott Vascular. He holds a degree in Medical Management from Springfield College and completed his graduate studies at Cornell University Medical College and the University of Nebraska Medical College.
Vice President, Sales – West
Nate Foreman
Nate is a seasoned leader in the medical device industry with over two decades of proven success launching new therapies, driving sales growth, implementing strategic programs, and leading high-performing teams in the interventional cardiology and structural heart arenas. He most recently served as Regional Sales Director, Abbott Structural Heart, Mitral & Tricuspid Therapies. Previously, he served as Business Development Manager at Boston Scientific. Prior to that Nate held the role of Market Development Manager at SentreHeart (acquired by Atricure). In addition, Nate held roles at med tech startups Flowcardia Inc (acquired by CR Bard) and FoxHollow Technologies (acquired by EV3). Nate earned his B.S. from Northern Arizona University as a student athlete.