Former CEO of Ancestry.com, Former President of Livongo, and Former CFO of Gilead Sciences bolster GC’s healthcare bench and expertise
SAN FRANCISCO, March 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, the venture capital firm General Catalyst (GC) announced Endurance Partners-In-Residence Margo Georgiadis, Dr. Jennifer Schneider, M.D., M.S., and Robin Washington will collaborate with the firm to identify, create and accelerate opportunities in the healthcare sector. The trio will leverage their collective healthcare and consumer digital health experience to help create meaningful, enduring outcomes for GC’s healthcare portfolio companies and the communities they serve.
Endurance Partners-In-Residence are proven operators with deep industry and company-building expertise, who work closely with portfolio companies throughout their lifecycle -- from inception to later-stage and the key inflection points along the way. These new appointees are an expansion of GC’s long-standing Executive-in-Residence program.
“This is not about having executives waiting in the wings to be assigned an operational role,” says Hemant Taneja, managing partner, General Catalyst. “We are strategically aligning with high voltage company builders and providing them with a platform to identify, create and engage with impactful companies, collaborating with them in a sustained way to create enduring businesses. We couldn’t be more thrilled to work with Margo, Jenny, and Robin to fulfill the promise of Health Assurance: removing barriers, increasing access, and improving outcomes for people everywhere.”
Each of the new Endurance Partners-in-Residence is a powerhouse operator in her own right, but together they represent a formidable team of some of the most respected executives in the industry.
Margo Georgiadis is the former President and CEO of Ancestry® where she transformed the company into the global leader in family history and consumer genomics with the world’s largest direct-to-consumer testing platform and a network of over 20M consumers. Georgiadis has a long history of building high performing global businesses, including as President of Americas at Google. “My work at GC will focus on building next generation healthcare platforms that improve outcomes while making healthcare more customer centric, accessible, and affordable. Through the GC platform, I’ll have the opportunity to leverage my experience to effect positive change in an industry that is essential to society and impacts so many.”
Dr. Schneider is the former president of Livongo Health and independent director of Cityblock, both GC-backed companies. She oversaw Livongo’s $18.5 billion merger with Teladoc Health, the largest in digital health history (GC’s Taneja co-founded Livongo with Glen Tullman and team). “As president of Livongo, I had the pleasure of seeing the power of the GC team as we looked to create new experiences for people managing chronic conditions,” she says. “They were a key accelerant to our success at Livongo. My partnership with GC is an opportunity to apply my data science, clinical operations and marketing experience to do the same for existing and future healthcare portfolio companies.”
Robin Washington previously served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Gilead Sciences, which develops innovative medicines to improve the care of patients with life-threatening diseases. In addition to her work in healthcare, she has a strong track record operating enterprise companies, including Hyperion and PeopleSoft (both acquired by Oracle). Says Washington, “Working with GC, I am eager to leverage my life science and technology background to help create the next generation of innovative healthcare companies, and meet the needs of people everywhere, especially those who have been chronically underserved.”
About General Catalyst
General Catalyst is a venture capital firm that invests in powerful, positive change that endures — for our entrepreneurs, our investors, our people, and society. We support founders with a long-term view who challenge the status quo, partnering with them from seed to growth stage and beyond to build companies that withstand the test of time. With offices in San Francisco, Palo Alto, New York City, and Boston, the firm has helped support the growth of businesses such as: Airbnb, Deliveroo, Guild, Gusto, Hubspot, Illumio, Lemonade, Livongo, Oscar, Samsara, Snap, Stripe, and Warby Parker. For more: www.generalcatalyst.com.