Andrew Simpson
Chairman and CEO / Board Member
Andrew has almost 30 years’ experience across a wide variety of business sectors and sizes from small entrepreneurial to large corporate and public companies. He was Group CEO of the Peel Group from 2006 to 2010.
Peel Group is a large private company in the U.K. with approximately $8 billion of businesses assets across the real estate, ports, airports, energy, media, telecoms and the environmental sectors. He left after achieving the strategic restructuring of the group by strengthening and creating key divisional teams; introducing key partners into several divisions (including the sale of stakes in its £1.6 billion ports business and £200 million airport business); materially increasing liquid assets by approx. £500 million; divesting non-core assets; and successfully managing £3 billion of debt funding across multiple facilities.
He was a main board director of Speedy Hire plc. (which became a FTSE 250 company) from 2003 to 2006 and was responsible for its development and expansion. This included seventeen acquisitions and several non-core divestments which saw the share price quadruple in value.
Andrew qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse and spent eight years working in investment banking at Rothschild, advising on a wide variety of M&A transactions, debt and equity fundraisings, IPO’s and shareholder value issues. Andrew graduated first-class honors B.A. (Hons) in Accounting and Management.
Mark Hilz
Chief Operating Officer / Board Member
Mark has over 30 years’ experience as a President/CEO of multiple successful startup companies.
He was previously CEO of INX, a company that he was asked to start as a subsidiary for a public company. The technology infrastructure consulting company was started in 2000 and grew to $400M in revenue with 15 offices, 2,000 customers, and 500 employees. The Company was traded on the NASDAQ, completed multiple offerings and was successfully sold to private equity in December of 2011.
Prior to that Mr. Hilz founded and ran as CEO a technology logistics outsourcing firm, PC Service Source, that grew to over $160 million in revenue with 1,100 employees in an 8-year span. Mr. Hilz raised the startup capital from traditional venture capital sources and after 4 years of operations was successful in taking the Company public in an IPO as a NASDAQ global listed company as well as a successful follow on public offering.
Mark’s experience includes raising venture capital as well as multiple successful public offerings and numerous M&A transactions as both a buyer and a seller.
Brian Szymczak
Board Member
Brian Szymczak is the lead attorney for Apollo Endosurgery, Inc. in Austin, Texas where he serves as Director of Legal Services. In this role Mr. Szymczak manages legal disputes and litigation matters and provides general legal counsel to the company’s leadership, sales, operations, R&D and human resources groups. Prior to working at Apollo, Mr. Szymczak served as Associate General Counsel and Director of Legal Affairs for a large surgical device manufacturer and previously worked as an associate at the law firm of Baker Botts, LLP where he counseled clients on patent and other intellectual property matters in a variety of technological fields. Mr. Szymczak is a 1999 graduate of Duke University School of Law and holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University.
David R. Wells
Board Member
Mr. Wells brings over 30 years of senior financial management experience. Most recently, he founded Atlas Bookkeeping, LLC, a technology-based financial services firm that provides bookkeeping and reporting services for emerging growth and small cap public and privately held companies. Prior to Atlas, Mr. Wells served as Chief Financial Officer of GHS Investments, LLC, a privately held “super value” fund focused on investing in small-to-mid cap companies. Mr. Wells also served as Chief Financial Officer of ENDRA Life Sciences (Nasdaq: NDRA), a publicly traded clinical diagnostics technology company. Mr. Wells directed ENDRA’s initial public offering and subsequently helped raise an additional $55 million across multiple transactions. Previously, David founded Wells Compliance Group, a technology-based services firm supporting the financial reporting needs of publicly traded companies and privately held firms. Additionally, David held numerous Chief Financial Officer, Vice President of Finance, and Senior Business Analyst positions. David began his career as a consultant to various start-up and growing companies. David holds a Master of Business Administration from Pepperdine University with a focus in Finance and a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance and Entrepreneurship from Seattle Pacific University.
Bruce Bent
Board Member
Mr. Bent brings more than thirty-five years of experience in financial management and fifteen years of experience in financing, early stage investing and acquisitions to HeartSciences Board. Mr Bent has held a variety of executive positions at The Matthews Group including Controller, CFO and President of various Canadian companies. He was integral in Matthews completion of “The Bow” a $1.7 billion corporate headquarters for Encana. Mr Bent’s finance and operations experience at Matthews and other entities give him a breadth of knowledge in the both finance and fund raising which will be very helpful to HeartSciences in this phase of its development.
Mr. Bent is Chairman of Enerdynamic Hybrid Technologies Corp. a TSXV listed public company involved in the development of renewable energy products. In addition Mr Bent serves in the same capacity for Astro Aerospace Ltd an OTC listed public company focused on the EVTL space. Mr. Bent graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Commerce (honours) and obtained his Chartered Professional Accounting designation from the Province of Ontario.
Ben Glicksberg, Ph.D.
Scientific Advisor
Benjamin Glicksberg, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Genetics and Genomic Sciences and a member of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Glicksberg has extensive experience in clinical informatics and work involving Electronic Health Record data. He uses machine learning to couple multi-omic patient health data to forward personalized medicine. He completed his PhD in Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2017 and post-doctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco in 2019.
Jordan Strom, MD,MSc
Scientific Advisor
Dr. Jordan Strom is Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Director of the Echocardiography Laboratory, and Director of Echocardiographic Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, and Section Head for Cardiovascular Imaging Research at the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology. His research which has been funded by the NIH and American Heart Association involves evaluation of the relationship of cardiac structure and function to health outcomes and the optimal use and timing of cardiac imaging in practice. He has published more than 70 papers in peer-reviewed journals, is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography, and serves as Guest Editor for the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography and the Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance. He additionally was the inaugural American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) leadership academy member elected to the Board of Directors of the ASE and previously served on the American College of Cardiology Imaging Council Leadership Committee. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the International Contrast Ultrasound Society, and is the current American College of Cardiology representative to the Board of Directors of the Joint Review Committee on Education in Diagnostic Medical Sonography, which accredits sonography training programs in the United States. Additionally, he is the American College of Cardiology Commissioner to CAAHEP, the largest accreditor of allied health professions in the United States.
Partho P. Sengupta, MD, MBBS, FACC
Scientific Advisor
Dr. Partho P. Sengupta, MD, MBBS, FACC, is the Henry Rutgers Professor and the Chief of Division of Cardiology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. Dr Sengupta completed his clinical residency and cardiology fellowship from Mayo Clinic Rochester and Arizona in 2007 and 2010 respectively. He has over 250 peer-reviewed publications. He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of American College of Cardiology for Cardiovascular Imaging, has served as a Board of Director for the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) and as the Chair of the ASE Telehealth and New Technology Taskforce. Prior to his role at Rutgers, he served as Abnash C Jain Chair and Professor of Cardiology, Chief of Division of Cardiology and Director of Cardiac Imaging at West Virginia University, Morgantown.
He has won several excellence awards with the most recent being the ASE's Rich Popp Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2020. Other significant awards include the AACIO Young Investigator Award in 2010, Mayo Brother's Distinguished Fellowship Award in 2009, Mayo Clinic Research Award in 2007, ASE's Young Investigator Award in 2004, among others.
With his futuristic ideas, investigative skills and international work, Dr. Sengupta is widely acclaimed by major media outlets. He delivered ASE’s first-ever presentation using hologram technology at the ASE's 24th Annual Scientific Sessions in 2018. He was nominated by the American Medical Association for the "Inspiration in Medicine" talk,2017. In 2016, he was invited as stage speaker for TEDMED where he presented on “Using
Holography to Reshape Cardiology”. He also received the ASE's 14th Feigenbaum Lectureship for his significant contributions to research in the field of echocardiography in 2013.
Andrew Simpson
Chairman and CEO / Board Member
Andrew has almost 30 years’ experience across a wide variety of business sectors and sizes from small entrepreneurial to large corporate and public companies. He was Group CEO of the Peel Group from 2006 to 2010.
Peel Group is a large private company in the U.K. with approximately $8 billion of businesses assets across the real estate, ports, airports, energy, media, telecoms and the environmental sectors. He left after achieving the strategic restructuring of the group by strengthening and creating key divisional teams; introducing key partners into several divisions (including the sale of stakes in its £1.6 billion ports business and £200 million airport business); materially increasing liquid assets by approx. £500 million; divesting non-core assets; and successfully managing £3 billion of debt funding across multiple facilities.
He was a main board director of Speedy Hire plc. (which became a FTSE 250 company) from 2003 to 2006 and was responsible for its development and expansion. This included seventeen acquisitions and several non-core divestments which saw the share price quadruple in value.
Andrew qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse and spent eight years working in investment banking at Rothschild, advising on a wide variety of M&A transactions, debt and equity fundraisings, IPO’s and shareholder value issues. Andrew graduated first-class honors B.A. (Hons) in Accounting and Management.
Mark Hilz
Chief Operating Officer / Board Member
Mark has over 30 years’ experience as a President/CEO of multiple successful startup companies.
He was previously CEO of INX, a company that he was asked to start as a subsidiary for a public company. The technology infrastructure consulting company was started in 2000 and grew to $400M in revenue with 15 offices, 2,000 customers, and 500 employees. The Company was traded on the NASDAQ, completed multiple offerings and was successfully sold to private equity in December of 2011.
Prior to that Mr. Hilz founded and ran as CEO a technology logistics outsourcing firm, PC Service Source, that grew to over $160 million in revenue with 1,100 employees in an 8-year span. Mr. Hilz raised the startup capital from traditional venture capital sources and after 4 years of operations was successful in taking the Company public in an IPO as a NASDAQ global listed company as well as a successful follow on public offering.
Mark’s experience includes raising venture capital as well as multiple successful public offerings and numerous M&A transactions as both a buyer and a seller.
Danielle Watson
Chief Financial Officer
Danielle Watson has served as our Chief Financial Officer since April 2022. Prior to her appointment, Ms. Watson, a CPA, served as the Company’s Financial Controller since November 2021. Ms. Watson brings over 15 years of financial experience to her role. Before joining HeartSciences, Ms. Watson held senior leadership roles at Moss Adams, LLP from November 2007 to November 2021 where she provided audit and assurance services to both public and privately held companies with an emphasis in financial reporting, consolidations, strategic planning, purchase price accounting, and SEC reporting. Ms. Watson earned her Bachelor of Science, with a double concentration in accounting and finance from Texas Christian University and her Master of Science in accounting from the University of Texas at Arlington and is an active Certified Public Accountant in Texas.
Aaron Peterson
VP Research and Development
Aaron has 23 years of Engineering and Product Development experience, mostly in the Medical Device industry. Aaron has successfully productized multiple innovative technologies in the areas of Cardiac Rhythm Management, Neurostimulation and electrocardiography based devices. He was Director, R&D Systems Engineering for St. Jude Medical and was a Sr. Manager of Software Testing and Automation Tools Development for Boston Scientific (Advanced Bionics). Aaron is well versed in Design Controls and customizing product development processes to meet the needs of the business while remaining compliant with the standards and regulations in the medical device industry.
Isabella Schmitt
VP Clinical and Regulatory Affairs
With a diverse background spanning regulatory affairs, clinical trial design and management, product management, and quality assurance, Isabella has a unique blend of expertise to drive success for any medtech program. She has guided regulatory, quality, and clinical initiatives for over 100 successful regulatory filings and FDA interactions. She has also authored articles for multiple publications, participated in numerous podcasts, and engaged in speaking opportunities covering regulatory affairs submissions and interactions for medical devices and AI/ML in healthcare. As a member of the AAMI/ISO Standards working group, she also helped to establish Application Of ISO 14971 To Machine Learning In Artificial Intelligence. She has a RAC Certification, Master’s in Business Administration, and a Bachelor’s of Science in Chemistry and has won awards for success in business, including the Stevie’s Business Award as well as Houston Business Journal’s Award for Women to Watch.
Girish Nadkarni, MD, MPH
Scientific Advisor
Dr. Girish N. Nadkarni is a physician-scientist and clinical informaticist, whose career is marked by leadership in artificial intelligence (AI) and precision medicine. He is currently the Fishberg Professor of Medicine, the Director of the Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine and the Inaugural System Chief of the Division of Data-Driven and Digital Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He has spearheaded transformative and translational research leading to 375 original peer-reviewed research and 55 invited publications with over 40,000 citations and an h-index of 90. These include senior authored papers in journals including New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of American Medical Association, Annals of Internal Medicine, Nature Medicine and Lancet Digital Health. His work has advanced fields including precision medicine, including landmark studies using electrocardiograms for predicting outcomes, understanding impact of predictive AI in healthcare, AI-bioprognostics for kidney disease and predictive approaches for kidney disease. Dr. Nadkarni’s innovations extend to entrepreneurship, where he co-founded several companies that have pioneered AI-based approaches receiving FDA clearance. He is principal investigator for eight concurrent R01 grants or equivalents, three industry contracts and two NIH contracts for a cumulative amount of ~$40 million. Additionally, he holds numerous patents on AI applications in healthcare and co-invented the first FDA approved AI-bioprognostic for kidney disease. His influence is reflected in external leadership roles, including Chair of the Taskforce on AI/Digital Health and Associate Editor of NPJ Digital Medicine. His mentorship has seen several of his mentees attain independent faculty roles, underscoring his commitment to fostering future leaders in medicine. He has received several honors including the ANIO rising star award, the Carl Nacht Memorial lecture and the Harold Lamport clinical research award.
Akhil Vaid, MBBS
Scientific Advisor
Dr. Akhil Vaid, MD is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Data-Driven and Digital Medicine and the Windreich Department of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. His research focuses on the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence in healthcare, particularly in cardiology.
Dr. Vaid has made significant contributions to the field, with numerous publications exploring deep learning techniques for analyzing medical data. His work includes developing AI models for detecting cardiac dysfunction from echocardiograms and electrocardiograms, as well as applying deep learning to natural language processing (NLP) in clinical documentation, computer vision for medical imaging analysis, and tabular data modeling for predictive analytics in healthcare. He is also deeply involved in model implementation, ensuring that AI solutions transition from research into practical, real-world clinical applications. His research is widely cited, highlighting its impact on medical AI and clinical decision-making.
Beyond research, Dr. Vaid is actively involved in teaching and mentoring, shaping the future of digital medicine. As a member of the A.I.M.S. Lab, he collaborates with a diverse team to advance AI-driven innovations in medicine and science.
Joshua Lambert, MD
Scientific Advisor
Joshua M Lampert, MD, FACC is a cardiac electrophysiologist, Assistant Professor of Medicine and the Medical Director of Machine Learning for Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital.
Dr. Lampert is full-time faculty at Mount Sinai Hospital where he specializes in the management of patients with heart rhythm disorders. He was a recipient of the Mount Sinai Physician of the Year award in 2021 and has been recognized on multiple occasions for delivering exceptional patient care by the Patient Comments Committee. He focuses on the treatment of patients with the full spectrum of cardiac arrhythmias including catheter-based treatment and ablation of atrial fibrillation, complex atrial flutters, supraventricular tachycardia, and ventricular arrhythmias. He performs device implants such as left atrial appendage closure devices, pacemakers, defibrillators, and novel leadless pacemaker systems. He completed his medical training in internal medicine at Columbia University Medical Center (New York Presbyterian) and his training in cardiovascular disease and clinical cardiac electrophysiology at Mount Sinai Hospital. He is board certified in internal medicine, cardiovascular disease, echocardiography, and clinical cardiac electrophysiology.
As Medical Director of Machine Learning, he develops and applies novel machine learning tools to improve patient care by augmenting the capacity to diagnose, risk stratify, and treat a variety of conditions. His work includes an ECG-based deep learning algorithm to predict which patients with premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) go on to develop weak hearts. Additionally, he studies large language models and machine learning approaches to revolutionize modern clinical decision-making. His work also traverses the intersection of novel algorithms, health system structure, and workflows to translate these innovations into clinical practice in an era of augmented intelligence. He has been recognized for his academic contributions by leading medical organizations including the 2024 Simon Dack Award from the American College of Cardiology and the 2025 William J. Mandel Most Innovative Abstract Award by the Heart Rhythm Society.