Lynne Chou O'Keefe

Previous Experience

• Kleiner Perkins, Senior Partner Healthcare Venture. Partnering with companies such as Livongo (NASDAQ: LVGO)
• Abbott Vascular / Guidant, Product Marketing Leadership Roles
• Apax Partners, Enterprise Software Venture
• Goldman Sachs, Mergers and Acquisitions Investment Banking
• Harvard Business School, M.B.A. and Stanford University, B.S. Industrial Engineering
• California Health Care Foundation, formerly on the Board of Directors

What does defining healthcare mean to you?

If there is a defining narrative to my career, it has been the quest to have impact through my work. It was a journey that took me to venture capital from operational roles, finance roles, nonprofit work and a political campaign. When I saw a patient procedure with a pacemaker for the first time, I understood how working on breakthrough innovations in healthcare can be impactful and how technology can fundamentally change healthcare. Focusing on healthcare technologies, I led the commercial launch of over 10 innovative medical technologies all over the world and helped to build great digital health companies, such as Livongo Health, Oculeve, and others. Bringing this experience to help founders and CEOs build impactful companies that will change healthcare is an honor.

What does defining partnership mean to you?

Collaborating with founders to figure out how to take an idea and scale it to build a meaningful business that benefits all of our lives is the most rewarding role I have ever had. The diverse roles of my early career gave me the experience to help entrepreneurs—and the empathy to understand the challenges they face. I always find myself saying "we…" when working with entrepreneurs, because we are partnering together and we are going to define healthcare going forward together.

What does defining leadership mean to you?

Healthcare is hard and being an entrepreneur innovating in healthcare is even harder. Digital health entrepreneurs deserve investors that have real digital health expertise and experience in building companies in the space. Define Ventures needed to be created because entrepreneurs need focus, expertise, and networks to succeed in their vision of defining healthcare. There is no time to waste – the time is now and healthcare needs to change.