Team

Leadership Team

Our leadership team of award-winning machine learning, medical device, and clinical experts met at University of Oxford’s world-renowned computer vision laboratory. They have track records of bringing innovation to market through over 10 start-up companies, resulting already in 5 trade-sales and one IPO. We also work closely with global leading clinicians – authors of lung cancer guidelines in the USA, EU and the UK.

Executive

Jason Pesterfield

Chief Executive Officer

Jason Pesterfield

Chief Executive Officer

After graduating with a degree in Business Administration from the University of Nebraska, Jason has accumulated over 25 year of leadership experience in the MedTech space with a focus on advanced technologies such as surgical power tools, navigation, robotics, miniature digital ultra-sound, artificial intelligence, and virtual presence platforms. He has a track record of developing executable strategies, building talented teams, raising growth capital, and delivering results that create stakeholder value.

Prior to Optellum Jason was the President and CEO of Veran Medical Technologies for 8-years where they developed and commercialized the SPiN Thoracic Navigation System, a revolutionary platform to help pulmonologist diagnose lung cancer at the earliest stage possible and improve survival rates. In December 2020 Veran was acquired by Olympus Corporation to advance their lung cancer diagnosis, staging and treatment strategy. Prior to Veran Jason was with Stryker Corporation for 17-years spanning a variety of leadership positions, including Global Vice President and General Manager of the Surgical Navigation business.

Jérôme Declerck
PhD

Chief of Operations

Jérôme Declerck
PhD

Chief of Operations

Jerome is responsible for research and development, clinical collaborations and trials.

He has been delivering innovative medical software solutions for over 25 years thanks to key roles held at Mirada Solutions, CTI Molecular Imaging and Siemens. He has extensive experience of being one of the first employees in a start-up and growing an organisation from the ground up and through M&As.

He has thorough experience of product conceptualisation, development and commercialisation, clinical collaborations and intellectual property management.

Timor Kadir
PhD

Chief Science and Technology Officer

Timor Kadir
PhD

Chief Science and Technology Officer

After graduating with a DPhil in Computer Vision from Oxford University, Timor has accumulated over 18 years in artificial intelligence and machine learning applied to medical devices and software applications. He has extensive experience in technology development, product strategy and intellectual property management as well as commercialisation and business development. He has held key roles at Motorola, Siemens Healthcare and Mirada Medical and has published over 70 peer-reviewed papers, and filed over 30 patents.

Václav Potěšil
PhD

Chief Business Officer

Václav Potěšil
PhD

Chief Business Officer

Václav Potěšil is a co-founder of Optellum, a startup formed by a team of AI, medical imaging and clinical experts who met at the University of Oxford.

Václav holds an Oxford PhD in Computer Vision (lung cancer therapy planning) in collaboration with Siemens Molecular Imaging and Mirada Medical. He developed and launched pioneering medical robotics devices as Global Product Manager at Hocoma, the global market leader in neuro-rehabilitation exoskeletons. He has worked in ten countries and speaks seven languages.

Kirk Jacquay

Chief Finance Officer

Kirk Jacquay

Chief Finance Officer

After graduating from Indiana University with his Bachelor of Science in business and finance and achieving his certification as a Certified Public Accountant, he has accumulated 30 years of business experience leading a variety of financial and non-financial teams.

Prior to Optellum Kirk was the CFO of Veran Medical Technologies for five years where they developed and commercialized the SPiN Thoracic Navigation System, a revolutionary platform to help pulmonologist diagnose lung cancer at the earliest stage possible and improve survival rates.

Professor Lutz Freitag
MD

Chief Medical Officer

Professor Lutz Freitag
MD

Chief Medical Officer

Professor Lutz Freitag MD FCCP is a globally renowned and respected interventional pulmonologist. He brings 40 years’ experience from leading hospitals (e.g. department chief Ruhrlandklinik, West German Lung Center), medical schools (Professor at Essen, Visiting Professor at Harvard, Stanford, Tulane, Wenzhou) and the device industry.

Lutz is a named inventor on over 200 patents. His commercial experience includes roles as the Founder, Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and Board of Directors (BoD) member at Breathe Technologies Inc (acquired by Hillrom); and as the CMO and BoD member at Pulmonx Corp (IPOed as NASDAQ:LUNG), having made key contributions over 15 years to the first medical device treatment for severe emphysema patients approved by the FDA.

Joseph Hewins

Legal Counsel

Joseph Hewins

Legal Counsel

Professor Sir
Michael Brady

Chair of the Board

Professor Sir
Michael Brady

Chair of the Board

Professor Sir Michael Brady FRS FREng FMedSci is one of the world’s leading authorities in the field of image analysis, with a strong emphasis on medical image analysis.

He has contributed algorithms for image segmentation, registration and feature detection. He developed a highly influential mathematical model of the fluence of X-rays through the female breast as a basis for analysis of mammographic images.

Michael has a strong commitment to the commercialization of scientific research and is involved with numerous start-ups in the field of medical imaging. In addition to his numerous academic fellowships and prizes, he received a knighthood in 2003 for services to engineering.

Commercial leadership

Ryan Hennen

VP US Sales

Ryan Hennen

VP US Sales

Ryan brings over 20 years of experience consulting with large Healthcare IDN's while helping deliver enterprise wide solutions to healthcare.

Ryan has experience with Imaging, Oncology, Value Based Care, Population Health, Clinical Decision Support, AI, NLP, and Machine Learning. He brings vast experience from the medical device and IT divisions of Canon / Toshiba and IBM Watson Health.

Rhiannon Lassiter

Head of Communications
and Marketing

Rhiannon Lassiter

Head of Communications
and Marketing

Rhiannon Lassiter (Head of Marketing and Communications) has fifteen years’ experience in marketing and communications in higher education and healthcare, working to promote teaching, learning and new technologies.

She created the first Virtual Open Day at Oxford Brookes in 2014 and was co-founder of the UK’s Higher Education Customer Relationship Management network. Recently she worked as part of a digital innovation catalyst team at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She is a published author of fourteen science fiction and other speculative fiction titles and has an MA from the University of Oxford, where she read English Literature, and two NVQs in management.

Johnathan Watkins
PhD

VP Market Access
and Clinical R&D

Johnathan Watkins
PhD

VP Market Access
and Clinical R&D

Dr Johnathan Watkins (VP of Market Access and Clinical Research) has ten years of experience in management consulting, academic research, and product management, specialising in healthcare services and cancer genome bioinformatics. He read pre-clinical medicine focussing on Genetics at Cambridge University, holds a PhD in Cancer Research from King’s College London, and has published more than thirty peer-reviewed papers.

At McKinsey & Co, he spent 3.5 years serving healthcare and life-science clients in the UK, US, and Europe, and helped drive the development of the UK healthcare practice’s data and analytics capabilities. In particular, he has supported healthcare payors, providers, and systems on topics including data strategy, value-based care and service redesign..

Expert Advisory Board

We work closely with global leading clinicians – authors of lung cancer guidelines in the USA, EU and the UK. We also have close connections with healthcare and digital transformation leaders who provide expert advice to our team.

ADVISORS

Working at Optellum

We are a fast-growing company with UK offices in Oxford and US offices at the Texas Medical Center in Houston.

CAREERS