Jon Darsee

Chief Innovation Officer, University of Iowa

Jon is the University of Iowa’s first Chief Innovation Officer. His responsibilities include economic development efforts such as UI Ventures, protostudios, UI Research Park, MADE, and TRI.  His focus is on developing a foundation built around 3 pillars to support faculty and staff entrepreneurial and commercialization activity: a concierge service to connect and coordinate resources, greater access to funding sources for entrepreneurs and business expertise to support addressing unmet needs in fields across campus. Two targeted strategic areas of focus in alignment with State of Iowa initiatives are Medtech and Edtech.

Jon has more than 20 years experience as an executive in the healthcare industry. Most recently, Jon worked for iRhythm Technologies, a company that develops digital bio-sensing technology and cloud-based data analytics to diagnose heart arrhythmias. He joined the San Francisco–based iRhythm in 2007. Birthed from Stanford University’s renowned Byers Center for Bio Design technology incubator, Jon joined the start up when it had three employees. He retired from iRhythm in 2017 after helping build it into a 600-employee company with roughly $100 million in annual revenue, after having created and executed the reimbursement strategy that was pivotal to the firm’s successful IPO in 2016.

Matt Warrens

Venture Capitalist in Residence, University of Iowa Office of Innovation

Matt Warrens has over twenty-five years of experience in the healthcare industry. As an experienced innovation leader, he is driven to transform health care into a science of prevention and a culture focused on wellness that improves the quality of life. Matt has strong operations experience focusing on identifying, developing, and implementing new products and services for health systems. His ability to identify transformational clinical and operational technologies serves to bring together providers, payors and entrepreneur partnerships that aid in accelerating the transition to value-based care.

Emily Ward, DNP, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, CCRN

Associate Chief Nursing Officer, University of Iowa Health Care North Liberty Campus

Emily Ward is the Associate Chief Nursing Officer at University of Iowa Health Care, North Liberty Campus. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Millikin University, her Masters of Business Administration from the University of Iowa, and Doctor of Nursing Practice at the University of Iowa College of Nursing, with a focus on Health Systems. She holds an advance nursing executive certification and is additionally certified as an Acute/Critical Care Knowledge Professional. She has held numerous leadership positions within UI Health Care, including nurse manager, director, and Associate Chief Nursing Officer for the Adult hospital at the University campus. She is a member of multiple professional organizations: American Organization of Nurse Leaders (AONL), Iowa Organization of Nurse Leaders (IONL), American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN), and Sigma Theta Tau. Over the course of her career, she has given numerous local, regional, national, and international presentations on a variety of healthcare and leadership topics. Among the awards received, two highlights include being named one of the 100 Great Iowa Nurses and a 2024 Corridor Business Journal Forty Under 40 honoree.

Judy Lenane, RN, MHA, BSN

CEO, NeuroInsights, Inc
Principal and CEO, Digital HealthTech Consulting

Judith  “Judy” Lenane is a nurse and healthcare executive with a clinical background and entrepreneurial passion. Ms. Lenane excels in creating successful companies by commercializing healthcare service concepts. Her current roles include Principal and CEO of Digital HealthTech Consulting, LLC; CEO Neuro-Psych AI Data startup, NeuroInsights, Inc., and advisor for Cardiosense, a Heart Failure AI Diagnostic Company. In her career, she has created four successful cardiovascular med tech/ digital health service companies. Her last company, iRhythm Technologies, Inc., (founded on a concept created at Stanford University’s Biodesign program), is a digital healthcare cardiovascular service company, providing innovative products and services such as Zio® by iRhythm. During her 14 years with iRhythm, Ms. Lenane served as the Chief Clinical Officer responsible for clinical evidence generation that drove reimbursement, as well as COO, EVP, Clinical Operations and EVP, Products. Prior to iRhythm, Ms. Lenane was Vice President of Business Development for Centura Health, Colorado. Her primary focus was the development of system wide cardiovascular services, both inpatient and outpatient. Ms. Lenane is the past Chair of the Board of Directors for HSS, Inc., a healthcare and aviation security provider. Ms. Lenane has a BS in Nursing and master’s in health care administration. In addition, Ms. Lenane is a multi-sport endurance athlete who is usually out running with her English Springer Spaniel, Philly or biking with her husband, Graham. Her personal belief is that movement is the fountain of youth!