...and, clearly, the incidental fact that I am married to her does not influence my favoritism.
Lynn is amazing. She has founded or helped start at least a dozen companies during her career. Some went public, some folded. It's pretty clear that she has the genes for running companies...her grandmother ran a lumber mill in Australia.
Here is Lynn's profile on Bloomberg Business:
Ms. Lynnor B. Stevenson, also known as, Lynn, Ph.D., serves as the Chief Executive Officer of
DesignMedix, Inc. Ms. Stevenson serves as the President of Alta Biomedical Group LLC and its Managing Partner. She was the founder of Heska Corporation and served as its President and Chief Executive Officer from March 1988 to March 1992. She is an Advisor at Allegory Venture Partners, LLC. She is a successful entrepreneur with thirty years experience in the formation and growth of bioscience companies based on university research. In addition to business and R&D experience relating to drugs, vaccines and diagnostics, she has experience in drug development at several companies including the submission of several IND (Investigational New Drug) applications to the FDA. Ms. Stevenson served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Cascade Oncogenics, Inc. from December 1992 to December 2000. From July 1992 to April 1997, she served as Director of Technology Transfer at the University of Oregon. She served as a Director of Heska Corporation since March 1988. She was a member of the early-stage teams for Creative BioMolecules (now Curis), AP Pharma, Agen and Univax (now Nabi). Ms. Stevenson holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Monash University, Australia and B.Sc. Hon. and B.Ed. degrees from the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Lynn has had many encounters with the sexism of the "old boy network" of business experience, though she has fought many of those battles and won. But, as the reference article points out, there is still a long battle for equality. Take, as a somewhat trivial example, the mention of Lynn as an Advisor at
Allegory Venture Partners - 9 advisors are listed, 8 are male. Lynn is listed last, though an alphabetical listing would put her before Misters Stout and Young - inadvertent?, deliberate?, who's to say.
Lynn's current company, DesignMedix is tackling some important problems:
DesignMedix, Inc. develops drugs to address the large medical need caused by the rapid rise in drug resistance in multiple diseases. Diseases like malaria and diarrhea kill millions of people each year, and cause untold suffering. The World Health Organization considers drug-resistance to be one of the top three threats to human health today. Using proprietary technology, DesignMedix is developing novel drugs to help efforts to alleviate and eliminate these deadly infections.
I, for one, firmly believe that the world will become a much better place when there is a female future CEO born every minute.