Lisa Suennen

Lisa Suennen has spent over 35 years in healthcare as venture capitalist, entrepreneur, operating executive, and strategy consultant. She serves as Managing Partner of American Heart Association Ventures, a platform of venture funds focused on cardiovascular and brain health and other related conditions.

Suennen has held General Partner roles at Manatt Ventures, Psilos Group and GE Ventures, where she led the healthcare venture fund. She has also held executive roles at Canary Medical, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, and was a key management team member at Merit Behavioral Care, which grew from startup to $800M in revenue, and went public before being acquired. She was founding CEO of CSweetener, a company focused on matching mentors with rising female healthcare leaders (sold to HLTH Foundation).

Suennen chairs the International Investment Committee of the Australian ANDHealth Digital Health Fund, is past chair of the SAB of the NASA-funded Translational Research Institute for Space Health and serves on the advisory boards of several emerging companies. A fellow of the Aspen Institute’s Health Innovators Fellowship, she is on faculty at the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business. She writes the Venture Valkyrie blog and is an internationally recognized author and speaker.