Executive Team

Daniel Palestrant, Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Daniel Palestrant is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cambridge-based Sermo, Inc. As CEO, Daniel is responsible for the overall vision of the Sermo community and business. His main tasks focus on ensuring that Sermo is a valuable resource to physicians while building a profitable and socially responsible enterprise. Daniel's first experiences with Healthcare Informatics came when he conceived, designed, proposed and managed deployment of CIBUR (CIGNA Internet Based Universal Resource), one of the first commercial Web-based healthcare resources for physicians and allied health professionals. No stranger to the entrepreneurial side of medicine, Daniel founded his first company, Azygos, Inc., in 1998. During that time, he successfully raised $2.2MM in funding and deployed the company's first clinical application on schedule and on budget, before selling the company to BioNetrix in May of 2001. After selling Azygos, Daniel joined BioNetrix (Now BNX Systems) as Director of Health Care. During his time at BNX Systems, Daniel helped numerous healthcare-focused businesses increase network security, improve patient privacy safeguards and comply with HIPAA. Daniel has done clinical and laboratory research in transplant immunology. He has a B.S. in biology from Johns Hopkins University, completed medical school at Duke University, and trained in General Surgery at Beth Israel-Deaconess Hospital, in Boston before leaving to launch Sermo.

Gina Ashe, Chief Marketing Officer

Gina Ashe is Chief Marketing Officer at Sermo, Inc. As CMO, her focus is on building a valuable experience for physicians who participate in the Sermo community, and in creating an unparalleled brand for Sermo in the marketplace. She oversees all corporate marketing, customer relationship marketing, public relations, customer support and product management. Gina brings more than twenty years' experience in healthcare and financial services marketing to Sermo. Prior to joining the company, Gina was SVP and Director of the Healthcare practice for Rapp Collins Worldwide, a member of the Omnicom network. There, she developed Direct Response Advertising and CRM programs for a number of leading brands within Merck Kaiser Permanente, Novartis and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Gina joined Rapp Collins from InfoMedics where, as VP Marketing and Product Development, she developed a range of point-of-care marketing solutions for pharmaceutical clients that demonstrated to physicians how well products work in the real world setting. Prior to InfoMedics, Gina was the Senior Vice President for Cone, where she partnered Fortune 100 companies such as Johnson & Johnson, ConAgra, and JCPenney with leading nonprofit organizations. These award-winning marketing and public relationship campaigns brought measurable revenue increases in addition to making positive social contributions. Gina worked in the financial sector for eight years before entering the healthcare industry as an analyst, trader and marketing professional. She earned her bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Columbia University in New York and her MBA in Finance from New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business.

Thomas Barone, Chief Financial Officer

Tom is Chief Financial Officer of Sermo, Inc. In his role as CFO, Tom is responsible for Sermo's finance and accounting operations, legal, human resources and investor relations. He brings to the company over twenty years of extensive financial and operations experience from various high technology software and services companies. Tom joins Sermo from Relicore, Inc. where he served as VP of Finance and Operations and was instrumental in the successful acquisition of Relicore by Symantec Corporation (SYMC). Prior to joining Relicore, Tom served as Vice President of Finance and Administration for Revenio, Inc., where he negotiated and managed major financial transactions including venture capital funding. Before this, he was Vice President and Controller of NewsEdge Corporation where he led the company's accounting and finance functions from start-up, through successful IPO and several acquisitions, helping to build the company into an $80 million market leader. Tom was corporate controller of Softbridge Microsystems Incorporated. Tom holds a Bachelor's degree from Bentley College.

Will Koffel, Chief Technical Officer

In his role as Sermo's CTO, Will Koffel manages engineering and site operations, and oversees all of Sermo's technology initiatives, including its many industry development partnerships. Will was a founding member of the engineering team at Akamai Technologies, where he developed the initial monitoring and reporting tools for Akamai's worldwide network. He then moved into a role as lead architect for the Akamai customer portal. Will managed a growing consumer division for Internet advertising company Miva as their Director of Server Development. He re-architected their core consumer search and services platform, scaling to a base of five million active users in excess of 50 million monthly page views. Prior to joining Sermo, Will was co-founder and CTO of venture-backed Wis.dm, a consumer social community harnessing the power of Q&A to spark discussions. Will holds Bachelor's degrees in Computer Science and in Music Composition from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Pam Randhawa, Vice President of Strategic Development

Pam Randhawa draws from over 14 years of experience in the healthcare and life sciences industries. Having worked in product management, consulting, business development, and marketing, her specialized knowledge of market analysis, strategic planning, business development and product management enables her to successfully guide new product evolution and strategic development at Sermo. In her current role as Vice President of Strategic Development, Ms. Randhawa is responsible for identifying and developing new markets for Sermo solutions. In addition, Ms. Randhawa will be focusing on the expansion of Sermo solutions to international markets. Prior to joining Sermo, Ms. Randhawa served as Vice President of Marketing at Phase Forward, where she was responsible for the planning and execution of the company's global marketing strategy. During her tenure, Ms. Randhawa contributed to the company's market cap growth from just over $225 million in 2005 to over $900 million in 2007, with sales growth over 50 percent, year over year. Ms. Randhawa currently serves on the Advisory Boards of several startups, including: e-Tractions, a provider of web- based marketing solutions; Cognika, a provider of machine learning and advanced analytical software solutions; and GlobalCures, a nonprofit pharmaceutical organization focusing on cancer therapies. Ms. Randhawa holds a Bachelors Degree in economics from the University of Rajasthan, India, and a Masters Degree in public management from Carnegie Mellon University.

Alexandra LaMaster, Vice President of Talent

Alexandra LaMaster joined Sermo, Inc., in July 2008 as the company’s VP of Talent. From managing an HR team to maintaining a unique company culture to coaching executives and managers, she ensures that Sermo stays focused on people and effective communication. Many of Alexandra’s responsibilities involve facilitating knowledge exchange, whether in the form of company-wide meetings or individual employee initiatives. Prior to joining Sermo, she served as Vice President of Human Resources at Endeca Technologies, Inc., where she helped boost the employee base from 110 to 485 (and company revenue by 1,000%) in three short years. Earlier in her career, she helped take Speechworks International, Inc. public as Vice President of People Strategy, and established complete HR infrastructures in 10 countries—all according to local law and custom. Alexandra holds a Bachelors Degree in Communications from Luther College and a Masters Degree in Business Communications & Organizational Behavior from Emerson College.

Dr. Adam Sharp, Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Adam Sharp was a member of the original team that launched Sermo, Inc., in 2006—and remains the company's Chief Medical Officer. As such, he focuses on and oversees all aspects of the online Sermo community, comprised now of over 110,000 physicians. His responsibilities include maintaining the transparency of the Sermo business model, ensuring a positive experience for physicians on Sermo and facilitating the health, growth and integrity of the Sermo physician community. Dr, Sharp is also actively involved with the development and implementation of many Sermo product offerings, including Sermo Panels, client postings and AskRx. In addition to his dedicated Sermo workload, he continues to care for patients as an Emergency Physician. He holds a Bachelors of Science in Biology from Indiana University, completed medical school at Tel Aviv University and trained in Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr. Sharp is board certified by the American Board of Emergency Medicine.