Karina Sotnik
Founder, CEO
Karina Sotnik is a serial entrepreneur, mentor, and advisor with over a decade of experience creating entrepreneurial ecosystems through innovation programs with significant economic impact. She has extensive experience in academic innovation, incubation, acceleration, and global soft-landing programs for startups, universities, and international organizations.
After a decade working in senior positions in Silicon Valley, assisting US tech companies in global expansion, she moved to Philadelphia to start her own first company in 2003. Since then, she has held positions with the University of Pennsylvania and with the University City Science Center. At the former, she launched and ran the AppItUP Challenge, a digital accelerator for novel mobile technologies resulting in the creation of 19 new companies. At the latter, she oversaw the commercialization program with 22 participating universities and built a cutting-edge accelerator focused on US market entry.
In the course of the past decade, Karina also launched and developed WorldUpstart, a consulting firm applying her passion, unique skills, and deep experience to two missions: helping global companies enter the US market and helping academic institutions in the US and around the world build innovative commercialization programs.
Karina serves on the board of advisors for multiple companies, mentors startups, and is a member of the Investment Advisory Committee for Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Pennsylvania. She is an advisor to Nordic Tech Advocates Accelerator in Denmark and Finland and a mentor to the Founder Institute, Philadelphia and Serbia Chapters. Her other interests include poetry translation and language study. Karina lives in Philadelphia with her husband, two daughters, and cats named Pushkin and Zack.
Stephanie Vogel
Managing Director
Stephanie Vogel is a business developer with an international marketing background. She has managed accounts for clients like Major League Baseball, Fortune 500 companies, and startups in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. While working on Capitol Hill from 2003-2008, Stephanie was instrumental in reshaping the regulatory framework and rhetoric around cannabis across the United States. Stephanie built strategic political coalitions, managed a $2 million annual political fund to reform cannabis laws and policies, developed national training workshops for movement leaders, directed celebrity outreach and created major fundraising events in LA, NY, and DC. More recently, Stephanie oversaw 75 international professional exchanges on behalf of the U.S. State Department and the City of Philadelphia while working in close collaboration with program partners in Washington, DC and abroad. The initiatives supported include Fulbright scholars, International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), Washington Mandela Fellows, Sister Cities, Open World, and fee-for-service arrangements. In Summer 2020, Stephanie won grant funding to create a virtual youth exchange called How to Succeed as an Innovator. The successful pilot program introduced 50 leading Egyptian and U.S. STEM students to the mindset of inventing, careers in Life Sciences, and strategies to succeed. She serves as a Board of Director for the German Society of Pennsylvania and the NEXT Board of Philadelphia’s German American Chamber of Commerce.
Joseph Burke
Advisor
Joe is the Managing Director of Avoca Strategies, an international business consultancy assisting companies find business partners globally, set up operations in the U.S. and foreign markets, and advising companies on market entry strategies.
During his 30 years in international economic development with Pennsylvania, Joe led or coordinated more than 75 inbound and outbound missions to and from Asia, Europe, Australia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
From 2015 to 2021, Joe was the Deputy Secretary of the Office of International Business Development (OIBD) for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, U.S. managing an annual budget of $5.89M. In that capacity, he oversaw a team of 14 trade and investment professionals, the 10 Pennsylvania-based Regional Export Network covering all 67 counties, as well as an international network of contractors covering 51 countries.
Prior to joining the Pennsylvania Office of International Business Development, Joe had twelve years of experience in sales, marketing, research, and business planning with multinational consumer packaged goods companies and marketing research firms in Philadelphia and New York City and did research in international trade dispute cases for major law firms in Washington, DC.
Joe has a BS in Food Marketing from the Academy of Food Marketing at St. Joseph’s University, and an MBA in International Business from the School of Business at The George Washington University.
Glen Gaddy
Advisor
Glen Gaddy has experience in technology, advanced materials, real estate, consumer product development and venture funding. He has been an active angel investor since 2003, funding technology, real estate, day care and business services ventures. His prior experience includes heading a research and development laboratory for a leading building materials company, leading real estate services for the world’s largest consulting engineering firm and running a closely held real estate investment company. He has published in professional journals and has served as the Principal Investigator on over $8M of government research programs. He is an active reviewer of applied research grant applications in both the United States and abroad, an active speaker on startups and early stage funding, and the reviewer of numerous business plans each year. He holds a Ph.D., M.S.E and
B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.
Heather A. Steinman Advisor
Heather Steinman, Ph.D., MBA, is Vice President for Business Development and Executive Director of Technology Transfer at The Wistar Institute, the nation’s first independent research institution devoted solely to biomedical science and a world leader in cancer, immunology, virology and infectious disease research.
Dr. Steinman joined Wistar in 2014. Since then, the Business Development team has been working to advance Wistar science and technology development through creative partnerships to turn innovative discoveries into transformative treatments. Dr. Steinman’s proactive approach involves removing risk from early stage science by forging new strategic partnerships with industry experts, non-profits and local academic research institutions, and accelerating commercialization opportunities for Wistar’s growing pipeline of biomedical discoveries including small and large molecule therapeutics, diagnostics, vaccines and target discovery/validation platforms in the oncology, immunology and infectious disease space.
Dr. Steinman brings more than 24 years' experience in technology transfer and commercialization of early stage-life science discoveries. She previously served as Director of the Penn Center for Innovation, Perelman School of Medicine Office at the University of Pennsylvania. There, she played an essential role in supporting Penn’s UPstart program. Before that, Dr. Steinman spent more than a decade in roles of increasing responsibility as a technology licensing professional in the Office of Technology Management at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dr. Steinman holds a doctorate in biomedical sciences from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and an MBA from the university’s Isenberg School of Management. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Baldwin-Wallace College with dual degrees in biology and psychology in the honors program.
Heather is a member of Robin Hood Ventures and Delaware Crossing Investor Group; Co-Chair of PHL Life Sciences, Board Member of Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau, Pharmaceutical Consulting Consortium International, The Pheo Para Alliance, BioStrategy Partners, and Advisory Council Member of Dornsife School of Public Health, Philadelphia-Israel Chamber of Commerce.
J. Todd Abrams
Ph.D., Senior Director, New Ventures and Business Development, Temple University
Dr. Abrams is presently the Senior Director, New Ventures and Business Development in Temple University’s Office of the Vice Provost for Research. His principal responsibilities are to help place new technologies on the critical path for commercial development and shape teams to establish new ventures to implement the plan. Prior to joining Temple Todd was Manager of JT ABRAMS CONSULTING where he supported institutions in our region to develop new approaches to support emerging technologies, as well as advising early stage technologies on how to access those new resources.
Prior to consulting, Dr. Abrams Served as Director, Philanthropy and Business Development at the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research (LIMR) in Wynnewood PA, a position in which he expanded his interest in advancing early stage technologies. Among other responsibilities he oversaw LIMR’s technology development initiative, including its biotechnology incubator, technology transfer office, and philanthropy efforts. Before joining LIMR, Dr. Abrams was Executive Director, New Product Development at Meniscus Limited, a medical education and publishing company. He received a BA in biology from Lafayette College in Easton, PA, and his Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Pennsylvania. After receiving his Ph.D., Dr. Abrams spent over a decade performing cancer research, with positions at The Wistar Institute, the University of Miami School of Medicine, and Allegheny University of the Health Sciences now Drexel’s School of Medicine. Dr. Abrams also served as President, Foundation for Research Into Diseases of Aging (FRIDA) and Chaired the All Partners Committee of BioLaunch 611 + Keystone Innovation Zone. He previously served on the Board of Directors of BioStrategy Partners, and also is President of Intracell, LLC, which holds patents for the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
Michael Rosen
Managing Director, Innovation and Research Park and Helix 51 Incubator for Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science
Michael S. Rosen is Managing Director, Innovation and Research Park and Helix 51 Incubator for Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science (RFUMS) in North Chicago, IL (Lake County), which launched its 100,000 sf phase I wetlab building in 2020. The RFUMS campus is close to 122 bioscience companies and 33,000 bioscience jobs in Lake County. Mr. Rosen also has his own company, Rosen Bioscience Strategies LLC, a life science economic development consultancy focused on the development of science parks, incubators and eco-systems centered around research-based universities. From 2005 – 2014, he was a consultant to and then Senior Vice President, New Business Development for the Science + Technology Group at Forest City Realty Trus t, a NYSE-traded Fortune 500 U.S. real estate development company which developed and built science parks at research universities, such as Johns Hopkins University, MIT, and Illinois Science + Technology Park; he successfully brought numerous international life science into these parks.
Rosen spent many years in the life science industry including 20 years in senior management positions with Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Searle/Monsanto, while living in Latin America, Japan, and Europe, and worked extensively in Canada, India and Asia. Additionally, he spent 12 years as President/CEO of European and U.S. biotech and medical device companies, one of which he took public. Mr. Rosen has been an adjunct professor of biotechnology at Northwestern University and professor of International Management at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management (Chicago). He is a member of the Association for University Research Parks (AURP). He received his B.A. in Sociology and International Relations from Beloit College and an M.B.A. in International Business from the University of Miami . He has graduate and post-graduate studies at Northwestern University, Sophia University (Tokyo, Japan) and the Adolfo Ibañez University and School of Business (Santiago, Chile).