Jan Van Acker is a global healthcare business leader, who has lived and held executive positions
in the US, Europe and Asia. He is passionate about making a difference for patients, by driving
innovation to solve complex and important healthcare challenges, and by coaching and
mentoring talented people to achieve aspirational visions even when faced with high
complexity and uncertainty.
Jan is currently focusing his energy on a few high-impact projects, such as the transformational
work in healthcare of the ARC innovation hub of the Sheba Medical Center – one of the world’s
leading hospitals -, where he is the Chief Strategy Officer of ARC Global. He is executive advisor
to several startups. And he also co-leads an access to medicines initiative at MIT’s Jameel
Poverty Action Lab, and supports access to healthcare projects at the Harvard TH Chan School
of Public Health.
Formerly, Jan was a Senior Vice-President at Merck & Co, Inc, one of the world’s leading
pharmaceutical companies. From 2018-2023 he was board member of Merck’s GHI Fund, a US
$500M evergreen fund that invests in digital healthcare solutions. From 2019-2022, he was
President of the Emerging Markets (a $5B business) where he focused on driving broad access
to Merck’s innovative cancer drug Keytruda. Prior to this, he was Chief Marketing Officer for
Merck’s global pharmaceutical business.
Throughout his career, Jan has also led various organizations that promote economic and social
development to improve public health policies. A.o. he served as chairman of the
pharmaceutical industry trade association in Belgium, where pharma is the largest export
industry, and he was also a board member of the Council of the Americas.
Jan holds master’s degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the MIT
Sloan School of Management in Cambridge (Boston), and he also earned a degree in
Mechanical Engineering from the University of Ghent in Belgium.

Head of Department for Organ Donation, Oslo University Hospital 

Head of Department of Anesthesia and Intensive Care and Vice Scientific Director for Clinical Research

Executive Chairman of Migdal Holding, Insurance and Finance

Giulia Goretti leads the review of clinical and organizational pathways at Humanitas through the adoption of the Value-Based Healthcare (VBHC) approach and Lean methodology.

A graduate in Management Engineering, she holds a VBHC Black Belt certification from Amsterdam and a Lean Green Belt from MIP Politecnico di Milano. She joined Humanitas in 2010 after an industrial experience in a global Continuous Improvement team, with the ambition to support hospitals in achieving excellence in outcomes and performance.

Giulia introduced Lean principles in 2010 and the Value-Based approach in 2018, making Humanitas one of the first hospitals in Italy to integrate these methodologies. Her work has contributed to two international recognitions: the Value-Based Healthcare Prize in Amsterdam in 2018 for bariatric surgery pathway redesign, and again in 2023 for innovations in pre-hospitalization processes.

She collaborates closely with clinicians and researchers, contributing to several peer-reviewed publications on Lean, VBHC, and digital innovation in healthcare.

Proximie founder and CEO Nadine Hachach-Haram is a practising NHS surgeon, lecturer and award-winning clinical entrepreneur. In developing Proximie, Nadine drew on her passions for innovation, education and, most significantly, improving access to safe surgical care worldwide to create a solution that CNN has dubbed the “Future of Surgery”. 

Nadine’s vision for a digitally connected global surgical workforce that uses technology to improve access to surgery, scale surgical expertise and boost educational opportunities for the next generation of practitioners has won plaudits around the world. She was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) in the late Queen’s Birthday Honours, was selected to join the New York-based Endeavor entrepreneur programme, and sat on the Royal College of Surgeons’ Commission on the Future of Surgery, joining some of the UK’s leading doctors, engineers, data experts, healthcare leaders and patient representatives to set out and explain likely trends in surgery over the next 20 years.

Nadine’s passion for education and nurturing talent is demonstrated in her roles as a member of the faculty at Singularity, a company that offers executive-level business mentoring and consultancy, and her regular participation in Exponential Medicine, an annual event that focuses on highlighting the latest cutting-edge innovations shaping the world of healthcare. On top of all of this, Nadine continues to work as Consultant Plastic Surgeon and Director of Clinical Innovation and Strategic Partnerships at Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust in London.  She is also clinical lead at KHP Ventures, a MedTech and digital startup investment partnership between King’s College London, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Dr. Klasko is an author, an entrepreneur and a believer in the creative and optimistic transformation of healthcare and higher education. He has been a health system CEO, a university president, and a dean of two medical colleges. Currently he is pursuing his passion to bridge academic health centers with the emerging world of generative AI, digital medicine and innovation. As President of Thomas Jefferson University, he directed a merger between an almost two century old health science university and a nationally ranked university for design and architecture. That merger was heralded by the Chronicle of Higher Education as one of the “few successful mergers between academic entities.” As CEO of Jefferson Health, he presided over the growth of the system from $1.5 billion to $9 billion including the acquisition of Health Partners Plan, making Jefferson the first integrated delivery and financial system in Philadelphia history and the largest health system in Philadelphia. This included a first of its kind digital “health at any address” partnership between Jefferson and leading health venture capital firms such as General Catalyst, a16z and Oak HC. He has been a board member and advisor to several AI behavioral health entities and led the Forbes Health Summit this year on the ethical and regulatory “unintended consequences” of generative AI. His most recent book, Feelin’ Alright: How the Message in the Music Can Make Healthcare Healthier uses music and creativity to tackle the biggest issues in healthcare His fifth book (with Hemant Taneja of General Catalyst) in 2021, UnHealthcare: A Manifesto for Health Assurance has become the manual for both founders and health system CEOs for merging the venture capital world with the traditional healthcare ecosystem. Dr. Klasko serves as Executive in Residence at General Catalyst, North American ambassador for Sheba Medical Center in Israel, and as CMO and Operating Partner of Abundant Partners. He is the lead independent director for Teleflex (TFX:NYSE), a multi-billion dollar medical device company. In 2022, President Biden appointed him to the National Board of Education Sciences. He serves as a member of the Founders Circle for BrightEdge, a unique impact investing arm of the American Cancer Society. Dr. Klasko is also the board chair of Opera Philadelphia and a trustee of Rosalind Franklin University and Chicago Medical School. Over the past five years he has been awarded by Fast Company as one of the “top 25 most creative people in business,” by Modern Healthcare as the “#2 most influential person in healthcare” and by Ernst and Young as the “entrepreneur of the year.” He lives in Miami and New York with his wife Colleen Wyse, a commercial model and former fashion executive with senior positions in Vogue, W and Glamour.

Chief Executive Officer of the Charitè – Universitätsmedizin Berlin

Dr. Charlotta Ljungman is a senior consultant cardiologist and associate professor at Sahlgrenska University Hospital and the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Previously Director of the Cardiology department she now leads the Center for Precision Medicine at Sahlgrenska, driving the integration of genomics, biomarkers, and digital tools into clinical care. Her research focuses on heart failure, cardiomyopathies, and precision phenotyping, combining clinical data with proteomics and metabolomics to improve individualized diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Ljungman also contributes to national cardiovascular registries as head of the Swede-HF (the Swedish National Heart Failure Registry) advancing the translation of research into patient benefit.

CEO at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen

Chief Executive Officer, University College London Hospitals

Chief Executive Officer of the Humanitas Group

Director Acute Clinic, Oslo University Hospital  

Dr. Avi Tsur, MD, MBA is Director of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Sheba Beyond, Chief Medical Director of ARC, and Founder of the Sheba ARC Women’s Health Innovation Center, advancing women’s healthcare through AI, telemedicine, and precision health. He received his medical and clinical training at Hadassah Medical School, Sheba Medical Center, and Stanford University, and holds an MBA in Healthcare Innovation from Reichman University. An internationally recognized leader in maternal–fetal telemedicine, Dr. Tsur has authored over 70 scientific publications and eight book chapters. He is the primary medical inventor of the Lioness device for preventing spontaneous preterm birth and co-founder of Shela Health, pioneering maternal–fetal precision medicine.

Chief Transformation Officer and Chief Innovation Officer, Sheba Medical Center, Director and Founder, ARC Innovation, Israel

Director, Sheba BEYOND

CEO and Co-Founder, Transmit Security