Management
Tim Harkness
President and Chief Executive Officer
Tim joined ProteinSimple as President and CEO in June 2008, and has more than 17 years of leadership experience in the life sciences industry. Tim spent over 9 years as CFO at Molecular Devices where he helped grow the company’s revenue from $38M to $185M through internal growth and acquisitions before successfully selling the company for over $600M. Early in his career, Tim helped raise over $1B for life sciences companies in the public equity markets as a Health Care Investment Banker at Montgomery Securities. Mr. Harkness currently serves on the Board of Directors at Accelrys, a scientific software company, at ForteBio, a private life sciences tools company and at Freeslate, a private high-throughput research company. Mr. Harkness holds an M.B.A. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a B.B.A from the University of Wisconsin. Tim is married with 3 children, enjoys running, golfing, and is an avid sports fan.
Jason Novi
Chief Financial Officer
Jason Novi joined ProteinSimple in June 2008, with responsibility for the finance, manufacturing and administrative functions. Prior to joining ProteinSimple, Mr. Novi was the Vice President of Finance at Nektar Therapeutics, responsible for strategic corporate finance, planning and analysis, and treasury. Prior to joining Nektar, Mr. Novi served in various senior financial leadership roles at Molecular Devices Corporation, including most recently as Director of Finance, from October 2000 to June 2007. Mr. Novi was responsible for the worldwide accounting, finance and treasury functions at Molecular Devices, and played a key role in the execution and integration of its corporate development activities. From 1997 to October 2000, he was with Ernst & Young LLP, based in San Francisco, California. Mr. Novi holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and is a C.P.A.
Walter Ausserer, Ph.D.
Vice President and General Manager of Biologics
Dr. Ausserer joined ProteinSimple in December, 2007. He has more than 15 years experience developing and commercializing new analytical systems for life science research. Prior to joining ProteinSimple, Dr. Ausserer directed product development at Axela Biosensors, a developer of label-free protein characterization systems located in Toronto, Ontario. He previously held senior product development and marketing positions at Caliper Life Sciences (Hopkinton, MA) and Dionex Corporation (Sunnyvale, California). Dr. Ausserer holds a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Cornell University and received postdoctoral training in cancer biology at SRI International.
Trent Basarsky, Ph.D.
Vice President of Corporate Development
Trent Basarsky joined ProteinSimple in October, 2009. He has more than 20 years of experience in the life sciences sector. Prior to joining ProteinSimple, Dr. Basarsky was Director of Corporate Development at Codexis, a cleantech company focused on next generation biofuels and pharmaceutical manufacturing. Previously, Dr. Basarsky was Director of Corporate Development at Molecular Devices and responsible for driving corporate strategy, acquisitions, and all corporate agreements. From 1998 to 2004, he held positions in marketing, product management, business development and intellectual property at Axon Instruments. Dr. Basarsky holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Iowa State University, a B.Sc. in Zoology & Cell Biology from the University of Alberta, and is a licensed patent agent. Trent enjoys playing hockey, mountain biking and golf.
Steve Davenport
Vice President of European Sales
Steve Davenport joined ProteinSimple in November 2010, bringing more than 20 years of life sciences sales and management experience.. Prior to joining ProteinSimple, Mr. Davenport was Vice President of European Operations at Molecular Devices Corporation, part of the Medical Technologies division of Danaher Corporation. During his time at Molecular Devices, Mr. Davenport was responsible for the Sales, Support and Service functions throughout Europe, including both direct and distributor sales channels. Mr. Davenport was involved in the integration of several acquisitions by Molecular Devices, as well as its sale to MDS, Inc., and subsequently to Danaher Corporation. Prior to joining Molecular Devices, Mr. Davenport spent 13 years at Amersham International, Amersham Biosciences and Amersham Pharmacia Biotech, now part of GE Healthcare, where he held various sales and business development roles, including the market introduction of innovative technologies for Genomics, Proteomics and High Throughput Drug Screening. Mr. Davenport holds a B.Sc. in Applied Chemistry from the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology. Steve enjoys coaching and watching rugby, playing golf, and testing out his cookery on friends and family.
Robert Gavin
Vice President of Product Development
Robert Gavin brings nearly 20 years of experience to the ProteinSimple development team. Most recently, he served as Director of Engineering at MDS Analytical Technologies (previously Molecular Devices, Inc.), where he directed multidisciplinary teams of mechanical, electrical, firmware, and systems engineers. Mr. Gavin has a strong record of creating highly successful laboratory systems, including industry-leading optical plate readers and high throughput screening platforms. Prior to Molecular Devices, Mr. Gavin managed a team of engineers at Affymax Research Institute developing automated peptide and small molecule synthesis and compound-handling instruments. He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an M.S. in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from Stanford University.
Wilhelm Lachnit, Ph.D.
Vice President of Sales and Service
Wilhelm Lachnit has two decades of experience in pharma/biotech and life sciences. Dr. Lachnit joined ProteinSimple from Molecular Devices where he was most recently Director of Drug Discovery Sales and Support for North America. From 2002 to 2003, he held marketing and product development management positions overseeing the successful launch of the IonWorks™ product line. Dr. Lachnit joined Molecular Devices as Director of Business Development in 2000 where he was involved with the acquisition and integration of multiple acquisitions into the organization. Prior to that, he held research management and scientific positions at Roche and Syntex (acquired by Roche) where he pioneered the early adoption of automated cell-based assays. Dr. Lachnit holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology-Toxicology from the University of California, Davis.