i was born in Brazil (where my mother is from), then we moved to London for ten years, Cyprus Island for four years, and then Vancouver, where i finished high school before going to McGill University in Montreal. everyone always thought i was going to be a lawyer. but i grew disenchanted with a career in law after a part-time job in a firm exposed the gaps in reality for how i thought i might change the world in that profession. that, and the earning potential was capped. 

one key thing i did learn from my studies in Political Science though was the importance of power structures. once you understand power structures, you can navigate them, and, where necessary, stick handle. the dynamics of power structures apply on a macroeconomic level between, say, nations or on a micro level — which is my usual case — between founder and investor. 

after graduating, instead of taking a cushy corporate job, i cofounded a company with a couple of ex-McKinsey consultants. we recruited a team of also newly minted McGill grads. we built a software-as-a-service platform to match technologies sourced from research universities worldwide with the needs of technology scouts in life science companies. two-and-a-half years later, our startup was bought by a company in the UK. 

that’s when i came out to the Valley, initially to help build a company that was developing a menstrual pad that could monitor health markers in women. i first lived in Palo Alto, where we were running studies at Stanford to validate our technology, but i eventually left to found StrandSmart. (those guys are still operating and on track for a product launch, though!)   

did you know NON-SMOKING women are disproportionately affected by the most common form of lung cancer (NSCLC)? and since they are non-smoking, they are completely excluded from the guidelines for eligible screening, so we only catch those cancers when it’s too late. grrrr.