Matt Hermann is a 13-year veteran of Ascension Health Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of US-based healthcare group Ascension Health, which was founded the year he joined. As senior managing director, Hermann said: “We are one set of eyes that Ascension Health and our other limited partners [investors] use to look over the horizon for solutions to make the transformative changes required. I have one of the most fun jobs in Ascension Health and there are more than 120,000 employees.
“We invest in three segments – devices and diagnostics, healthcare services and healthcare IT. Traditionally, half of our investments have been in devices and diagnostics and the other 50% in IT and services. Given healthcare reform, I would envision this will change in the future to an even third split.”
Portfolio companies at which Hermann is a board member or observer include BioImagene, BodyMedia, Millennium Pharmacy Systems and Zonare. Before joining Ascension Health Ventures in 2001, he was a vice-president at venture capital firm Atlantic Medical Management.
Hermann previously worked in financial management at US-based healthcare companies Nutrition21 and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, as well as US-based bank JP Morgan Chase and UK-based accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York. He studied engineering at Tufts and has an MBA in finance from New York University’s Leonard N Stern School of Business.