Team

Melissa is Piggyback Health’s Founder, CEO, and Chief Product Officer. She brings deep operational experience informed by 20 years in healthcare strategy and operations across drugs, devices, and digital health. In Silicon Valley where she resides, Melissa led marketing and market development at two digital health startups that had successful exits (Propeller Health acquired by ResMed, and Physera acquired by Omada Health). At global BioPharma companies (Genentech, Gilead Sciences), Melissa led commercial planning and marketing and advised R&D and business development teams on the competitive landscape in a variety of disease areas. Early in her career, she was a sell side equity research analyst at UBS and JP Morgan covering US small & mid cap healthcare technology companies.

Melissa’s roots are equal parts academic (Columbia University PhD in Biology, BA in Biology with a double major in International Studies from Washington University in St Louis) and a no-BS-straight-talking-underdog-loving mindset from growing up on Long Island, NY. 

She is fascinated by where technology meets the market (pre-seed, seed) and is energized daily by what is taking shape in women's health globally. Her vision for Piggyback Health is to raise awareness while raising people up.

Fiona is a Product Manager at Piggyback Health where she surveys the Femtech landscape for best-in-class elements of user experience and gut checks and pressure tests the findings in market research and other methods to help drive our R&D engine. She is driven by a firm belief that there is a new and better path forward where user research, tech innovation, community building, and design will merge to provide the healthcare that underrepresented groups deserve.

Fiona graduated with Honors from Nottingham Trent University in London with a Biomedical Science degree and moved on to work in the publishing tech industry for 7 years where she helped drive UX research and implementation efforts for Springer Nature and Frontiers Open Access Publishing. Going deep on process development, data tracking, and user engagement metrics & analyses moved her to think about how design should more intentionally take into account the diversity of users’ abilities and intentions.

As founder, content, and design lead of a blog that served young millennials for nearly 5 years, she deeply appreciates the female founder experience. Fiona's personal interactions with the UK healthcare system as a woman of color sparked her commitment to support Femtech companies working to increase equitable access to health. Working at Piggyback Health allows her to flex her tremendous skill set and intellect, express her POV in a new way, and elevate the voices of others that remain unheard.

Alexa is the Director of Product at Piggyback Health. She is a Femtech consumer, a strong advocate for the prioritization of women’s health, and a firm believer in a more holistic and tech-forward approach to health that taps into new specialities, alternative medicine, and community to address chronic health issues including pain.

A lifer from Silicon Valley (born, raised, schooled, working, enjoying, experiencing), Alexa has been embedded in the culture of Big Tech and startups in a variety of customer success roles. Her experiences in client services & training, advertising, and partner management have honed a deep understanding of customer experience and a consumer-minded approach to product development.

Alexa prides herself on her advocacy for women who don’t have a platform to communicate or access information in healthcare and other areas. She enjoys working in a sector that pushes the envelope on how to use technology in new ways and for a company that elevates awareness of women’s health.

Margherita is Piggyback Health’s Community Building & Engagement Strategist where she leads equity-focused projects and provides critical guidance on new ways of evaluating and engaging with digital health companies committed to inclusion. She is passionate about amplifying the change-making missions of feminist-oriented and purpose-driven companies and is a strong advocate for intersectional feminist human rights and achievement of equity across society. This is informed by sky high EQ and a deep and unique educational background from Humboldt Universität in Berlin in both intercultural communication (foreign languages, literatures and cultural studies) and gender studies (queer theory, feminist theory, intersectionality and decolonization theory).

Through her consulting business, FairForce, Margherita helps organizations optimize their social impact by accelerating community-building strategies and engagement initiatives, increasing community outreach efforts, and elevating their impact blueprints. In 2019, she was selected as a speaker by the International Congress on Interdisciplinary Gender Studies in Lisbon. In 2017, she founded the Women Writing Berlin Lab, a writing community for women. In her role as a community builder and manager, she has hosted hundreds of creative labs, multiple writing and empowerment workshops, spoken word nights and roundtables for emancipatory activities within the community space.

Eva is a Designer at Piggyback Health who has been instrumental in building the brand using her artistic talents, fresh and modern intuition, and creative background in marketing and communication for innovative brands. She loves working on impactful projects with smart designs and good-hearted people and enjoys Piggyback Health because she is surrounded by a team that is authentic and passionate about their work and mission, and whose ambitions challenge her to achieve excellence. She is grateful for the opportunity to use design to make a difference for women and enjoys her role as the one of most rewarding experiences she has had as a graphic designer.

Bill is a Senior Analyst at Piggyback Health with deep expertise in Intellectual Property. Bill has over 20 years of experience in conducting strategic IP analysis, diligence, prosecution, and litigation. His experience encompasses a wide range of life science technologies, including life science research tools, diagnostics, and therapeutics. Currently, Bill is a Senior Director of IP Strategy at 10x Genomics. Previously, Bill was a partner in the IP Department of the law firm WilmerHale, where his clients included start-ups, private equity companies, academic institutions, biotech and pharma. Prior to law, Bill was a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics & Immunology at The Rockefeller University and he obtained his Ph.D. in Cellular, Molecular, and Biophysical studies from Columbia University, Bill also has a JD from Fordham Law School, a BS in Biology from DePaul University, and a BA in Philosophy from the University of Chicago.

Faizan is an Analyst at Piggyback Health who brings tremendous positivity and a keen interest in venture capital companies investing in healthcare innovation to bridge global gender inequality.

His financial background includes regulatory review and compliance evaluation of private and public institutions as a Credit & Market Risk Specialist at Pakistan’s Central Bank, and strategy as a Financial Planning Analyst at a microfinance bank focused on providing opportunity to the underserved. 

Faizan has a Bachelor's degree in Accounting & Finance from Lahore University of Management Sciences. He recently passed the CFA level II (Nov. 2021) from the CFA Institute, a global community of investment professionals whose mission is “to lead the investment profession globally by promoting the highest standards of ethics, education, and professional excellence for the ultimate benefit of society."

Shuvo is Piggyback Health’s Developer and team lead helping to build, maintain, and optimize our online experiences and commercial transactions. He has extensive web development experience with expertise in WordPress, Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, Prestashop, and other platforms. He has built 750+ websites for a variety of clients where he prides himself on producing high-quality code to improve search, security, and UX/UI. 

An undergraduate at Harvey Mudd College, Viviane is passionate about the ability of medical and health tech innovations to make a critical difference for women around the world. She brings a sharp intellect and scientific mind to her Piggyback Health role of researching trends and opportunities in the FemTech space. A fluent French speaker and accomplished runner, she has a special interest in bioregenerative medicine, robotics, and AI. She exemplified leadership through the founding of the AI Club at her high school, Lycee Francais de New York, and her mentor service with GirlsWhoCode. She looks forward to learning more about digital health and how technology can solve problems for the greater good.