Leading the Charge to EP 3.0

Vince Burgess currently serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Acutus Medical, bringing over 30 years of experience in healthcare operations, marketing, business development and venture capital. He has been a member of Acutus’ board of directors since 2013. 

A founding executive team member at Volcano Corporation, Burgess served as President, Advanced Imaging and Systems, while also leading marketing and business development from 2002 to 2010. He was a key architect of the company’s product, marketing and M&A strategies. During Burgess’s tenure, Volcano Corporation grew rapidly from a start-up to a global company with more than 1,000 employees and a market cap of more than $1 billion. Volcano Corporation was eventually purchased by Philips NV in 2015 for $1.2 billion, thanks to the solid foundation that Burgess helped to build.  

Burgess previously served as a Venture Partner with OrbiMed and Sorrento Ventures, and he has operational and board experience in the cardiology, electrophysiology, surgical tools, ophthalmology and health IT fields. He earned his MBA at the University of California, Los Angeles, and his BS in Business Administration from the University of Southern California. 

David Roman joined Acutus in March 2021, bringing over 15 years of experience in the medical technology industry.

Previously, Roman served as Vice President, Strategy and FP&A for Baxter International, Inc., where he held roles of increasing responsibility since 2016. Prior to joining Baxter, he was a managing director at Goldman, Sachs & Co., leading the firm’s U.S. medical technology equity research team. Roman began his professional career in 2004 at Morgan Stanley, where he also covered the medical technology sector as a research analyst.

Roman earned his BA Degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Peter Elia joined Acutus Medical with 25 years of experience in the electrophysiology field. His expertise includes sales, market development, acquisitions and partnerships.

An entrepreneur at heart, Elia worked with a start-up CPI, later named Guidant Corporation, which was acquired by Boston Scientific. Before he turned 32, he became a national sales leader, overseeing 400 staff and $400 million in sales revenue. Together with a core business partnership, he created a unique sales organization within a tier 3 company and grew their market share as a distant fourth player with 2% share, to an innovative growth hacker with 10% share over seven years.

Elia has a BS from San Diego State University.

Charlie Piscitello joined Acutus Medical as Chief People Officer in July 2019. Piscitello has nearly 30 years of experience leading human capital and talent management for companies in a variety of industries, including medical technology and consumer brands.

Prior to joining Acutus Medical, Piscitello was the Chief People Officer for Petco, and President and Chairman of the Petco Foundation where he helped establish a thriving culture and led the company’s growth for over a decade. Piscitello has also held leadership roles for Boston Scientific, Abbott, First Data Corporation, Gateway Inc., and Coors Brewing Company.

He currently serves as board member for the North San Diego Business Chamber and is also is a founding member of the i4cp Chief Human Resource Officer board.

Piscitello earned a BS in Communications from Marquette University and is also a graduate of the Newfield Network Coaching Program for Personal and Professional Mastery.

Duane Wilder joined Acutus Medical as Chief Commercial Officer in March 2021, bringing over 25 years of successful sales and executive leadership experience in the medical device industry.

Most recently, Wilder served as Vice President of U.S. Sales, for the Image Guided Therapy division of Philips, where he had national responsibility for all of Philips’ Image Guided Therapy equipment and service sales, as well as the disposable catheters used with the equipment. Previously, he held roles of increasing responsibility at Volcano Corp. (prior to its acquisition by Philips) since 2002, culminating in his role as Senior Vice President, U.S. Commercial, where he was responsible for U.S. sales, U.S. downstream marketing, and global training. Wilder began his medical technology career at W. Lorenz Surgical in 1994, and previously served our country as a Surface Warfare Officer in the United States Navy.

Wilder earned a BS in Business Administration from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville

Tim Corvi is a seasoned research and development professional with over 20 years of experience in the design and development of devices for interventional cardiology, cardiovascular surgery, drug infusion and cardiac electrophysiology.

Previous to joining Acutus Medical, Corvi was Director of Engineering at Ablation Frontiers, which was acquired by Medtronic, Inc. in 2009. Throughout his career, Corvi has been an integral team member within multiple early stage medical device start-ups including Devices for Vascular Intervention, Heartport and FoxHollow Technologies where he held various positions from Design Engineer to Project Manager.

Corvi holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, San Diego. He is listed as primary or co-inventor on over 20 issued and pending U.S. patents.

Dr. Derrick Chou currently serves as the Chief Technology Officer of Acutus Medical, bringing over 9 years of experience in the design and development of pioneering medical technologies for the field of cardiac electrophysiology and imaging. He has distinguished himself as a leader in product innovation, scientific education, and clinical research.

Dr. Chou joined Acutus Medical in 2011 with a background in biomedical imaging and has been a key inventor and technology leader in software and algorithm development, ultrasound imaging, device navigation, and 3D cardiac mapping.

Dr. Chou earned BS degrees in Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science, and MS and PhD degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University. He currently holds over 12 issued and pending U.S. patents.

Dr. Steven Mickelsen currently serves as the Chief Translational Science Officer of Acutus Medical, guiding the innovation of the company’s access, diagnostics and therapy product portfolio, and brings more than a decade of experience in the development of breakthrough therapeutic medical devices.  

A board-certified electrophysiologist, Dr. Mickelsen spent ten years practicing at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City, where he focused on complex ablation procedures and served as an Assistant Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Internal Medicine. In 2012, utilizing a pulsed electric field system that he invented, Dr. Mickelsen founded the company Farapulse to pursue more effective treatments for atrial fibrillation, a condition that affects as many as six million people nationwide.  

Dr. Mickelsen received his medical degree from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and completed his internal medicine residency and clinical research at the Mayo Clinic. He also completed fellowships in Cardiology and Cardiac Electrophysiology at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and was a Howard Hughes research scholar at the National Institutes of Health.

With over 30 years of experience, Rick Kimes joined Acutus to deliver best-in-class service and support. From operations, engineering and development of medical devices and capital equipment for interventional cardiology, as well as diagnostic and drug/device combination products, Kimes is a world-class leader.

Prior to joining Acutus in 2019, Kimes held leadership positions at growing medical device companies including Senior Vice President of Operations at Volcano Corporation where he was responsible for disposable and capital equipment manufacturing, engineering, field service, and distribution. He scaled operations and lowered costs prior to the acquisition by Philips NV and also held senior operations and engineering positions at Guidant Corporation for 18 years prior to the acquisition by Abbott.

Kimes earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Utah.

Steven McQuillan is an experienced clinical and regulatory affairs professional with over 25 years of clinical trial design, execution and understanding of the global medical device regulatory environment. He has successfully obtained U.S. and International Class III medical device approvals and been involved in more than 30 IDE and significant risk clinical trials and publications.

McQuillan has held several key leadership positions including at the University of Minnesota, Department of Surgery, CPI/Guidant Corporation, Boston Scientific, Medtronic (Atrial Fibrillation Solutions) and Spinal Modulation (acquired by St. Jude Medical).

McQuillan holds degrees in Engineering Statistics and Biostatistics from the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Graydon Beatty has over 36 years of experience in the design and development of innovative products for the field of cardiac electrophysiology. He has distinguished himself as a scientific and clinical partner with leading physicians worldwide and is considered an expert in the electrical properties of excitable tissue and the biophysics of ablation energy delivery.

Dr. Beatty served as Acutus Medical’s Chief Technology Officer from 2011 to 2021, and prior to Acutus was co-founder and Chief Technical Officer at Endocardial Solutions, Inc., which developed a 3D cardiac mapping and navigation system. ESI was subsequently sold to St. Jude Medical where Dr. Beatty served as Vice President, Therapy Delivery. Dr. Beatty has held several other development and management roles with the USCI and Electrophysiology divisions of C.R. Bard, Cardiac Pacemakers, Inc. (now Boston Scientific), Angemed Corporation and EP Technologies (now Boston Scientific).

Dr. Beatty earned his BS degree in Electrical Engineering and MS and PhD degrees in Biomedical Engineering from the Universities of Minnesota and Wisconsin. He has over 50 issued U.S. patents in various medical technology fields.

Tom Sohn joined Acutus in March 2020 as the company’s General Counsel and Secretary with more than 17 years of experience in the technology and medical device industries.

Prior to Acutus, he spent over six years as General Counsel for Breg, and previous to that held legal leadership roles for NuVasive and Websense. Before moving to in-house counsel, Sohn spent nearly three years as a practicing attorney for DLA Piper in San Diego.

Sohn earned his JD from the University of San Diego Law School and holds a BA in Organizational Leadership from the University of Michigan.

Mat Powell is the Vice President and Managing Director for Acutus Medical Europe. He has more than 25 years experience in sales, marketing and leadership and has spent the last 20 years working in electrophysiology. Prior to joining Acutus Medical, Powell spent five years at St. Jude Medical (now Abbott), serving as Sales and Marketing Director for UK and Ireland in the Cardiac Rhythm Management division.

Earlier in his career, Powell held commercial and marketing roles at Boston Scientific and Guidant Corporation across a number of geographies including Europe, Australia and the United States, focusing his time on leadership, team development and sales execution.

Powell previously ran his own consultancy business, where he provided commercial expertise in product and service development in the area of cardiology. He earned his BS from Brunel, University College, London, graduating with honors.