Our Tribe
Tim Harkness
Founder and CEO
Building great teams and great life sciences companies is just in Tim’s DNA. He brings 25+ years of life science leadership experience to the Unchained Labs table and has 3 successful exits under his belt. He founded Unchained Labs to solve problems for biologics and gene therapy researchers and partnered with Carlyle in a $435M deal to take the company to the next level.
At ProteinSimple, Tim and team built a unique protein analysis pure-play from scratch and sold it for $300M. Prior to that he helped build Molecular Devices into a diversified life science tools provider and sold it for over $600M. He has raised nearly $200M of venture capital, helped raise over $1B in the public equity markets and has been a part of 4 successful exits as an independent board member.
He is an enthusiastic supporter of other entrepreneurial teams and he is currently on the Board at LabVoice and Chairperson of the Board at Fluent Biosciences. He has an M.B.A. from Stanford and a B.B.A from the University of Wisconsin. Tim is married with 3 children and you can find him out hacking around on the links or riding his bike whenever he can.
Tom O’Lenic
Chief Commercial Officer
Scaling commercial teams to nail growth targets is what gets Tom going. He has over 30 years of experience developing and commercializing disruptive technologies in the life sciences tools, diagnostic and forensic tools markets. Most recently, he was Founder and CEO of Buzzkill Labs and now serves on the Board of Directors. Before that as CCO and General Manager of Advanced Cell Diagnostics, he helped orchestrate explosive revenue growth which led to acquisition by Bio-Techne.
Tom has held leadership roles at Molecular Devices, MDS, IntegenX and Bio-Techne. As a C-level executive, he has helped create over $1B of exit value. Tom is presently Executive Director at GenTegra, LLC and a member of S2 Genomics Commercial Advisory Board. Tom holds a B.S. in Biology from the University of South Florida.
When Tom’s not helping his teams crush their goals, he’s likely mentoring future entrepreneurs or can be found outdoors enjoying running, hiking, soccer, tennis or golf.
Krista Witte
SVP Product Dev
Krista loves building assays and analytical tools to do great science. She has over 15 years of experience in life sciences instrumentation and application development. Prior to joining Unchained Labs, Krista was a founding team member of ForteBio, now Pall ForteBio. In her decade at the company, she held many roles including heading up Applications, Assay Development, System Integration, QC and R&D. She saw the company from angel-funded start-up to a leading provider of label-free instrumentation.
Prior to ForteBio, Krista headed up the Applications team at Zyomyx, taking a lead role in developing their protein microarray technology. Krista holds a Ph.D. in Carbohydrate Chemistry from The Scripps Research Institute and a B.S. in Chemistry from Texas A&M (Gig ‘em Aggies!).
When not doing science, Krista is obsessed with being around the water and can be found swimming, diving or sailing.
Taegen Clary
SVP Marketing
Taegen loves marketing life science tools. He has over 15 years of experience using and marketing enabling life science instrumentation and consumables. As the Director of Pharmaceutical Segment Marketing at Agilent Technologies, he led the marketing organization focused on the company’s largest customer segment, which has experienced consistent, above-market growth rates and 2014 sales revenues of $1B.
Over his 7 years at Agilent, Taegen was the Product Manager for Proteomics and Protein Chemistries and also led the Life Science group’s efforts in the area of protein therapeutics. He began his career at Berlex Biosciences, now a part of Bayer Healthcare, running mass spectrometers and developing assays to measure drug passage across the blood brain barrier.
Taegen has an M.B.A. in Marketing from St. Mary’s College of California and a B.S. in Biotechnology from the University of California, Davis. Taegen is married with two children, loves mountain biking, camping, fishing, golfing and is a huge fan of the San Francisco Giants and 49ers.
Will Lachnit
SVP Corporate Dev
Will’s been around the Life Sciences block a time or two, and can’t get enough when it comes to making companies thrive. He has over 25 years of experience in the life sciences industry across multiple functions.
Prior to joining Unchained Labs, Will was the Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Solutions Development at Freeslate. Prior to Freeslate, he was the Vice President of Sales and Service for ProteinSimple. While there, his other roles included leadership of the marketing and applications functions and he played a key role in integrating 4 acquisitions. Previously, at Molecular Devices Corporation, Will had leadership roles for the North American Drug Discovery sales organization, an entrepreneurial product development organization in Switzerland, and Corporate Development. Dr. Lachnit started his career in Pharmaceutical R&D in scientific and research management positions at Roche and Syntex, including running a best-in-class HTS organization.
He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Pharmacology and his B.S. in Physiology from the University of California, Davis. Will has a passion for cooking for his family and loves tinkering around in his woodshop.
Dustin Giberson
VP Operations
Dustin lives to build great products, solve tough problems and help make customers successful. He started his career applying automation to advance life science research and then never looked back. He leads the Operations and Global Service & Support organizations including Manufacturing, Tech Support, Field Service, and Contract Testing teams that delivers products to customers and helps them get the most out of their automation and analytics tools.
Prior to Unchained Labs, Dustin was head of Operations at Freeslate providing workflow automation tools to biologics, chemicals, and energy researchers. Before that he held leadership positions at Affymetrix and Beckman Coulter developing commercial, high throughput automation systems and assays. Dustin has a B.S. in Biology from the University of Vermont, a Master of Software Engineering from Brandeis University, and an MBA from the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
Apart from work, Dustin enjoys traveling, cooking, and being outdoors with his wife and 3 kids and when he’s not doing that you can probably find him at the gym pumping iron while listening to heavy metal.
Don Phelps
VP Finance
Don loves digging into the details that make a company tick, managing worldwide finance, accounting, human resources, IT and facilities. Don has over 25 years in senior finance and accounting leadership roles across a broad range of companies and industries.
Prior to Unchained Labs, he was Vice President of Finance and Operations at Intabio, a life science tools startup sold to Sciex. Before that, Don was Director of Finance for Bio-Techne’s Analytical Solutions Division, a $200M instrumentation and consumables business. The core of that division was created from the acquisition of ProteinSimple, where Don led the worldwide finance team. Prior to ProteinSimple, Don worked as a consultant for RoseRyan providing interim controller and finance director leadership to a broad variety of startups and emerging growth companies.
He has a BA in International Relations from Claremont McKenna College, and an MBA from Santa Clara University. When Don’s not crunching the numbers, he can be found eating up pavement on his bike or out in the boonies on a long backpacking trip.
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Dr. Martin Madaus
Operating Executive, The Carlyle Group
Dr. Martin D. Madaus is a serial global healthcare CEO, board member, investor and strategy consultant with 30 years of experience in biotech, medical devices, in vitro diagnostics and life sciences tools. He has a track record for delivering outstanding results by transforming large and complex businesses. He currently works for The Carlyle Group as an Operating Executive and serves as Chairman of Ultivue, Inc., Emulate Bio, Lead Director at Quanterix Corporation (QTRX) and Director at Candela Medical.
He was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Inc. (NASDAQ:OCDX) from June 2015 until February of 2019 leading the carve-out from J&J and the business turnaround. Prior to joining Ortho, Dr. Madaus served as Executive Chairman of Quanterix Corporation, and as Senior Healthcare Advisor to The Carlyle Group. He was Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Millipore Corporation (NYSE: MIL) from January 2005 to July 2010. In addition, Dr. Madaus was President and Chief Executive Officer of Roche Diagnostics Corporation North America from 2000 to 2004. Prior to that, he served as Vice President of Business Development for Roche Molecular Diagnostics, and served as the President of Roche Diagnostics Canada.
Dr. Madaus started his career in 1989 at Boehringer Mannheim, Germany and served in various product management, marketing and general management roles in Germany, the United States and Canada. Dr. Madaus has extensive public and private company board experience and has served on the board of Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (NYSE: MTD), Covidien PLC (NYSE: COV), Millipore (NYSE:MIL), PPD Inc. (NASDAQ:PPD), Quanterix (NASDAQ: QTRX), Candela Medical, Ultivue Inc. and Emulate Bio.
Dr. Madaus received a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from the University of Munich in Germany and a PhD in Veterinary Medicine from the Veterinary School of Hanover in Germany.
Robert Schmidt
Managing Director, The Carlyle Group
Robert R. Schmidt is a Managing Director on the U.S. Buyout team at The Carlyle Group, focused on private equity investments in the healthcare sector. He is based in New York. Since joining Carlyle in 2011, Mr. Schmidt has been involved in a number of the firm’s investments globally, including Beats Electronics, Grand Rounds, MedRisk, One Medical, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, Sedgwick and Unchained Labs. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Grand Rounds, MedRisk, One Medical, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, and Unchained Labs.
Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. Schmidt worked at Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, a private equity firm focused on healthcare and technology investments, and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity, focused on buyouts in North America.
Mr. Schmidt received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in economics from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is currently a member of the External Advisory Board at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics.
LAURA J. HAMILL
Biotech Executive
Laura J. Hamill has deep experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, with over 30 years of global commercial experience in a variety of executive leadership positions. Most recently, she served as Executive Vice President, Worldwide Commercial Operations, for Gilead Sciences, Inc., where she was accountable for 2,200 employees and $22 billion in annual revenue and led the global commercial strategic direction and long-term planning.
Over an 18-year career at Amgen, Laura held a number of executive roles in the United States and internationally. In her last role as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the US, she was responsible for $18 billion in annual revenue and managed a team of 2,000 employees across all of Amgen’s therapeutic areas. She also served as the Chairperson of Amgen’s Senior Women’s Leadership Council.
Ms. Hamill is currently a member of the Board of Directors for, Pardes Biosciences, BB Biotech, Y-mAbs Therapeutics and AnaptysBio. She also is a board member for two private companies, Unchained Labs and Scilex Pharmaceuticals. Ms. Hamill holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Arizona.