Panel Event Speakers

Chairman of BIO, Former CEO Global Blood Therapeutics

Dr. Love has a long and distinguished career in the biopharmaceutical industry. He most recently served as president and CEO of Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT), a biotech company founded in 2011 to address sickle cell disease. Dr. Love led GBT’s growth from a pre-clinical start-up into a multi-national commercial business, and introduced the first innovative rationally designed, disease-modifying treatment for sickle cell disease. GBT was acquired by Pfizer for $5.8 billion in October 2022. In addition to his ongoing commitment to the sickle cell disease community, Dr. Love serves on the boards of directors of Seagen, Inc., Royalty Pharma plc. and several early-stage biotechs. He is also vice chair of board of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) and a founding board member of Life Science Cares Bay Area.

Founder and CEO, Helaplex Co.

Dr. Tia has dedicated her career to the biotech/biopharma industries – including bioprocessing development, building large-scale bioprocessing facilities, developing/training/leading teams and commercializing proprietary biological assets via global regulatory affairs. She has been working in the biotechnology / biopharmaceutical industry for 22+ years – including formerly interning at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as well as a former contractor at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR in Silver Spring, MD). Her former employers include Human Genome Sciences, Inc. (now GSK) – Rockville, MD; Amgen, Inc. – Thousand Oaks, CA; Baxter BioScience (now Takeda) – Thousand Oaks, CA; Avid Bioservices – Tustin, CA; Lonza Pharma & Biotech – Portsmouth, NH; and Jazz Pharmaceuticals, PLC – Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Tia is a Three-Time Life Science Start-Up Founder – Founder & CEO of LucasPye BIO (2018), a Contract Development Manufacturing Organization (CDMO); Founder & CEO of HelaPlex (2021), the 1st Commercial Life Science Accelerator for Life Science Start-Ups and Virtual Biotechnology Companies; and Founder & CEO of Jackson Taylor Therapeutics (2023) – a Genomic AI Therapeutic Drug R&D Firm. Dr. Lyles-Williams is a board member at LaunchBio and Independent Business Alliance: Greater Philadelphia’s LGTBQ+ Chamber of Commerce. She’s also a Business Mentor for Princeton University’s Entrepreneurship Council & Charles Drew University of Medicine & Science. As a Biopharma Executive and Pillar of the Life Science Industry – Tia was named “Unicorn” by Philadelphia Magazine (2020); recognized as a 2021 Forbes NEXT 1000 Honoree, listed as 1 of Inc. Magazine’s 2021 Female Founders 100; a recipient of the PHL Inno 2022 Fire Award on behalf of LucasPye BIO from The Philadelphia Business Journal; and featured in Philadelphia Tribune’s People on the Move” for 2022. Most recently, Dr. Lyles-Williams participated as a panelist at The White House Summit for Biotechnology and the Bioeconomy in the U.S.; and her work at LucasPye BIO was highlighted at the 2023 USPTO World IP Day in D.C.

Chief People Officer, Be Biopharma

Brad Hartman is a purpose-driven biotech executive and entrepreneur who is deeply committed to unlocking the potential in individuals, teams and the company to radically improve patients’ lives. He passionately believes in the power of culture to elevate organizational performance and capability through innovative People practices and a more humanistic, caring approach.

Brad has spent the past 15 years building teams and culture at biotech companies from early research stages through commercialization. He has deep cell and gene therapy experience from Unum Therapeutics (CAR-T) as well as FerGene (gene therapy), where he recently served as the chief people officer. Brad has played a significant role in launching multiple innovative therapies, including Kalydeco® (cystic fibrosis), Kalbitor® (hereditary angioedema) and Incivek® (hepatitis C), which was one of the fastest blockbuster drug launches of all time. Brad also founded and built out his own Executive Search firm, ConnectedSearch, into a leading life science search practice.

Brad received his B.S. in neuroscience from the University of Rochester and worked at both the National Cancer Institute and the Graduate School of Pharmacology at the University of Rochester in cellular pharmacology.

Dean, Georgia Tech College of Engineering

Beyah is a Georgia Tech alumnus. He earned his master’s and Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Georgia Tech in 1999 and 2003, respectively. He received his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 1998. A native Atlantan, he is a graduate of the Atlanta Public Schools system. As a graduate of both Leadership Atlanta and Leadership Georgia, he remains active in the community at state and local levels. Beyah leads the Communications Assurance and Performance Group and is affiliated with the Institute for Information Security and Privacy. He is co-founder and board chair of Fortiphyd Logic Inc., an industrial cybersecurity company. He is co-founder and a steering committee member of the Academic and Research Leadership Network. He has previously held several leadership roles at Georgia Tech, including serving as the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering’s associate chair for strategic initiatives and innovation, interim Steve W. Chaddick ECE school chair, and vice president for interdisciplinary research. He received the National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2009 and was selected for the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) Computer Science Study Panel in 2010. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), a lifetime member of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and an Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) distinguished scientist.

President, Georgia Tech

Ángel Cabrera is the 12th president of the Georgia Institute of Technology. One of America’s leading research universities, Georgia Tech serves more than 45,000 students through top-ranked graduate and undergraduate programs ranging from engineering and science to business, computing, design, and liberal arts, and receives nearly $1.3 billion in annual research awards.

Under Cabrera’s leadership, more than 5,700 members of the Georgia Tech community contributed to a new 10-year strategic plan that launched in November 2020. The plan is grounded on a new mission statement that reaffirms Tech’s commitment to “developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition.”

As president during the Covid-19 pandemic, Cabrera led the Institute through one of the most critical times in its history to break records in student applications and enrollment, graduation rates, and research awards. Today, Georgia Tech is one of the fastest-growing and most research-intensive universities in the nation.

Cabrera came to Georgia Tech on Sept. 1, 2019, after serving for seven years as president of George Mason University (GMU) in Virginia. During his presidency, GMU joined the top tier of research universities in the Carnegie Classification and was the fastest growing institution in the state. Before leading GMU, Cabrera was president of the Thunderbird School of Global Management, now part of Arizona State University, and dean of IE Business School in Madrid.

As a business educator, Cabrera has played a key role in advancing professional ethics, internationalization, and corporate social responsibility. In 2007, while serving as a senior advisor to the United Nations Global Compact, he was the lead author of the “Principles for Responsible Management Education” (PRME). A United Nations–supported initiative that advances sustainable development through management education, PRME has been adopted by more than 800 schools around the world. He is also a co-founder of the University Global Coalition, a global network of universities working in partnership with the United Nations in support of its Sustainable Development Goals.

Cabrera has been named a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, a “Star of Europe” by Bloomberg Businessweek, a “Henry Crown Fellow” by the Aspen Institute, and a “Great Immigrant” by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. He has received honorary degrees from Miami Dade College and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

Cabrera serves on the boards of the National Geographic Society, Harvard College Visiting Committee, Atlanta Committee for Progress, Metro Atlanta Chamber, and Bankinter Innovation Foundation in Spain. He has served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the advisory boards of Georgia Tech and Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, and the corporate boards of three public companies.

Cabrera earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in psychology and cognitive science from Georgia Tech, which he attended as a Fulbright Scholar. He also holds a B.S. and an M.S. in computer and electrical engineering from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. His academic publications have been cited thousands of times, and he has been featured or quoted in leading media around the world.

He is married to management scholar and Georgia Tech classmate, Elizabeth. Their son, Alex, is a Georgia Tech graduate and currently a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University. Their daughter, Emilia, is a graduate of Harvard University. Cabrera is the first native of Spain to serve as president of an American university.