GCV Powerlist 2018: Anne Sissel

Anne Sissel, vice-president and head of Baxter Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of the US-based healthcare company, ended 2016 on a high note as she was selected to publisher Crain’s Top 40 Under 40 list. She said: “This is a huge honour – leaders such as US President Barack Obama and TV personality Oprah Winfrey have been included.”

For Baxter, this was also a huge deal. The last Baxter team member on the list was Tom Polen in 2008, who is likely to be the next CEO of medical technology company Becton Dickinson (and is currently president of its preanalytical systems). Before that, it was Rob Davis, now chief financial officer at Merck, and Harry Kraemer, who went on to be CEO and chairman of Baxter (and is now a professor at Kellogg’s).

For last year’s GCV Powerlist award Sissel said: “We have accomplished quite a bit at Baxter Ventures over the [previous] year. We have redefined our strategy after the spinoff of Baxalta, relaunched our governance process and committee formation and built a new team – Amy Kobe [a GCV Rising Star 2017, and Blake Arnold for the 2018 award] being a valuable part of that.

“The Baxter organisation has dramatically moved into a deep focus on innovation and growth, under the visionary leadership of our [chairman and] CEO, Joe Almeida. Baxter Ventures has been a driving force behind shifting our culture to an innovative, entrepreneurial focus and we are very excited about the path forward.”

Set up in 2011 by healthcare group Baxter International with a $200m capacity, Baxter Ventures mostly targets patient care companies with innovative technologies. One of its most recent investments was a $38m C round co-led with MVM Life Science for biosensor system developer VitalConnect.

Baxter Ventures earlier investments include TVA Medical and KitCheck’s $15m series C round, with technologies and therapies to improve patient care globally and with a focus on therapeutic areas complementary to those of Baxter’s hospital products and renal businesses.

Sissel was previously on the founding and executive team as head of finance and business development for Veracyte, a life sciences company backed by Domain Associates, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, TPG and Versant Ventures and eventually listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Before Veracyte, she worked in the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs and completed more than $200bn in transactions for clients in the healthcare industry, including Johnson & Johnson, Genentech and Qiagen.

Sissel holds an MBA from the Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania and a BS in finance from Indiana University. She is also a chartered financial analyst.