Management Team
Erica J. Rogers
Erica Rogers is the President and CEO of Silk Road Medical. Prior to Silk Road Medical, Erica was the COO of Medicines360, a non-profit pharmaceutical company developing drugs and devices for women. Erica was the founder and CEO of Allux Medical, as well as the co-founder of Visiogen, which was acquired by Abbott Medical Optics in 2009. Erica spent over 12 years at Boston Scientific, in sales and marketing positions. She began her career in pharmaceutical sales after receiving a B.S. in zoology from San Diego State University. Erica holds five issued and 15 pending US patents in medical devices and nanotechnology.
Erica J. Rogers
President & CEO
Lucas Buchanan
Lucas Buchanan leads finance, strategy, corporate development, business development, reimbursement, commercial operations, and IT efforts for Silk Road Medical. Prior to joining the company full time in 2012, Lucas was an investment professional with The Vertical Group, the founding investor in Silk Road, where he helped lead the company through early development and financing milestones while charting the company’s commercial strategy. Also while at The Vertical Group, Lucas led investments in Atheromed (acquired by Volcano Corporation) and Lutonix (acquired by CR Bard). Lucas has also held various leadership positions in marketing and corporate development/M&A at Impax Laboratories and Medtronic and began his career at Ernst & Young Corporate Finance LLC where he advised healthcare companies on financing and M&A transactions. Lucas holds a B.A. in Economics from Duke University and an M.B.A. in Health Care Management from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Lucas Buchanan
Chief Financial Officer & Chief Operating Officer
Andrew S. Davis
Andrew Davis joined Silk Road Medical in May of 2015 and is the Chief Commercial Officer. Andrew brings to Silk Road Medical over 20 years of experience in the medical device field with deep expertise in launching innovative, minimally invasive therapies that increase patient access and solve unmet clinical needs in cardiovascular diseases. Prior to joining Silk Road Medical, Andrew was the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Acelity’s Advanced Wound Therapy Group. Prior to Acelity, he spent 15yrs at Medtronic and held Vice President of Sales positions for Structural Heart CoreValve, Endovascular AAA/TAA, Peripheral and Spinal/Biologics divisions. Andrew began his career in pharmaceutical sales at Johnson and Johnson after receiving a B.S. in Political Science from Florida State University.
Andrew S. Davis
Chief Commercial Officer
Kevin Klemz
Kevin Klemz joined Silk Road Medical in August 2022 as our Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary. Kevin brings over 35 years of legal experience, having spent the last 15 years as Chief Legal Officer to 3 different companies in the medtech sector. Most recently, Kevin served as EVP and Chief Legal Officer at Vyaire Medical, a global leader in the respiratory therapies space. For the 10 years prior to Vyaire Medical, Kevin was Chief Legal Officer at two different high-growth, public medtech companies. Tornier NV was a leader in the orthopedic extremities space prior to its acquisition by Wright Medical in 2015. ev3 was a leader in the peripheral vascular and neurovascular markets before its 2010 acquisition by Covidien plc. Kevin spent the first 20 years of his professional career in the private practice of law at the national law firm of Oppenheimer Wolff and Donnelly (now Fox Rothschild LLP). In the past, Kevin has also served on the Board of Directors of Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare. Kevin holds a B.A. in Business Administration from Hamline University and a J.D from William Mitchell College of Law.
Kevin Klemz
Chief Legal Officer & Corporate Secretary
Richard Ruedy
Ric Ruedy joined Silk Road in 2011 and is the Executive Vice President of Clinical and Regulatory Affairs, and Quality Assurance. Ric brings to Silk Road Medical 25 years of experience in the Regulatory, Clinical and Quality areas for both multi-national corporations and venture-backed start-ups. Prior to Silk Road Medical, Ric served as Vice President of Regulatory, Clinical and Quality for Nevro Corporation and, earlier, at Cardica, Inc. Ric also served as Director of Regulatory Affairs at Abbott Vascular, where he obtained the second carotid stent approval in the United States. Ric is a co-founder of Acta Vascular (acquired by Covidien) and held positions of increasing responsibility at Edwards Lifescienses, Medtronic, TriPath Imaging (acquired by Becton Dickinson), and Parallax Medical (acquired by Arthrocare). Ric has a B.A. in English and International Relations from Bucknell University.
Richard Ruedy
Executive Vice President of Clinical, Regulatory Affairs & QA
Bill Whealon
Bill Whealon joined Silk Road Medical in September of 2020 as Executive Vice President of Research and Development. Prior to joining Silk Road Medical, Bill was Vice President of R&D for the Peripheral Vascular business at Medtronic. He was responsible for product development across three worldwide sites and supported the entire peripheral vascular portfolio as well as being responsible for all new product development, both organic and inorganic, for the peripheral vascular business. Bill has a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Wisconsin Madison and holds over 15 issued patents. Bill previously founded and owned his own company and spent time in the electronics industry with Seagate, where he received black belt certifications in both Design for Six Sigma and Six Sigma.
Bill Whealon
Executive Vice President, Research & Development
Alison Highlander
Alison joined Silk Road Medical in late 2017 as its first Vice President of Human Resources. Alison brings over 20 years of HR leadership in both start-up and large multinational corporations leading recruitment, total rewards, employee engagement and organizational development activities. Prior to joining Silk Road, Alison was the Vice President of Human Resources at Roche Molecular Diagnostics, the leader and pioneer in the field of molecular diagnostic testing. At Roche, Alison also held positions in both the US and Switzerland developing compensation, performance and recognition programs to ensure the recruitment and retention of talent necessary to ensure business success. Prior to Roche, Alison worked at SRI International and two of its spin-off companies including SRI Consulting and Atomic Tangerine.
Alison Highlander
Vice President, Human Resources
Tammy Leitsinger
Compliance Officer & Vice President, Medical Affairs
Dr. Sumaira Macdonald
Sumaira Macdonald, MD, PhD is the Executive Medical Director at Silk Road Medical. Prior to joining Silk Road Medical Inc., Dr. Macdonald was a Vascular Radiologist and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at Newcastle University and the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Dr. Macdonald is well regarded for her career-long efforts to improve endovascular interventions. In addition to being the Co-Editor of the Springer “Carotid Stenting; A Practical Guide”, Dr. Macdonald has authored over 70 medical publications on vascular disease, is the recipient of many academic society honors, serves on the editorial boards of a number of scientific journals and is highly sought after as a speaker, having given over 300 international lectures.
Dr. Sumaira Macdonald
Executive Medical Director
Julia Anastas
Julia Anastas joined Silk Road Medical in May 2020 and brings with her over 25 years of regulatory affairs experience in medical devices, serving in both large organizations and small start-ups. Julia most recently served as Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at BTG plc, a specialist healthcare company focused on interventional medicine, where she was responsible for the Interventional Vascular and Interventional Pulmonology groups. Prior to BTG Julia led regulatory affairs groups supporting a variety of therapy areas including bariatrics, reproductive medicine, diabetes, urology, and virology. However, the majority of her career has been spent supporting interventional vascular devices, including positions held at Abbott Vascular and Guidant Corp., where she authored the PMA for the first FDA-approved carotid stent system. Julia holds a B.A. in Chemistry and Master of Public Health degrees, both from Boston University.
Julia Anastas
Vice President, Regulatory
Alex Au-Yeung
Alex Au-Yeung is the Vice President of Healthcare Economics and Reimbursement. Prior to joining Silk Road Medical in November 2019, Alex was with Medtronic for 17 years on the Health Economics, Policy and Payment team supporting the global Coronary, Aortic, Peripheral and Venous businesses. Alex held various leadership functions responsible for developing and executing global health economic and reimbursement strategic plans. Alex also has 13 years’ experience working for Kaiser Permanente in the Central Office, Hawaii, Northern California and Mid-Atlantic Regions supporting the Medicare Claims Compliance and Medicare Administration functions.
Alex holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of California at Davis and a M.P.H. from the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. Alex is also a certified interventional radiology and cardiovascular coder (CIRCC) and a certified professional coder (CPC).
Alex Au-Yeung
Vice President, Healthcare Economics & Reimbursement
Mhairi Jones
Vice President, Finance and Chief Accounting Officer
Matthew McCarthy
Matt McCarthy joined Silk Road Medical in November of 2019 as VP of Marketing and brings with him over 20 years of marketing and general management experience. Matt joined Silk Road Medical from Nevro, where he served as Sr. Director of Marketing & Professional Education. Prior to Nevro, Matt led the marketing & professional education groups at TriVascular until its acquisition by Endologix. Matt started his medical device marketing career at Medtronic, where he managed various product lines in the company’s vascular division. In addition to his experience in the medical device industry, Matt also served as President and CEO of AMFS, a privately held medical expert witness business.
Matt holds an MBA from the Darden School at the University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Commerce from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.
Matthew McCarthy
Vice President, Marketing
Robert Nicholas
Vice President, Operations & Engineering
Shari Rideout
Vice President, Quality
Frances Versprille
Frances Versprille leads Commercial Operations and Analytics. Prior to joining Silk Road Medical, Frances held various Analytics and Commercial Operations leadership roles at Cardinal Health, Johnson & Johnson and Biocompatibles Ltd. (now BTG Interventional Medicine). Frances has more than 20 years’ experience in medical device companies focused on vascular intervention, using her quantitative background to improve the predictability of the outcomes of business decisions and processes. Frances is Six Sigma Blackbelt certified and holds a BS in Finance and an MBA with a concentration in statistics and psychometrics from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA.