Adam Torres and Lisa Suennen discuss the Milken Institute Global Conference.
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Show Notes:
Listen to Milken Institute Global Conference coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Lisa Suennen, Managing Partner, American Heart Association Ventures, explore venture capital and the Milken Institute Global Conference.
About Lisa Suennen
Lisa Suennen is a dynamic leader with deep, multifaceted experience across the entire healthcare continuum—including digital health, health IT, payers, providers, health services, medical devices, and pharma. Her career spans the full spectrum of the business landscape, having served as an executive and operations leader, venture investor, strategy consultant, and board member.
Lisa describes her expertise as a “Rubik’s Cube of healthcare knowledge”—a multidimensional framework that enables her to adapt quickly and think holistically about new challenges. Her strength lies in her ability to synthesize insights from multiple disciplines and apply them in innovative, practical ways.
With this unusually broad perspective, Lisa has a deep understanding of how the various sectors of healthcare interact, the economics that drive them, and the incentives that motivate decision-makers. She brings a rare blend of strategic insight, operational know-how, and board-level governance to every endeavor she touches.
About American Heart Association Ventures
The American Heart Association (AHA) is the nation’s oldest and largest voluntary organization dedicated to combating heart disease and stroke. As a leading force for healthier lives, the AHA champions good health through advocacy, education, and community engagement.
With a focus on promoting positive behaviors, nutritious eating habits, and active lifestyles, the organization also invests in cutting-edge cardiovascular research and professional training programs to advance the science and practice of heart health.
The AHA is committed to having a profound and lasting impact—empowering individuals and families to save lives, live healthier, and find greater peace of mind when it comes to cardiovascular well-being.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today my guest is Lisa Sunan and she is a managing partner over at American Heart Association Ventures.
Lisa, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. It’s a delight to be here. Alright, so for those that are listening and haven’t been tuning into the entire series, this interview is gonna be part of our Milken, global Milken Institute Global conference coverage that so Mission Matters was in attendance at the in Beverly Hills, and Lisa was also.
And so I guess first thing, first, Lisa, was this your first time in the conference or have you been in the past, like, interested to hear your experience? No, I’ve been several times. I’ve been as an attendee. I’ve been as a speaker several times, and that’s always very much worth the time and very interesting content.
what keeps you coming back? Like lots of ways you could spend your time. Lots of things you could do. Lord knows there’s no shortages of conferences, but I’ll tell you, this is a, mainstay for me every year. It’s already blocked off for next year. I think if they’ve announced the date, yeah, they have to check my calendar.
But what keeps you coming back? Yeah, it’s highly relevant to me too. I mean, it’s just I like really two things about it. One is the mix of people in my industry who are. Powerful and influential and hard to meet with are there. And so you can really efficiently, you know, talk to people who are quite meaningful to the work we do.
Mm-hmm. And the other reason is because there’s so many people from other industries and I think I spend way too much time buried in my own. And sometimes it’s good to learn and learn things from other fields and from people who influence those. And so I really enjoy the opportunity to do that. Yeah, you know what?
I never thought about that, but I sat in on some talks with some other things that had I not attended, maybe I didn’t even, I didn’t even know they were a thing at that moment, you know, like, all right, I heard of it, but I wanted to like, and it’s fun to be able to just pop into a room or a session and to have like, you know, world renowned experts in X, Y, Z topic, right?
Like, you know, you’re not gonna get some something that it’s vetted, let’s say. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. Let’s get a little bit into American Heart Association ventures. So maybe start off by telling us a little more about the organization. Sure. So we’re a part of the American Heart Association, which most people know mm-hmm.
Organization dedicated to advancing. The good health of all people, especially around cardiovascular disease and brain health. Mm-hmm. The Ventures program is a, well, platform of four different venture funds or venture programs that really are designed to help ensure that great science and clinical knowhow translate from research and academia and other places to.
Commercial, great companies that can serve patients. So it’s kind of the last mile, if you will, of getting good science, good technology, good clinical thinking into the hands of clinicians and others who can help patients. Hmm. And I guess now as we’ve been talking and we’ve kind of been exploring like what would be interesting to bring to the audience maybe a growing focus on, health for women.
Can you maybe speak a little bit on that like, and how maybe even women’s health differs from health for women? Yeah. I mean, it’s such an interesting words are everything right, and it’s so interesting. To yeah, really in the word business to think about this, I mean, how women’s health, when people hear those terms, they often think about things that are under a bikini.
So gynecological health, you know, breast cancer, things like that. But really health for women is their whole body, their whole or set of organs, their whole being, and their whole genetic and biological makeup, as well as their social environment that affects their biological and, health makeup.
Mm-hmm. The Go Red for Women Fund is focused on advancing as I said, great science and innovation through investing in companies that are serving the health of women and that. You know, when we think about this, we think about it through the cancer, the lens of cardiovascular disease brain health and related conditions that might include such things as autoimmune disorders, which cause significant increases in heart disease and, and are primarily 80% of them are born by women.
Mm-hmm. Which encompass things like mental health and dementia, brain disorders that affect. Women far more frequently than men mm-hmm. That affect, that address things such as heart disease in women, which presents itself often very differently than a dozen men. Mm-hmm. And even things like ol gynecological conditions like endometriosis or polycystic ovary syndrome, which cause significant increases in stroke and cardiovascular risk.
So we think about it very broadly and think about it. Our role as that of advancing solutions to those problems so women can lead healthier lives. Hmm. And I know this may sound like a basic question, but I’m newer to this part, and specifically with the, with the Heart Association like Uhhuh and being involved in venture capital.
Like why is the Heart Association committing the V to venture capital? Sure. Well, first of all, it’s, it’s really not uncommon, and I think it’s nothmm widely known, but it’s not uncommon for large nonprofit organizations to be in the venture capital world. Mm-hmm. If you look around you know, like the, large diabetes foundations, the Cancer Society, the Leukemia, lymphoma Society, all of these have venture initiatives.
It’s not mm-hmm. Unique to us. Why we do it is because this allows us the lever to ensure that the work we do on the science side of things, the research side of things ultimately finds its way to patients. Mm-hmm. If it sits in a. If research and science live only in academic journals or in the minds of, great medical thinkers, but never get into the hands of physicians or other clinicians to help people, it hasn’t done its full job.
So we’re there to close that loop. Hmm. And so can you give maybe some examples of what closing that loop looks like? And it could be in general, it could be what a name or not a name, but just an example of what does closing the loop look like? Or could it look like? Sure. Well just imagine if you will, that the people discovered that when somebody’s arteries are occluded in their heart mm-hmm.
Are closed up. Right. And that might cause a heart attack. And it used to be that you, in order to solve that problem, you had to cut open somebody’s chest. Yeah. And do you know, significant hand done sewing of arteries to open them up mm-hmm. And close it all back up left. Big scar, lots of risks. Yeah.
All the things. People still do that. And in some patient cases, patients need that. Somewhere along the line was discovered that you might be able to do these procedures using stents. You know, these little tubes that can go into the arteries to prop them open, and that you could reach those places in the heart by go threading little catheters, little wires if you will, up through the arteries of the body without cracking open the chest.
Well, that research was done many, many years ago, but it took a long time for that to find its way into products. So it, so some, the research was validated then people developed products to make it possible, repeatable, sustainable, so you could get physicians doing those procedures. In this case, mostly cardiologists.
So you could cure these conditions in a totally different kind of way that’s often much easier, safer, and also by the way, less expensive to the healthcare system. Mm-hmm. So it really hits a trifecta of good for many patients. Yeah. And so that last bit, getting into making sure that that great science turns into great products that people can use to help patients is what we’re about.
That’s amazing. And I, and thank you for the clear explanation. ’cause I, I knew this existed, but like I said, I’ve visited, actually this might be the first interview I’ve done with the VC arm, so to speak, an institution like this. We’ve had conversations about other things, but not that piece of it.
So that’s interesting to see how that, how that plays out. switching up a bit here. I got a little bonus question here for you. Okay. Re regenerative philanthropy. Can you help, define that one for me and give, give me some insight? Yeah, sure. So, regenerative philanthropy is the idea that if you donate a dollar mm-hmm.
It can be used and generate even more money. So you think about it as leveraged capital. And so how we fund our funds mostly is through using donations. So not the way traditional venture capital funds have been funded with one exception. We have one fund that is funded by investors who get a return, but mostly our funds are funded by donors and they donate because they believe in the mission of heart association and they’re interested in.
What I’m talking about, this idea of getting things all the way to market getting great science and, and research all the way to market. So when somebody donates to a fund of ours, let’s just say it’s the Go Red for Women fund we talked about earlier. Mm-hmm. And we invest that in a company and let’s just say that company is successful and someday is sold.
For a profit to some other company. Mm-hmm. When the returns come to us for the portion we own, through our investment, that regenerate in the more capital for the fund so we can keep going and do even more. Mm-hmm. So this idea that, you know, you can leverage your capital to regenerate more capital, not just a one time donation, but the prospect of it continuing to live on is how we fund most of our funds.
That’s amazing. I feel like it’s got, like, there’s just layers of good there, right. Especially if they’re aligned with the mission and what and what you’re trying to accomplish. So that’s, that’s amazing. Yeah, we think so. I mean, it’s a real big opportunity. how do people get involved?
Like what type of supporters are you looking for for these venture initiatives? Like, how does somebody know if they’re a good fit? First of all, if they believe in the mission and they have an affinity to support you know, charitable use of dollars for heart disease improvement, brain disease improvement, women’s health or health for women social determinants of health, you know, companies that deliver those kinds of services to people that give them a chance at healthier life.
All of those things are if you have an affinity to improving health for people, I. In the United States primarily. Mm-hmm. And you’d like to do that in a way that’s, you know, takes advantage of this regenerative approach. You’re a fit. Yeah. And most of the donors we have they’re not all, you know, putting in millions of dollars or anything like that.
Some of them are putting in. Thousands of dollars. Some of them are putting in hundreds of thousands of dollars. So it really just depends. But the Heart Association has donors of all sizes, people that jump rope at schools and people who give millions. Right. And mm-hmm. We’re interested and eager to help anyone interested in supporting our cause to do that.
And if the way you’d like to do it is through the venture funds, we’re thrilled to to hear from you no matter what your commitment. Amazing. And how do people connect? How do they follow up? Well, we do have a website for American Heart Association Ventures on that website. And I, I’ll send you this website so you can post it for your viewers if you like.
Mm-hmm. there’s a link you can support the fund that way. And if you wish to have somebody contact you, you can have somebody contact you, but we’re. Very accessible. We’re very out there in the public and we’re very excited to spread the word. You know, as these funds grow, we really wanna build an rrb of supporters to ensure that we can reach as many people as possible.
People do not realize that quite a vascular disease is the number one killer of Americans and others. And in the case of women, for instance, it’s seven times as more. Prevalent is breast cancer a woman’s death from heart disease? But for all people, the statistics are not good. And if you look at the opportunity to make a difference for patients this is a really powerful way to do it.
Fantastic, and we’re already listening. Just so you know. We’ll definitely put the links in the show notes, so you can just click on the link and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show. Each and every day I’m bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way on your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Lisa, thanks again for coming on the show. Really appreciate the opportunity to do so.
