Leadership Team

An experienced team in the field of medical devices, business and regulatory affairs, specifically in cardiology and cardiac support.

Louis de Lillers,
CEO

Louis brings extensive experience in finance and developing or commercializing new technologies. Prior to joining CorWave, he was co-founder and CEO of PlugMed, a medtech company developing innovative devices for LVADs and hemodialysis. Being a self-trained computer programmer, Louis founded several ventures in the early 2000s and consequently joined Ernst&Young, where he embarked on missions with SMEs and high-growth companies. He subsequently became analyst at Clipperton Finance, a corporate finance boutique, focusing on mergers & acquisitions and venture capital transactions. He was then part of the information technology investment team at Sofinnova Partners. Louis graduated from EDHEC Business School with a Master in Management and holds a university degree in artificial heart and circulatory support from Pitié-Salpêtrière.

Carl Botterbusch,
CTO

Carl brings 25 years of experience in the field of medical devices and expertise in mechanical circulatory support. He has served as Vice President of Global R&D for Teleflex Medical, a $1.5Bn healthcare firm, leading all R&D activities at 6 locations worldwide. He has also served as Vice President, R&D and General Manager, Cardiac Assist Division for Arrow International, a $500M medical device firm. His areas of expertise include mechanical cardiac support, cardiac catheters and access devices, critical care and anesthesia catheters and antimicrobial coatings. He is a degreed Mechanical Engineer and holds a Master of Business Administration. Carl provides overall technical and strategic direction to the project. He brings many years of direct experience in this field, having previously led the development of two left ventricular assist devices (LVAD), including the LionHeart, the only totally implantable LVAD to receive regulatory approval (CE Mark) to date.

Zina Hamoumi,
CFO

Zina brings more than 15 years of experience in corporate finance and accounting, including 7 years in the life sciences sector. She started her career at PwC in the audit practice, before moving to operational roles at Mexx (retail) and then Lundbeck France (pharmaceuticals), where she was Head of Finance and Logistics, overseeing financial operations that included sales, production, and R&D activities. She subsequently joined Victoria Beckham Ltd (fashion/retail) in London in 2014 as Finance Director. She supported the fast-growing business, put in place solid financial processes, and played an instrumental role in setting up a private equity round of funding. Zina holds an Msc in Management from EM Lyon business school.

Paul Cornelison,
Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, Quality Assurance & Clinical Affairs

Paul brings 30 years of experience in the field of medical device regulatory affairs, quality assurance and clinical operations. Prior to joining the company, he managed 10 first-in-human trials in the USA and in Europe, conducted 5 Early Feasibility Studies (EFS) in conjunction with FDA and 5 CE Mark trials, and obtained more than 20 CE Marks and 15 Premarket Approvals (PMA) from FDA. During his 30-year career, he has gained a unique expertise in implantable cardiac devices. Former VP RAQACA of CardiAQ Valve Technologies, a transcatheter valve start-up acquired by Edwards Lifesciences for $350 million, he has also developed an extensive knowledge of cardiac assist devices (first at Arrow, then at Abbott as a consultant) and cardiac active implantable medical devices (notably at Telectronics, now Abbott’s Cardiac Rhythm Management division). He holds a Master’s degree in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania (The School of Engineering and Applied Science, and The Wharton School).

Trevor Snyder, PhD,
Vice President, Research and Product Innovation

Trevor brings more than 20 years of experience in the research, development, and clinical engineering of mechanical circulatory support. He has authored over 20 peer-reviewed publications on medical device development and biocompatibility and has been the Principal Investigator for over $10M in National Institutes of Health and American Heart Association grants. Prior to joining CorWave, he was Vice President, R&D for VADovations, a company developing implantable blood pumps for pediatric and adult indications. Trevor previously served as a Clinical Engineer at three VAD programs, INTEGRIS Health, University of Maryland Medical Center, and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, supporting over 600 VAD patients on over a dozen types of VADs and Artificial Hearts. He has conducted pre-clinical biocompatibility testing on over 25 medical devices, including 12 different VADs. Trevor received a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Tulane University and holds a PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Pittsburgh.

Michael Webb,
Vice President, Manufacturing

Michael brings over 15 years of LVAD manufacturing expertise to CorWave. Mechanical Engineer by background, he has worked on the process development and manufacturing of two different companies in the mechanical circulatory support space. These efforts contributed to the support of over 18,000 heart failure patients around the world. In the early 2000s, he helped transferring the VentrAssist cardiac assist system from R&D to production as part of the launch of clinical trials in Europe, Australia and the United States. He then joined HeartWare where he contributed to the ramp-up of HVAD production, from the first commercial implants (a few hundred units per year) to fully-fledged production (several thousand units per year), leading the expansion of the Florida-based cardiac pump manufacturing plant. He was Director of Operations Engineering at HeartWare when the company was acquired for $1.1 billion by Medtronic.

Sandrine Cléré,
Human Resources Director

Sandrine holds a Master’s degree in Human Resources and Social Communication from CELSA Sorbonne University. She first held communication and human resources positions in the fields of industry at Alstom Technology, jewelry at Van Cleefs and Arpels, and medical device at Ela Medical. In 2005, she founded a start-up specializing in events for children, that she led for four years. She then progressed independently for seven years as a consultant on HR management and HR development management missions, before joining CorWave.

Eric Le Joliff,
Associate Director, Quality Assurance

Eric brings more than 15 years of experience in medical device design, development, and manufacturing in both large company and start-up environments. Prior to joining CorWave, he has had a key role in the implementation of a quality system compliant with European and North American regulations for a complex active implantable medical device. As a Nanotechnology Engineer, Eric is very accustomed to mastering complex medical products.

Charlotte Rasser, PhD,
Senior Strategy & Scientific Affairs Manager

 Charlotte joined CorWave in 2018 as Strategic Partnerships Project Leader, in charge of the CALYPSO €14M R&D collaborative program conducted with clinical and scientific teams of Lille University Hospital and Pitié-Salpêtrière University Hospital (AP-HP). Prior to joining CorWave, she completed a PhD on coronary and intracranial stents at the Laboratory for Vascular Translational Science (Bichat AP-HP Hospital and Paris Diderot University) in partnership with Balt, a high growth medtech company. A graduate from Ecole Polytechnique, Charlotte holds a Master’s degree in Materials Science from the University of Cambridge and a Certificate in Business Administration from Sorbonne Paris Cité University.