Mara Aspinall is a biotech industry executive and healthcare pioneer.

Aspinall is Managing Director of BlueStone Venture Partners.  Aspinall is the former President and CEO of Ventana Medical Systems division of Roche, worldwide leader in development and commercialization of tissue-based cancer diagnostics. With her great team worldwide, Ventana increased market share and growth globally and established itself as the world’s leading oncology companion diagnostics developer and manufacturer.

Mara previously spent 12 years as President of Genzyme Genetics and Genzyme Pharmaceuticals. The hallmark of her tenure at Genzyme was setting the industry standard for quality while growing the company at an unprecedented rate. The Genetics business was sold to LabCorp for $1 billion.

Aspinall is a member of the Board of Directors of Safeguard Scientifics (NYSE: SFE), Abcam plc (AIM: ABC), Castle Biosciences and Blue Cross Blue Shield Arizona.

In addition to running commercial enterprises, Aspinall is passionate about educating the healthcare community on the importance of diagnostics, genomics and personalized medicine. To that end, Aspinall co-founded the International School of Biomedical Diagnostics at Arizona State University, the first school dedicated entirely to Diagnostics as an independent discipline. The School awarded their first Master degrees in 2014 and will graduate 75 students this year.

Within Arizona, Aspinall is the Chair of the Arizona Biosciences Board, a CEO group focused on increasing capital in the state for innovation based technology companies. She is also a Board member of Sun Corridor and the Southern Arizona Leadership Council.

Aspinall is a frequent national speaker on healthcare related issues. She was named Arizona Biosciences Leader of the Year in 2016 and one of “100 Most Inspiring People in Life Sciences” by PharmaVOICE magazine.

Mara started her business career at the strategic consulting firm Bain & Company. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in International Relations from Tufts University.