March 10, 2016 – Dr. Bernie Bressler, Board Chair, is delighted to announce the addition of Mr. Jeff Charpentier, to the board of directors for the Rick Hansen Institute (RHI). He was appointed on Tuesday, March 1 during the quarterly board meeting held at RHI.
Mr. Charpentier is already a recently added member of RHI’s Audit and Finance Committee, thanks to his business and leadership experience as a senior financial executive, largely in high growth technology sectors. His financial acumen is complemented by his experience in working with early stage bio-technology companies and his familiarity with the commercialization of research. With his varied expertise Mr. Charpentier is a valuable advisor for RHI and will be integral in overseeing the board’s fiduciary responsibility. Dr. Bressler welcomes this esteemed addition to the board, whose members provide strategic guidance that supports RHI’s work towards its vision and mission.
The RHI Board of Directors agreed to appoint Mr. Charpentier earlier than the usual June starting point to allow Mr. Charpentier to participate in RHI’s Praxis 2016 conference on April 25-27 as an active board member.
“It’s been a pleasure working with Jeff through RHI’s Audit and Finance Committee, so I’m pleased to evolve that relationship now that he’s joined our board of directors. His insight from a bio-tech and commercialization stand-point will be a great benefit, and we’re excited to see how that will further the work that RHI does to improve the lives of those living with spinal cord injury.”
– Dr. Bernie Bressler, Chair, Board of Directors, Rick Hansen Institute
Jeff Charpentier, CPA, CA
Mr. Charpentier is a senior financial executive with a successful record of leadership, management and business accomplishments in all areas of financial management gained in a variety of businesses, primarily in high growth technology sectors. Over the past 25 years, he has experience in working with entrepreneurial oriented companies at various stages of product development through to commercialization.
Mr. Charpentier has held a series of senior financial roles at several public companies in the pharmaceutical and technology sectors where he led multiple equity financings raising in excess of $150 million and concluded a number of corporate partnering & product sale transactions. Mr. Charpentier currently serves as CFO for Proactive Immune Sciences Corporation, which provides customers with the opportunity to bank a “snapshot” of their immune system through the cryopreservation of a sample of their healthy immune cells, so that these individuals will have access to their own archived cells for potential use in personalized immune therapies to combat cancers and other immune and age related diseases. He also currently acts as a financial advisor to viDA Therapeutics Inc. where he previously served as CFO from October 2011 to February 2015. From October 2010 through to its successful sale in September 2012, Mr. Charpentier served as CFO to Lifebank Corp. Prior to joining Lifebank, Mr. Charpentier served as VP Finance & CFO for each of Inex Pharmaceuticals Corporation (1994-2004), Chromos Molecular Systems Inc. (2006-2009), and Lignol Energy Corporation (2008-2010) and as Director of Finance with Sierra Wireless Inc. (2005-2006). Prior to these roles in industry, Mr. Charpentier worked at KPMG as a tax manager and as an audit manager.
Through these various roles, Mr. Charpentier has gained significant business and international financial experience in accounting, financial reporting, corporate governance, planning and analysis, fund raising, corporate partnering & licensing, M&A, strategic planning, investor and banking relations, and risk management.
Mr. Charpentier has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of British Columbia and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia.