Kathryn Zavala

Kathryn Zavala, PhD, is Chief Operating Officer of MedTech Innovator, the largest accelerator of medical devices in the world. In 2016, she helped spin the nonprofit entity out of the venture capital firm where it was founded and has been instrumental in expanding the organization. To date, MedTech Innovator has supported 612 alumni that have gone on to raise over $7 billion in follow-on equity funding, brought over 300 products to market, and achieved 45 acquisitions. In 2021, Kathryn launched and now serves as Managing Director of BioTools Innovator, a new program powered by MedTech Innovator to support life science tools.

Kathryn previously held positions at the UCLA Technology Development Group, where she assisted with the commercialization of university technologies, and at Campbell Alliance (now Syneos Health), where she developed launch strategies for biopharma clients. Kathryn received a Bachelor’s degree in Molecular and Cell Biology and Rhetoric from UC Berkeley and a PhD in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology from UCLA.