The Team at Volv Global SA

The Team

Christopher M de M Rudolf, Founder & CEOData Science, AI, and Data are the lifeblood of Volv Global SA, and with Christopher's extensive experience and vision in medical informatics, his aim is to bring precision, evidenced-based inSight to the market.

Christopher has over 30 years' experience as a technology entrepreneur and business advisor, having worked for many Blue-Chip organisations helping solve their critical global scale data problems.

Highlights of his distinguished career include:

The development of a new target operating model for a large UK Pharma that helped to decrease overall inventory by $750m.
The design and set up of a drug pipeline budget management capability for a large European Vaccines company with a budget of over €500m.
Master data and data governance monitoring and management system was specified, designed and implemented by him for a large pharmaceutical client.
As Head of EMEA Life Sciences for CSC he was awarded CSC Ingenious Mind with Dr Robert Wah.
Christopher is a visiting professor at 2 leading universities in Switzerland, EPFL and UNIL, teaching executive management on cutting-edge approaches to create value from data and dealing with current issues in data management.
A client was awarded Innovative Business of the Year based on his innovative technology to manage a very large multi-lingual outsource for British Airways.
Christopher developed what became best-in-class global forecasting models for Nokia for several years running. It was quoted as being “second to none” according to the Financial Times Lex column at the time.

He has dual Austrian/UK nationality and currently resides in Lausanne, Switzerland with his family. Outside of work, he enjoys music, skiing, hiking, walking Otto and cooking.

Rich Colbaugh, Co-Founder & Head of Data ScienceRich Colbaugh works with Volv Global SA developing knowledge discovery and prediction systems for human health applications.

Previously Rich was a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories, Professor of both Management and Mechanical Engineering at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, and co-founder and Chief Scientist of the ICASA Institute at New Mexico Tech.

His scientific work has been recognized through research and best paper awards from NASA, DoD, DOE, IEEE, ACM, SIAM, AACC, ASME, and SCI, and has been successfully deployed in numerous high-consequence settings.

He has received teaching awards from ASME and ASEE, and taught short courses on data science at the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Immediately after the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 he was asked by senior leadership within the US DoD to head an interdisciplinary team in the development of computational techniques for discovering and assessing terrorist-related threats.

Rich received BS (Honours) and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Robotics at the California Institute of Technology.

He is an avid runner, and divides his time between Santa Fe, USA and Sithonia, Greece.

Kristin Glass, Co-Founder & Head of Computational ScienceKristin Glass works with Volv Global SA developing knowledge discovery and prediction systems for human health applications.

Previously Kristin was a Principal Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories, Professor of Computer Science at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Principal Investigator at the National Center for Genome Resources, and co-founder and Senior Scientist of the Institute for Complex Adaptive Systems Analysis at New Mexico Tech.

Her scientific work has been recognized through research and best paper awards from NASA, DoD, DOE, IEEE, ACM, and SIAM. She has served as an Editor for the International Journal of Robotics and Automation and the Proceedings of Complex 2012, and as a reviewer for the National Science Foundation.

She has taught short courses on analytics for discovery and prediction at the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Kristin received BS Degrees in Quantitative Business Analysis and Computer Science from The Pennsylvania State University, MS and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Engineering from New Mexico State University, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Robotics at the California Institute of Technology.

She divides her time between Santa Fe, USA and Sithonia, Greece, and in her spare time enjoys swimming, hiking, and reading.

Mike Musson, Commercial DirectorMike Musson works with Volv Global SA developing all aspects of its unique go to market proposition and manages our commercial sales activities.

I am a chemistry graduate and qualified accountant, with 25 years of enterprise sales and sales management experience. I had the opportunity to work with IBM and completed the full sales training academy before moving into enterprise sales. I then spent several years at SAP working on their next generation mobility services where I was a top performer. Following that, I decided to bring my skills to bear in a completely different category of companies: tech start-ups, working to generate the sales pipelines and closing large deals that helped bring their growth and success.

I joined Volv Global for two reasons: the excellence of the team and the compelling business proposition. I am looking forward to being part of a winning team driving a revolution in biopharmaceuticals.

Christopher Rudolf adds:

"Mike is a core member of our team, who brings immense capabilities to help shape solutions that deliver value and make robust commercial sense, for our partners and customers."

In my spare time I love training for my occasional marathons, weightlifting, and am an avid reader.

Léon van Wouwe, Clinical Innovation DirectorLéon van Wouwe is bringing his clinical development and operational experience to Volv Global SA, to help build bridges between the applied data science solutions the Data Science Team develops and the drug developers, clinical researchers, clinicians, and patients.

Léon has over 20 years of experience working for several different pharmaceutical and health technology companies in a variety of global, regional, and local clinical development and operational roles. Throughout his career, he has taken a creative, keen interest in tackling the numerous challenges in developing healthcare solutions, engaging and inspiring people and teams to take a strong cross-functional and cross-disciplinary approach to drive forward the development of and access to innovative new treatment options for patients.

Born and raised in The Netherlands, Léon holds an MSc Degree in Biology, specialising in Medical Biology, graduating from Leiden University. Besides living in The Netherlands, he has resided and worked in various European countries, including the UK, Germany, and Switzerland. Outside work, his favourite pastimes include skiing, hiking, and water sports which he enjoys with his family.

Heidi Bezzant, Chief of StaffHeidi is bringing her clear-sighted, strategic, and organisational skills to help create a company that our team can be proud of and share together as we break new ground in medical informatics.

She qualified with a BSc in Geography and Ecology and she is still passionate about sustainability and the environment. In her career, she was responsible for opening and establishing two new technology consulting businesses in the UK, which included supporting the delivery of projects as well as managing all of the back office and company affairs.

With over 25 years of experience and knowledge, she now has the pleasure of sharing with others what she has learned with a focus on culture, values, and sustainable growth.

She is a UK citizen and currently residing in Lausanne, Switzerland with her family. Outside of work, Heidi spends time with her family and friends, reading, travelling, skiing, hiking, walking Otto, and being in, on, or beside the sea.

Adel Mezine, Senior Technical Data ScientistAdel contributes to improving Volv's inTrigue solution to help diagnose patients with rare diseases; in our Data Science Team, he plays a vital role in our innovation strategy regarding technology and methodology.

Adel has recently joined the Volv Data Science team as a Senior Data Scientist in January 2022. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science with a background in artificial intelligence and software engineering.

His Ph.D. work focused on developing AI approaches to recommend experiments to help biologists model complex gene regulatory interactions. For five years, he developed his know-how by achieving several data science projects, mainly in IoT and the life science industry.

He is a French citizen living in Geneva with his wife. He likes hiking, biking, and playing board game with his relatives.

Vasiliki Liakoni, Senior Data ScientistVassia Liakoni has recently joined Volv Global SA as the latest member of its growing data science team. Her experience in neuroscience and interest in many of the innovative areas of AI that Volv works on, as well as her unbridled enthusiasm, means that she is a powerful addition to the team.

Vassia holds an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, an M.Sc. in Life Sciences and Technology, and a Ph.D. in Computational Neuroscience, obtained over a 14-year period of study at the NTUA (Athens) and EPFL (Lausanne).

During her Ph.D. she worked on reinforcement and on surprise-derived learning, developing novel algorithms that detect changes and adapt efficiently to new situations, and identifying signatures of such algorithms in human brain recordings and behaviour. Her two main projects have both been published in peer-reviewed journals, in the fields of computational neuroscience, learning, and neuroimaging.

Previously, she was a research engineer in a Swiss-based brain-technology start-up, working at the intersection of neuroscience, biosensing, engineering, mixed reality, and AI, and she conducted the initial validation of the company’s technology.
Throughout the course of her studies and working career, she has worked with a wide range of high-dimensional datasets (such as electronic medical records) and machine learning techniques, as well as with EEG and FMRI technologies.

She is passionate about finding ways that AI can be deployed in the service of humanity.

Vassia has a passion for chocolate and enjoys reading literature, running, and spending time with friends and loved ones.

Otto von Whippet, Chief Well-being OfficerAs well-being of the team is of paramount importance, I ensure that I am available to help the team whenever or however they need me.

By setting an example with my exemplary behaviour, social skills, and calm presence I ensure the team can perform to the best standards, with the least amount of stress. I may occasionally need to join in with a conference call, and can generally be relied upon to help everyone by letting them play ball or have a cuddle with me.

I am a German citizen and currently residing in Lausanne, Switzerland with my family. Outside of work, my time is spent with my family and other whippet friends, travelling, chasing toboggans, sprinting, walking or sleeping, and being on a paddleboard on a lake or the sea.

Kim Ribbink, Associate Content WriterKim is a long-standing member and a vital component of the wider Volv team. We have come to rely on her intuitive and erudite grasp of our often-nebulous ideas, which she turns into something worth reading with her usual patient, wise, and enthusiastic nature.

Kim has been working with Volv since 2020, helping to develop thought leadership articles and blogs, writing press releases, and generally writing Volv content for both internal and external purposes.

Kim has more than 20 years of experience as a writer and editor in the life sciences industry. Previously, she was a journalist, working for daily newspapers and magazines in the UK and Australia, and before becoming a freelance copywriter in 2001, worked for the Dow Jones Business News in the U.S. She has a Degree in English from the University of Cape Town and an Honours Degree in Sustainability, with a focus on public-private partnerships for developing world diseases, from Murdoch University in Perth, Australia.

Kim is an Australian citizen and lives in Perth, Australia with her husband, an ageless cat, and two Bernese Mountain Dogs, which by rights should make her an honorary Swiss citizen. She is also a triathlete, loves travelling, reading, music, and theatre.