Our Board of Trustees
The governing body of Global Heart Hub is the Trustee Board, which currently has six members. In addition to playing a significant role in governance, the board is responsible for strategic planning, supervision, and accountability.
Kevin O’Reilly
Global Heart Hub Board of Trustees – Chair
About Kevin O’Reilly
Kevin O’Reilly is a retired senior Human Resources Executive who spent many years working in the Medical Device Industry. Since retirement, he has dedicated his time to charitable and not-for-profit enterprises and became the first Chairman of the Global Heart Hub in 2020. There is a history of stroke and cardiac disease in his extended family, and this has given him first-hand experience of the needs of the patient and in particular the need to educate, empower and support patients to help achieve better outcomes for them. He is passionate about his commitment to helping make this happen.
Ellen Ross
Global Heart Hub Trustee
About Ellen Ross
Having devoted more than 15 years to the not-for-profit sector, Ellen is passionate about building partnerships that positively impact health outcomes. Prior to joining HVVC, Ellen spent 12 years at the Heart and Stroke Foundation working to develop health information resources that inform, educate and engage patients. She developed partnerships and managed campaigns to raise awareness that heart disease and stroke are the #1 cause of premature death of women in Canada.
Prior to following her passion for health and patient advocacy, Ellen spent several years as a senior marketing professional with large global companies including American Express and General Mills Restaurants.Over the course of her career, Ellen has accumulated a rich blend of experience in health promotion, patient engagement, corporate partnerships, marketing strategy, and business leadership.
Ellen is currently Chair of the Heart Valve Disease Council for the Global Heart Hub, uniting over fifteen heart valve disease patient organizations across the globe.
Ellen’s commitment to cardiovascular health and patient support is grounded in a strong family history of CVD.
Pat O’Donnell
Global Heart Hub Trustee
About Pat O’Donnell
Pat retired in April of 2018 and is happy to find himself in the position to give something back to the local community. He is an active volunteer and joined the Board of Global Heart Hub in 2022. He is also a Board member with both the heart and stroke charity Croí and Western Alzheimer’s while also doing volunteer work with the Irish Cancer Society and the GAA.
In 2014, Pat underwent a heart by-pass operation following the diagnosis of close to complete blockage of the main artery on the left side of his heart. Following surgery, he has made a full recovery introducing lifestyle changes consistent with improved cardiovascular health.
Pat enjoys keeping fit and plays golf, is a daily sea-swimmer and enjoys cycling and gym training. He believes strongly in the huge value of purposeful focus, has studied the area of mindfulness, meditates each morning and has worked with helping others, on a voluntary basis, to engage in regular meditation.
Susan Campbell
Global Heart Hub Trustee
About Susan Campbell
Ms. Campbell received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters in Public Health from the UCLA School of Public Health. She began her career providing direct health care services in an out-patient clinic in Houston, Texas, a clinic for migrant farmworkers in Wisconsin, and a health education setting in North Philadelphia.
Susan Hennessy
Global Heart Hub Trustee
About Susan Hennessy
Having originally studied and practiced as a general nurse, Susan found herself specialising in coronary care nursing, which prompted her passion for CVD upstream prevention, health promotion, and the reduction of health inequalities in the context of CVD. This led to the pursuit of a master’s degree in Health Services Research and after, a PhD in Cardiovascular Epidemiology Modelling, in the University of Galway. Susan, alongside her team, pioneered a number of notable changes in the West of Ireland, acting as a lynchpin for systemic change to enable effective delivery of CVD care in a region once deprived of accessible services.
Susan’s 30 years of experience spanning across, clinical, managerial, and research fields in Scotland, England, Ireland, and most recently the United States, has allowed her to gain incredible insight into the current burden of CVD in a unique national, and global context.
Susan is passionate about the patient voice, and is delighted to be given the opportunity to maintain this as a central focus in her work with the Global Heart Hub.
Rick Russell
Global Heart Hub Trustee
About Rick Russell
Rick Russell is the co-founder and CEO of Tract Bio, a company focused on discovering and developing novel therapies to transform the treatment of cancer and inflammatory disease. Tract Bio’s breakthrough stem cell cloning platform, stemECHO™ is a proprietary technology that allows scientists at the company to clone epithelial stem cells that drive the growth of inflammation and cancer. The cloning platform is being used to identify potential treatments that target pathogenic stem cells in gastric, esophageal, lung and ovarian cancer as well as in chronic inflammatory diseases such as cystic fibrosis, IPF and COPD.
Previously, Rick served as president of Minerva Neurosciences, a publicly traded clinical stage pharmaceutical company (Nasdaq: NERV). He successfully led Minerva through three phase-2 studies for assets in depression and insomnia and a pivotal phase-3 trial for its lead asset, Roluperidone, which treats symptoms of schizophrenia. Prior to joining Minerva, Rick was President and Chief Executive Officer of Ares Allergy (AAH). In this role, he managed a private equity portfolio of three small biotechnology companies backed by the Bertarelli family through Waypoint Capital. Under Rick’s leadership, the portfolio consolidated into one operating company, Greer Laboratories. Rick merged Greer Laboratories with a publicly traded European company, Stallergenes, to create Stallergenes Greer, a unified global leader and innovator in allergy immunotherapy. Under Rick’s leadership, Stallergenes Greer completed two phase-3 programs for an orally administered immunotherapy to treat grass and house dust mite allergies, and launched their lead asset, Oralair, in the U.S. and Canada.
Before joining AAH, Rick led commercial operations at Sunovion/Sepracor and leveraged a portfolio of eight products to generate $1.5 billion in revenue in the U.S., Europe and Canada. He had similar successes at EMD Serono, where he managed commercial and late-stage development activities for the multiple sclerosis and immunology franchise, and at Sanofi-Aventis, where he led Plavix, one of the largest pharmaceutical products in the United States. Earlier in his career, Rick headed sales and marketing teams in the U.S. and Europe. His pharmaceutical experience spans a range of therapies for central nervous system (CNS) disorders, women’s health, cardiovascular disease and neurodegenerative disorders.
Rick holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Bates College and a M.S. in Organic
Chemistry from the University of New Hampshire.
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