Leadership Team

katherine stueland

Chief Executive Officer

Katherine Stueland is CEO of GeneDx, a health insights company. Katherine leads the GeneDx team in its mission to unlock insights from data, leading to healthier lives and a healthier society. She was appointed CEO of GeneDx in 2021 and also served as CEO of Sema4 after the two companies combined in 2022.

Katherine has more than 25 years of experience in the healthcare sector, overseeing multiple commercial organizations from start-up to scale-up and leading corporate brand transformations. Katherine’s career has been driven by her passion for how genomics can improve health outcomes and the importance of broadening research to diverse patient populations to advance science and patient care for all.

Prior to leading GeneDx, Katherine was the Chief Commercial Officer of Invitae Corporation, where she established the corporate brand as the company evolved from a private to a public entity with a market capitalization exceeding $6 billion. Before that, she served as Vice President of Communications and Investor Relations at Dendreon, the first company to bring an immuno-oncology product to market.

Katherine holds a Bachelor of Science in English Language and Literature from Miami University in Ohio.

jennifer brendel

Chief Commercial Officer

Jennifer (Jen) Brendel has had the privilege of working in life sciences for more than two decades across numerous aspects of healthcare, including prescription + over-the-counter medicines, devices, and diagnostics. She has held leadership roles in a variety of areas, including oncology, neurology, women’s health, cardiovascular, and genetics.

As Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) at GeneDx, Jen is responsible for accelerating growth in newborn health and pediatrics. Jen held the same position at Sema4 in 2022 following the combination of Sema4 and GeneDx. Her motivation is the opportunity to impact as many patients and families as possible while building a team culture where everyone can thrive and perform at their best.

Jen previously served as Chief Growth Officer at GeneDx, establishing the commercial function, including a salesforce expansion that drove 35% growth. Jen’s experience in genetics began at Invitae where she led the marketing organization and launched consumer and clinician advertising and promotional efforts resulting in a 100% increase in conversions.

Before joining Invitae, Jen was at Bayer and part of a core team, which redesigned the North American Consumer Health operating model to return to growth. While at Bayer, she was nominated by her teammates for a global Bayer LIFE award for Leadership. Jen went to Bayer from Pfizer, where she spent ten years on U.S., regional (based in the United Kingdom), and global teams supporting all stages of lifecycle management, including commercial launches, brand maintenance, and loss of exclusivity strategic planning and implementation.

Earlier in her career, Jen worked at global marketing communications firms and was an oncology sales representative for Tap Pharmaceuticals. She earned her BA from the University of Central Florida.

matthew davis

Chief Technology & Product Officer

Matthew Davis has more than 20 years of combined experience in enterprise product and technology development, and computer science and genetics academic research. As Chief Technology & Product Officer of GeneDx, Matthew is responsible for the strategy and development of the company’s products and the technology that underpins them, which are critical for delivering precision medicine to patients. He held the same position at Sema4 for the second half of 2022 prior to Sema4 being renamed as GeneDx.

Prior to joining GeneDx, Matthew served as Head of Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Data at Invitae, where he led strategy development and supported the engineering organization in the application of AI to problems in genetics, operations, and decision support tools for internal and external customers. He also led the unification of product and technology strategy following key acquisitions made by Invitae.

Previously, Matthew was a group leader at IBM Research where he oversaw the research and development of novel enterprise product platforms and applications to facilitate human interaction with AI systems. During his time at IBM Research, his academic research leveraged methods in AI and machine learning to solve user problems in social computing, personalization, and recommendation systems. Before that, Matthew researched computational and systems biology at UT Austin, UC Berkeley, and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, where he published work in genomics and systems biology with machine learning methods.

kevin feeley

Chief Financial Officer

Kevin Feeley has more than 20 years of finance and accounting leadership experience in the healthcare, pharmaceutical, and diagnostics sectors. As Chief Financial Officer at GeneDx, Kevin leads financial strategy, management, and planning. Kevin is also responsible for key operational aspects of the company, including lab network operations, supply chain, and genetic counseling services. He held the same position at Sema4 for the second half of 2022 prior to Sema4 being renamed as GeneDx.

Kevin previously served as Chief Financial Officer of OPKO Health’s rapidly growing diagnostics division for six years, which included BioReference Laboratories, Inc. and GeneDx. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kevin led the operational design and execution of BioReference’s sports diagnostic program serving all four major sports leagues in the U.S.

Before that, Kevin was U.S. Controller at Reckitt Benckiser, a global consumer packaged goods company focused on health, hygiene, and nutrition brands. He also previously led SEC reporting at Bausch Health Companies, a public specialty pharmaceutical company, and spent twelve years in the audit practice of KPMG LLP working closely with large multinational pharmaceutical companies.

Kevin is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a BBA in Accounting from James Madison University.

kareem saad

Chief Transformation Officer

As Chief Transformation Officer at GeneDx, Kareem Saad is responsible for strategic initiatives, corporate and business development, and emerging business activities, including overall responsibility for the company’s biopharma business line. Kareem held this same role at Sema4 prior to the company being renamed as GeneDx in January 2023. He also served as Chief Business Officer and Chief Strategy Officer at Sema4.

Prior to joining Sema4, Kareem was President and Chief Operating Officer at Apervita, Inc., overseeing its transformation to a product- and value-based care and quality measurement technology company. Kareem previously served as Chief Commercial Officer/EVP of Strategy and Business Development at SourceMed, a PE-backed healthcare IT and services company focused on delivering practice management technology solutions to the outpatient market, where he led a series of transactions that culminated in the sale and merger of the company with Surgical Information Systems.

Kareem also served as a Director in Dell’s Healthcare and Life Sciences division, where he was responsible for managing a $180 million healthcare partner program. Before that, he held a number of executive roles in biotech and healthcare technology startups, as well as leading the Information Based Medicine Commercial Group at IBM’s Healthcare Life Sciences group helping grow that business to $100 million in less than five years.

Kareem holds a BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology with a minor in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia and an MBA with a concentration in Economics and Finance from the University of Chicago.

Devin K. schaffer

General Counsel

Devin K. Schaffer, J.D., M.B.A., is a proven healthcare executive and leader with more than 15 years of legal experience. As General Counsel, Devin is responsible for all legal, compliance, and regulatory activities at GeneDx.

Before joining GeneDx, Devin was most recently Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Cardinal Health, a global integrated healthcare services and products company. In this role, he successfully led the company’s legal department responsible for corporate governance, securities, mergers and acquisitions, treasury, risk management, shareholder engagement, labor and employment, and bankruptcy. He also served as an advisor for Cardinal Health’s Human Resources/Compensation and Governance and Sustainability Committees and advised the Executive Committee and Board of Directors on strategic transactions.

Prior to Cardinal Health, Devin held previous roles as a Private Equity Associate at Jones Day and an Associate at Ice Miller, LLP. Devin received his bachelor’s degree from Indiana University and later his master’s degree in business administration from Indiana University, Kelley School of Business. Devin also received his J.D. from Indiana University, where he was Managing Editor of the Indiana Law Journal. Devin is an Advisory Board Member for the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance established at the University of Delaware in 2000. It is one of the longest-standing corporate governance centers in academia and the first and only corporate governance center in the State of Delaware, the legal home for a majority of the nation’s public corporations.

gustavo stolovitzky

Chief Science Officer

Gustavo Stolovitzky is a world-renowned expert in computational biology, disease modeling and nano-biotechnology, with over 25 years of experience in high throughput data analysis for biology and the application of technology to solve biomedical problems.

As Chief Science Officer at GeneDx, Gustavo has a key role in developing the strategic research direction of the company and is responsible for advancing our platform of algorithms to help researchers, health system partners, providers and patients translate the information contained in health data into actionable knowledge. Gustavo held this same role at Sema4 prior to the company being renamed as GeneDx in January 2023.

Gustavo spent 23 years at IBM Research, where he was appointed IBM Fellow, the highest technical honor bestowed by IBM. His most recent role was the Founding Chair of the Exploratory Life Sciences Program at IBM Research and, previously, he was the Director of the Translational Systems Biology and Nanobiotechnology Program. He has authored more than 180 articles, reviews, and book chapters, and holds over 80 granted patents.

He is well known as the founder of the DREAM Challenges, where he nucleated a community of more than 25,000 researchers applying AI to biomedicine and championed the values of open science and data sharing, as well as rigorous evaluation of performance and reproducibility of algorithms. Through the DREAM Challenges and his own research, Gustavo addressed core challenges in biomedical research, with great influence in the areas of biological network inference, cancer genomics, and prediction of treatment response and disease outcome.

karen white

Chief People Officer

Karen has more than 25 years of experience in strategy, organization, and leadership development, and human resources, including a decade in the healthcare and life sciences industry. At GeneDx, she is responsible for all elements of the people strategy, with a particular focus on talent, diversity, culture, and employee experience. Karen was also Chief People Officer at Sema4 prior to the company being renamed as GeneDx in January 2023.

Prior to joining Sema4 in 2020, Karen was Vice President of Human Resources for Commercial Solutions at Syneos Health, a fully integrated biopharmaceutical solutions organization. Among other things, she led the Global Commercial team through a merger and transition to processes as a public company. Prior to joining Syneos Health, she has held senior HR roles at other companies in the healthcare space, including inVentiv Health Consulting and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Before that, Karen held positions at large global organizations such as Goldman Sachs, IBM, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Karen has a collaborative and flexible approach to designing and delivering high performance solutions. She is a certified executive coach who has designed and implemented groundbreaking development programs to stimulate leadership and improve cultures, and is certified in an array of assessment instruments. Karen has two children and is also an active member of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She earned her MBA from The George Washington University and her BA from Hobart and William Smith Colleges.