Anthony Green, PhD

Anthony is a Managing Partner at AVAS Partners where he leads the Atlanta office. He splits his time between managing projects and client relationships.

Anthony previously taught, and lead, an intensive leadership development course. After participating in the course, he spent four years putting on the course where he taught topics ranging from group resources to communication to motivation. In the last two year of his involvement, he was primarily involved with the leadership and development of new course instructors.

Anthony was the President and Chairman of Midway Apartment Building Corp. a real estate operations corporation with revenues of $200k. He also served as the vice-president and CFO where he developed and managed new investment plans as well as worked to bring best practices to the financial management of the company.

More recently Anthony has consulted with a quickly evolving technology transfer office to reshape its strategy and make it a value creation division of the institution. He has also worked with a web informatics company where he developed the marketing and implementation strategy.

Anthony holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in chemistry from the University of Chicago as well as a Masters. He originally earned a Bachelors of Science in Chemistry from Michigan State University. While at the University of Chicago, Anthony shifted his focus from a pure scientist to the commercialization of science, causing him to split his time between the chemistry lab and the Booth School of Business.

Anthony chairs the Board of Directors of AVAS Partners LLC and the Board of Directors of Scientist Guild LLC.

Ankit Makim

Ankit is a Managing Partner at AVAS Partners in the Chicago office. He splits his time between managing projects and client relationships.

Ankit has over 10 years working in the pharmaceutical industry, primarily focused on pre-clinical drug development, including authoring several regulatory IND submissions. Between his time at Millennium Pharmaceuticals and Archemix Corp. he was involved in research that lead to numerous successful FDA approvals of novel compounds for clinical development.

More recently, Ankit worked as an Senior Analyst at the bioStrategies Group and as Project Manager at Takeda Pharmaceuticals. At bioStrategies, Ankit focused on developing marketing strategies in the pharmaceutical market space, specifically focused on brand management strategy, customer segmentation, and creation of product positioning strategies through utilization of qualitative and quantitative market research.

At Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Ankit worked with the Global Licensing and Business Development group to optimize the process of identifying and tracking potential in-licensing opportunities.

Ankit holds a Bachelor of Arts in Biology and Psychology from Boston University and a Masters of Arts in Biology from Harvard. He is currently working on obtaining his MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Ankit serves as the secretary of the Board of Directors of AVAS Partners LLC.

Samir Shah

Samir holds a Bachelors of Science and Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He also is nearly finished with his MBA from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business with a focus on Entrepreneurialship. 

Samir lead engineering teams while at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies in quality control, hardware testing and technical marketing. While at IBM, he introduced 5 new products into high volume production areas representing $300 million in yearly revenue.

Most recently Samir worked with ARCH Ventures, a venture capital firm evaluating the success probability of new business proposals.

Samir serves as vice-chair of the Board of Directors of AVAS Partners LLC.

Vivian Shi

Vivian is a Managing Partner at AVAS Partners in the Chicago office. She focuses most of her time managing the firm’s finances, though is often involved with projects involving complex corporate finance, investment strategy and import & export issues.

Vivian has a diverse background and set of experiences spanning from clinic medicine to consulting to investment banking. After she graduated from a medical school in China, she worked as a physician for a year in a municipal hospital there. She later transitioned to business with a focus on international trade between the U.S. and China.

Vivian previously founded AIM Consulting where she gained hands-on experience in running a start-up. The firm specialized in import-exports, particularly involving the importing goods from China to the US market and Chinese market entry. She advised small and medium-size US businesses on the issues surrounding offshoring, marketing, distributing and investing in China. In addition, she established a network of contact for international supply chain operation including US institutional buyers, Chinese manufacturers, government officials, shipping lines, cargo insurance companies and customs clearance brokers.

Most recently Vivian helped a life science company of a venture capital firm in initiating growth strategy, identifying acquisition targets, evaluating acquisition enterprise value and assessing synergy. She also conducted tax strategy evaluation for Hyde Park Angel's investment portfolio, contributing to the venture firm's adoption of an effective investment approach. She currently works in corporate investment banking at Bank of America in Corporate Debt Products Group with a focus on the food industry.

In addition to the Bachelors of Medicine, Vivian also holds a Bachelors of Economics from the University of International Businesses and Economics in Beijing and she is finishing her MBA at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

Vivian serves as the treasurer of the Board of Directors of AVAS Partners LLC and on the Board of Directors of ScientistGuild LLC.