Thomas Afzal
Thomas Afzal is the President, CEO and co-Founder of Spinal Kinetics, a privately held development stage company focused on total artificial discs for the spine. Prior to Spinal Kinetics, he was the Founder, President and CEO of CardioVention, a company that developed a minimal invasive bypass system used in cardiac surgery. Previously he was General Manager of the Cardiac Valve Group and Vice President, Sales and Marketing at CardioThoracic Systems (CTS), which was acquired by Guidant in 1999 for $320 million. Prior to CTS, he was Managing Director of Krauth Medical, one of Europe’s largest medical device distributors (1995 Revenue $225M), where he also served as a member of the Board of Directors. He was also the Founder and President of Life Systems, a European based service provider of combined personnel and products to cardiac surgery and cardiology catheter-lab suites which was later integrated into the Krauth Medical group of companies. Earlier he held various upper management positions in marketing, sales and international at Sulzer Orthopedics and Sulzer CarboMedics (heart valves), Baxter Healthcare and American Hospital Supply Corp. He was also involved in founding Encore Orthopedics and assisted in the initial financing of the company. He is named on over 20 issued or pending patents and continues to contribute to new ideas in the development of medical technologies. He received his BS in Business from San Diego State University.

David Hovda
David Hovda joined SpinalMotion in March 2004 as President and CEO. Previously, he spent seven years at ArthroCare where he started the Spine and Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) divisions, serving as Vice President and General Manager. Mr. Hovda also worked at Medtronic in the pacing business, corporate development, and the corporate ventures group. He was an officer in the United States Navy, serving on a destroyer in the Atlantic fleet and as an instructor at MIT. Mr. Hovda is an inventor on thirty medical device patents, and he holds a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering from Northwestern University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Kevin Sidow
Kevin Sidow is President and Chief Executive Officer for Moximed, Inc. Prior to his current role he was President and CEO for St. Francis Medical Technologies, Inc. Founded in 1997, St. Francis Medical Technologies was a privately held company focused on developing innovative treatments for patients suffering from degenerative spinal disorders. The Company raised a total of $28 million in venture capital. In January 2007, St. Francis Medical Technologies, Inc. was sold for $725 million to Kyphon Inc. Prior to joining SFMT, Mr. Sidow was the Worldwide President of DePuy Inc. As former Worldwide President of DePuy; Mr. Sidow oversaw the global orthopedic, spine, trauma, and sports medicine businesses and has over 20 years of orthopedic medical device experience. His responsibilities included the combined worldwide reconstructive business (hips, knee, extremities, operating room products, ACE and casting), Spine, Mitek (sports medicine) and Biologics with annual revenue responsibility of over $3 billion. Mr. Sidow joined DePuy in March of 1998 as Midwest Area Vice President. He was promoted to Vice President, Sales, for DePuy Orthopaedics in October 1999. He was promoted to President of DePuy Orthopaedics in August 2000. In April 2001, he was promoted to Worldwide President, DePuy Orthopaedics, ACE and Casting. In September 2003 he advanced to the position of Worldwide President, DePuy Inc. in addition to becoming a member of the MD&D Group Operating Committee.

Shelley Trimm
Shelley joined Alquest in 2006 from Saint Frances Medical Technologies, where she served as Director of Regulatory and Quality Assurance. During her 16 year career, Shelley has established regulatory, quality, and clinical strategies for spine orthopedics, neurology, and cardiology PMA products. She has planned and managed FDA pre-submission and panel meetings; and developed and obtained clearance/approval for numerous submissions including premarket notifications, IDE applications, PMA applications, IDE supplements and annual reports, CE Mark technical files, and Japanese Shonin Market Approval. Shelley earned B.S. in Anatomy/Physiology with a Minor in Chemistry, from California State University, Sacramento.