About MCIF

Mr. Heise leads the investing activities of MemorialCare investment fund. Over the last 30+ years, Mr. Heise has accumulated a broad range and scope of healthcare experience within both the non-profit and for-profit arenas. His accomplishments include business development and operating experience in entrepreneurial start-up companies, physician organizations, community hospitals and academic medical centers.

Mr. Heise’s experience also includes participation on the Board of Directors for several privately held, venture capital funded companies, including Accenx Technologies (acquired by Initiate Systems), Arista MD, Ascender Software (acquired by Matrix Medical Network), Aventura (acquired by Phillips), Care Team Connect (acquired by The Advisory Board Company), Foldax, Healthcare Dataworks (acquired by Health Catalyst), MD Insider (acquired by Accolade), PerfectServe (acquired by K-1 Investment Management), Phynd (acquired by Symplr), Prescient Surgical, Radianse (acquired by BL Technologies), Silversheet (acquired by AMN Healthcare), ThromboVision, Twistle (acquired by Health Catalyst) and Wellist. In addition, Mr. has currently (or formerly) holds board observer rights with Advanced Practice Strategies (acquired by Relias Learning), Asimily, BabyScripts, ForHealth Technologies (acquired by Baxa Corporation), Gauss Surgical (acquired by Stryker), Hyp3r, Ivantis (acquired by Alcon), MedVentive (acquired by McKesson), MindFrame (acquired by Covidien), SilverCloud (acquired by AmericanWell) and Skylight Healthcare Systems (acquired by GetWell Network).

In addition to his role at MemorialCare Innovation Fund, Mr. Heise is also Senior Managing Director at Summation Health Ventures and Vice President at National Healthcare Services. Prior to those rolls, Mr. has held several operational rolls with several start-up companies (Geritrix, ForHealth, and Cornerstone Physicians Corporation) and was clinical administrator at Los Angeles County and University of Southern California Medical Center.

Mr. Heise earned a Masters of Healthcare Service Administration from the University of Michigan, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Grinnell College.

Mr. Winder co-leads the investment activities of the MemorialCare Innovation Fund. He has over 30 years of venture capital investment experience in early to mid-stage healthcare technology companies. He sources, leads, and syndicates deals, and subsequently, he works closely with portfolio companies to develop scalable commercial and marketing strategies to maximize value for founders and shareholders.

Mr. Winder has both private and public company board experience and is currently (or formerly) Board Director or Observer at Aileron Therapeutics (IPO), AristaMD, Aventura (acquired by Philips Medical), Ayogo Health, BabyScripts, ClearDATA, Cleveland HeartLab (acquired by Quest Diagnostics), Foldax, InfoBionic, Laudio, Molecular Templates (IPO), Oculus Health, Protenus, ShapeUp (merged with Virgin Pulse, acquired by Marlin), Silvercloud Health (acquired by Amwell), Saladax Biomedical, Twistle (acquired by Health Catalyst), MedVentive (acquired by McKesson), Qstream, WellDoc, and Xcellerex (acquired by GE Healthcare). He also serves as a Trustee for the Ammonoosuc Conservation Trust.

Prior to joining MCIF, Mr. Winder was Co-Founder (and remains) Managing Director at Excel Venture Management. Prior to Excel Venture, Mr. Winder was a Principal at Biotechonomy Ventures where he was involved in the founding of Synthetic Genomics, the firm’s investments in BioTrove (acquired by Life Technologies), BIOCIUS (acquired by Agilent Technologies), and Xcellerex (acquired by GE Healthcare).

Prior to becoming a venture capitalist, Mr. Winder was an award-winning sales and marketing executive at medical equipment and diagnostics companies, Midmark Corporation and MGC Diagnostics. He graduated magna cum laude with an MBA from Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College, where he was a Fellow in the Center for Technology Enterprise. He earned a BA in Biology and a minor in Economics from Colby College.

Mr. Dowerah has more than 30 years of experience in both the public accounting and the private arenas. He completed his undergraduate business studies at West Bromwich College (England) with subsequent CPA certification from Institute of the Chartered Accountancy of England and Wales.

After immigrating to the United States, he completed studies for a Masters in Business Administration at Pittsburg State University. Mr. Dowerah has spent the last 20+ years in the healthcare industry, assuming positions of increased responsibility within all aspects of accounting and finance.

Dr. Arbuckle is President and CEO of MemorialCare Health System, a leading Southern California not-for-profit integrated healthcare delivery system with $2 billion in annual revenues. Its hospitals include Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, the West's second-largest academic-community hospital campus; Miller Children's Hospital Long Beach, the state's biggest children's hospital; Saddleback Memorial Medical Center-Laguna Hills, listed among America's Top 100 Hospitals by Thomson Reuters; Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center-Fountain Valley, the region's fastest-growing hospital; and Saddleback Memorial Medical Center - San Clemente, the area's primary hospital. MemorialCare also includes active Graduate Medical Education, clinical training, research programs, numerous outpatient and satellite services, retail health facilities, MemorialCare Medical Foundation and philanthropic foundations with over $200 million in assets.

Under Dr. Arbuckle's leadership, MemorialCare has experienced unprecedented growth and financial performance and has grown in prominence regionally and nationally. Its many accolades include Top Leadership Team in the U.S. by HealthLeaders, Most Wired Health System for eight consecutive years from Hospitals & Health Networks, Top 100 Most Integrated Health Systems listed in Modern Healthcare, Best Governed Hospital Systems in the U.S. by The Governance Institute, and Healthgrades 5-Star Performer for many clinical services.

Dr. Arbuckle serves on many boards, including Chair of March of Dimes - California, Officer of Integrated Healthcare Association, Past Chair of VHA West Coast and member of the Healthcare Leadership Council in Washington, DC. Dr. Arbuckle was Chair of the California Hospital Association, one of the largest healthcare trade associations in the nation, representing 450 hospitals and health systems. He speaks frequently nationally and internationally on a variety of topics in healthcare, including The U.S. Healthcare System; Economic Comparisons of U.S. and International Health Care; Unbridled Expense Growth in U.S. Healthcare; Solutions to Health Care Delivery Challenges; and Preparing for Health Care Reform.

A graduate of Missouri State University, Dr. Arbuckle earned his master's degree from the Arizona State University and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina. He served on the adjunct faculty for the departments of psychology and sociology at California State University Long Beach and currently serves on its adjunct faculty at the Graduate School of Nursing.

Steven has over 35 years of experience in technology with 28 years dedicated to providing Healthcare solutions. Steven is the CIO for MemorialCare, a four hospital, 1350 bed nonprofit health system including a Medical Foundation and over 2600 affiliated physicians, located in Southern California. He is a seasoned management executive with many years of progressive experience managing complex initiatives, general IS business functions and providing executive level support to principals.

Steven has executive level responsibility for providing strategic and tactical leadership to devise and implement innovative, cost effective technology and digital solutions to enable the best possible experience for internal customers and excellent care for patients. Engaged at all levels of governance and provides recommendations to the highest levels of senior leadership in the areas of technology, staff development, operational business models and financial planning. Deeply involved in the organizations business development strategies and serves on senior level steering teams responsible for guiding and activating mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and strategic partnerships.

Steven was formerly the CIO of Talbert Medical Group, a physician owned multi-specialty provider group and was responsible for all technology solutions. Accomplishments included the deployment of a completely integrated clinical and administrative technology solution. This solution centered on a “paperless” setting with all aspects of the practice done electronically.
He also resided on the Board of Directors for Long Beach Network for Health (LBNH). LBNH, a regional 501c3 corporation delivering HIE initiatives. Previously Steven was VP of Information Services for Medpartners Inc., a $6 billion-dollar national enterprise of provider groups. During his tenure with Medpartners he was responsible for the systems design, engineering and operation of two enterprise data centers located in Anaheim, California and Birmingham, Alabama. Prior to health care, Steven spent over 8 years working for several local interconnect companies providing integrated solutions for various other industries. Some of the previous organizations include, Atlantic Richfield Company, Walt Disney Imagineering and Studios, ABC, State of California, Verizon, Pacific Bell, and Asian Hospital and Medical Center, Philippines. Steven began his career in the United States Army ultimately reaching the rank of Sergeant and responsible for the successful deployment and installation of critical VHF, satellite and cryptic communications to remote field locations, continually under adverse and challenging conditions. He received several Department of Army achievement and commendation medals for superior performance and dedication to the TEAM concept.

Ken Charhut has spent more than 30 years in the medical products arena. Ken is Executive Chairman of the Board of Foldax, Inc., a privately held company pursuing the development of a revolutionary platform of robotically manufactured polymer heart valves. Additionally, he is involved with a number of medical device and technology companies, including, Director of Avecina a digital heart function monitoring company.

Prior to these roles, served as Chairman of the Board and CSO of Compellon, a bioinformatics firm that developed a powerful AI based platform capable of identifying risk assessment of disease recently purchased by Clearsense LLC. He was CEO and a Director of Reshape Medical the first PMA approved outpatient balloon obesity treatment. Reshape was purchased by Enteromedics. Ken was President and CEO of MindFrame, Inc., which makes devices to treat ischemic strokes. In July 2012, Covidien, the world leader in that market, acquired MindFrame. Earlier, Ken was CEO and President of Orqis Medical Corporation, a privately funded company in the Congestive Heart Failure space. Ken raised over $85 million for the company and took it from concept through IDE clinical trials. Prior to Orqis, Ken spent 16 years in general management positions with Baxter Healthcare Corporation, including as President of the Bentley Division and President of New Business Initiatives for the Cardiovascular Surgery Division. He also spent four years in Japan as Managing Director of Baxter Japan Cardiovascular Division, and was VP of Automation Distribution Systems, where he developed Baxter’s pharmacy automation business.

Ken has served on several industry councils, including as Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, as a Board Member of the ABL Organization, OCTANe and the Southern California Biomedical Council. Ken also served as an independent director and successfully co-led the M&A of Micro Dexterity Systems, an advanced robotics company and Arges Medical, an advanced Dental Company to Sirona.

Ken earned his BSME degree from Cornell University and his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and completed the manufacturing management program at General Electric Company.

Mr. Heise leads the investing activities of MemorialCare investment fund. Over the last 30+ years, Mr. Heise has accumulated a broad range and scope of healthcare experience within both the non-profit and for-profit arenas. His accomplishments include business development and operating experience in entrepreneurial start-up companies, physician organizations, community hospitals and academic medical centers.

Mr. Heise’s experience also includes participation on the Board of Directors for several privately held, venture capital funded companies, including Accenx Technologies (acquired by Initiate Systems), Arista MD, Ascender Software (acquired by Matrix Medical Network), Aventura (acquired by Phillips), Care Team Connect (acquired by The Advisory Board Company), Foldax, Healthcare Dataworks (acquired by Health Catalyst), MD Insider (acquired by Accolade), PerfectServe (acquired by K-1 Investment Management), Phynd (acquired by Symplr), Prescient Surgical, Radianse (acquired by BL Technologies), Silversheet (acquired by AMN Healthcare), ThromboVision, Twistle (acquired by Health Catalyst) and Wellist. In addition, Mr. has currently (or formerly) holds board observer rights with Advanced Practice Strategies (acquired by Relias Learning), Asimily, BabyScripts, ForHealth Technologies (acquired by Baxa Corporation), Gauss Surgical (acquired by Stryker), Hyp3r, Ivantis (acquired by Alcon), MedVentive (acquired by McKesson), MindFrame (acquired by Covidien), SilverCloud (acquired by AmericanWell) and Skylight Healthcare Systems (acquired by GetWell Network).

In addition to his role at MemorialCare Innovation Fund, Mr. Heise is also Senior Managing Director at Summation Health Ventures and Vice President at National Healthcare Services. Prior to those rolls, Mr. has held several operational rolls with several start-up companies (Geritrix, ForHealth, and Cornerstone Physicians Corporation) and was clinical administrator at Los Angeles County and University of Southern California Medical Center.

Mr. Heise earned a Masters of Healthcare Service Administration from the University of Michigan, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Grinnell College.

Shela joined MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center as the Chief Nursing Officer and V.P. of Patient Care Services in September 2016. Her Nursing background includes pediatrics, adult critical care, perioperative services, case management, quality management, risk management, and hospital administration as a CNO since 2014. She provided direct operational oversight related to clinical nursing care at Orange Coast - a 222-bed non-profit hospital with approximately 600 nurses. Recently, Nursing achieved its Magnet re-designation. Shela is pleased to be part of MemorialCare’s team to further expand their population health and numerous other initiatives as an integrated healthcare delivery system.

Shela earned her B.S. in Nursing from UCLA and a Healthcare Executive MBA from the University of California, Irvine. She has served as a board member for the Association of California Nurse Leaders (ACNL) at the local chapter level for Orange County/Long Beach and will most recently represent at the state level for the Southern region in 2022.

Shela grew up in Toronto, Canada. She enjoys a variety of outdoor sports such as sailing and mountain biking.

Prior to her promotion to the Chief Strategy Officer of MemorialCare, Ms. Sicaeros served for more than 7 years as the Chief Operating Officer for the MemorialCare Medical Foundation which provides the management functions for both MemorialCare Medical Groups and Greater Newport Physicians IPA, with locations across Orange County and South Los Angeles County.

Ms Sicaeros continues her work in Physician Integration for the health system drawing on more than 20 years’ experience in a variety of roles from Mergers & Acquisitions to Marketing & Business Development to Informatics & EHRs at MemorialCare. Physicians as Partners along with the MemorialCare Physician Society, has long been MemorialCare’s hallmark for our industry-unique, leading physician alignment strategy.

Ms. Sicaeros is responsible for the strategic goals and objectives of MemorialCare. Her focus is on areas of growth, partnerships, business development and further development of a strong physician alignment strategies for the health system. She works closely with the MemorialCare Physician Society to ensure the entity exceeds its annual goals and serves on the Clinically Integrated Network (CIN) board of managers.

In 2011, Ms. Sicaeros established the MemorialCare Medical Foundation. Expanding MemorialCare’s focus beyond the acute care setting into the medical groups, IPAs and physician practices where care coordination is primary. She is credited with this fundamental growth for the health system with the goal of better integrated clinical care amongst providers for our patients.

Ms. Sicaeros came to MemorialCare 25 years ago. Prior to her MemorialCare assignments, she worked as a practice management consultant to a variety of multidisciplinary physician practices in Orange County. She has a bachelor’s degree from Long Beach State University and a master’s degree in health care administration from Chapman University. She is married with one son.