Management Team

Jay Wei
Founder & President/CEO

Jay Wei has over 14 years product development and management experience in medical device industry. He pioneered the commercialization of the optical coherence technology for ophthalmic diagnosis since 1994. Jay founded Optovue in 2004 to develop next generation Ophthalmic OCT instruments. His vision in the clinical use of OCT technology has resulted in the first FDA approved Fourier-domain OCT system, RTVue. His current role is president/CEO of Optovue.

Prior founding Optovue, Jay was a director of advanced development and an OCT program manager at Carl Zeiss Meditec (Humphrey Instruments). He led the OCT development from ground zero in 1993 and delivered all generations of OCT products to the market. Jay has been granted over 30 patents in ophthalmic devices.

Tom Zhao, Ph.D.
Founder & CTO

Dr. Tom Zhao was co-inventor of phase resolved Doppler OCT during his post-doc research at the University of California, Irvine. He joined Optovue as a co-founder to develop the next generation OCT technology. Dr. Zhao has over 8 years direct OCT research and development experience. Dr. Zhao’s role as a chief technology officer is to develop company’s OCT technology and IT infrastructure.

Prior to joining Optovue, he was a senior staff scientist in Carl Zeiss Meditec responsible for OCT product development. His effort during his tenure in Carl Zeiss Meditec contributed to the success of Stratus OCT and Visante OCT. Dr. Zhao has been granted two OCT patents and has published numerous of scientific papers.

David Voris
Chief Financial Officer

Prior to joining Optovue, Mr. Voris was the Chief Financial Officer at Cyntellect where he provided financial leadership for the sale of that company’s LEAP and Celigo product lines in 2011. He was also CFO of SynergEyes from February 2005 to November 2007, and Chief Financial Officer of Laser Diagnostic Technologies from October 1999 until its sale to Carl Zeiss Meditec in December 2004. Mr. Voris has also held positions in finance with Alaris Medical Systems and Metracor Technologies, and began his career at Deloitte & Touche as a CPA.

Gordon Wong
Vice President of Finance

Gordon has over 25 years of financial and operations experience in both public and private companies in medical device, high technology, business to business internet applications, and biotechnology. Prior to joining Optovue, Gordon was the VP Finance at ink2, Hayes Medical, Solid Data Systems and IBM/Mylex. Gordon received a BS in Food Science from UC at Davis and an MBA from Cal State University at Hayward.

Paul Kealey
Senior Vice President of Marketing

Paul is an experienced executive and senior manager with 28 years in medical device sales, marketing, strategy, and product development. He joined the company in October 2006 to build the company’s sales and sales team,  to manage the distribution channel, and to develop the company’s long term marketing strategy. Paul has extensive knowledge in ophthalmology and an in depth understanding of clinic requirements. He is committed to develop product roadmaps that meet physician needs.

Prior to joining Optovue, Paul had held many executive management positions including Clarity Medical System, Carl Zeiss Meditec, Kowa, POP Medical Consulting group, WCO Ophthalmic Instruments, and House of Vision Instruments. While with Carl Zeiss Meditec, he was the OCT marketing manager, responsible for the early OCT clinical and marketing development work.

John Hawley
Vice President of North America Sales

John Hawley comes to Optovue directly from Heidelberg Engineering where he was responsible for building the US business over a 15 year period. With over 25 years in ophthalmic diagnostic instrumentation. He has also held management and executive positions at Cilco, BioRad and Interzeag, bringing experience in service, sales, marketing and strategic planning.

Bill Shields
Vice President of International Sales

Bill has 18 years of sales and international sales management experience in the ophthalmic industry. Prior to joining Optovue, Bill held positions at Humphrey Instruments (a Carl Zeiss company) and Allergan Medical Optics. Most recently, Bill held the position of Director of International Sales for Laser Diagnostic Technologies and Director of Sales, Diagnostics, Europe, Middle East, Africa for Carl Zeiss Meditec. In both of these positions, he was responsible for developing and implementing global and regionalized strategic initiatives, and managing direct and distribution networks worldwide.

John Talarico
Vice President of Regulatory & Clinical Affairs

John Talarico, VP of Regulatory and Clinical Affairs, joined Optovue, Inc, Inc in 2010 to spearhead the Company’s regulatory, clinical and quality commitment. His expertise is in regulatory cGXP & ISO compliance, PMAs, 510(k)s, INDs, 505(b)2, and IDE as well as FDA, CE and other non-EU countries. John has over 25 years of medical device experience in Quality, Clinical and Regulatory Affairs. He held executive positions previously at Johnson & Johnson, Honeywell Medical and Bell Labs.

Joseph G. Sharpe
Senior Vice-President of Operations

Joe has worked in the medical device field for over twenty-five years. Most recently, he held the title of Vice-President of Operations with Thoratec Corporation. Thoratec manufactures markets and sells Ventricular Assist Devices used in the Cardio-Vascular market. During his tenure the company went through a phase of rapid growth from 7 million to over 250 million in revenue.

He also worked for Baxter Healthcare Corporation for 15 years holding ever-increasing positions of responsibility within manufacturing operations. Most recently, as the Director of Operations where he managed multiple manufacturing sites. He also held the position of Director of Engineering where he managed the technical resources for one of Baxter’s operating divisions. Joe received his Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Massachusetts at Lowell.

Qienyuan Zhou, PhD
Vice President of Clinical Affairs

Dr. Zhou has over 17 years of experience in the ophthalmic device industry focusing on research and development of ophthalmic imaging devices and clinical applications. Prior to her current position, she worked as Senior Director of Clinical Research at Optovue Inc., Senior Manager of Advanced Development at Carl Zeiss Meditec, Inc., and Director of Research & Development at Laser Diagnostic Technologies, Inc. She has received multiple US patents and served as principal investigator on multiple NIH SBIR grants.

Dr. Larry Alexander, O.D.
Senior Director of Clinical Education

Dr. Alexander comes to Optovue with an extensive career in the Navy, optometric education, and a medical surgical referral based practice. A renowned clinician, author and lecturer, Dr. Alexander was also a highly regarded member of the University of Alabama Birmingham School of Optometry faculty. A sought after speaker on medically oriented optometric practices, Dr. Alexander oversees Clinical Education for Optovue, and brings the clinical experience and practice perspective to the Optovue product development process.

Ulrich Harbarth
General Manager Optovue Europe GmbH

Ulrich Harbarth is managing the Optovue Europe GmbH in Dossenheim, Germany. He has 23 years of experience in the ophthalmology business. Prior to this position he was project manager at Heidelberg Instruments and was cofounder of Laser Diagnostic Technologies, Inc.  as well as part of their developing team. Ulrich established and was responsible for the subsidiary LDT Europe GmbH and the successful introduction of the GDx technology into the German and Austrian market.