Charlotte is the senior director of business development & strategic alliances at NanoString. As a strategic director, Charlotte advises Madrona portfolio companies at the earliest stages of innovation and at later stages as they build to scale. Charlotte has over fifteen years of experience in basic science research and over ten years of biotech venture investment experience across a broad range of sectors, therapeutic modalities, and stages. Charlotte has a proven ability to combine deep scientific expertise and business development acumen to identify innovative opportunities to drive both returns and impact. Prior to NanoString, Charlotte was partner and head of Gates Foundation Venture Capital, a $500M initiative at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Strategic Investment Fund, where she oversaw investing in innovative technologies that supported the foundation’s programs in global health and agriculture. Notably, she led investments and served on the board of directors of Synlogic (Nasdaq: SYBX), Sera Prognostics, Lodo Therapeutics, Agtech Accelerator, Vedanta, and Vir Biotechnology (Nasdaq: VIR). Prior to joining the foundation, Charlotte was a vice president at H.I.G. BioVentures, investing broadly in healthcare. Charlotte began her career in early-stage biotech, investing at Accelerator Corporation, where she was part of the founding team and oversaw the management of several companies.

Charlotte currently serves on the board of directors at City of Hope and Entrinsic Health and LUCA Biologics, and in 2016 FiercePharma recognized her as a Fierce Woman in Biopharma and Life Science Washington recognized her as a leading Woman in Life Sciences.

Charlotte earned a bachelor’s in microbiology from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in pharmacology and cancer biology from Duke University, for which she received the prestigious Harold Weintraub Award. She did her post-doctoral work in stem cells and regenerative medicine at the Institute for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine at the UW. Charlotte is a member of the Kauffman Society of Fellows (Class 14), and she has served on the board of directors of Life Science Washington, the steering committees of the Fred Hutch Cancer Institute’s Evergreen Fund, the UW Innovation Roundtable and Columbia University Lab-to-Market initiative.