Team

 
This expert group brings together decades of collective experience in social impact investing, venture and traditional investing, philanthropic grantmaking and evaluation. Leveraging the full reach of the American Heart Association, the team collaborates with community leaders to source, vet and originate funding that responds to community need. Efficient allocation, active program monitoring and collaboration maximizes the viability and reach of innovative ideas.

Click on the names to learn about each team member.

Greg brings deep expertise in public health, science and research to his role as Managing Director of American Heart Association Ventures where he builds programs that support early-stage businesses and entrepreneurs as they grow to scale and sustainability. Specific to the Social Impact Funds, Greg works side-by-side with the philanthropists and institutions who support the Funds to maximize the impact to health equity across the country.

Known for his willingness to build new, innovative programs that translate science into health impact, Greg has been part of the Association for over a decade. He’s helped stand-up and launch complex initiatives in areas such as food and nutrition security, improving healthcare delivery in hospitals, and large-scale discovery research networks. Greg has provided strategic leadership and frontline relationship management of a global portfolio of transformational programs with civil society organizations, philanthropic foundations, high net-worth individuals and public and private sector leaders.

Greg began his career in research with roles that spanned brain science and global health, while living in Taipei, Taiwan. He holds a master’s degree in international public health from National Yang Ming University, and a BSc in Psychology from the University of Maryland.

Haroon Khan is the Senior Program Coordinator for the American Heart Association’s Social Impact Funds, including the Bernard J. Tyson Impact Fund. In this role, Haroon is responsible for supporting the Social Impact Funds Team, managing grants, communicating with investees, and sourcing.

He started with the AHA as an intern then Project Coordinator for the Office of Health Equity. Haroon has helped coordinate internal projects, manage diversity and inclusion initiatives and help plan education initiatives centered around DEI. He was also an intern for the EmPOWERED to Serve team, working extensively with the Hispanic Serving Institute Scholarship Fund helping to pilot the program in 2021.

Haroon holds a bachelor’s degree in public health from Baylor University.

Dr. Jessica O’Neill leads the strategy for measuring, communicating and learning from the impact of the Social Impact Funds’ investments. Jessica is a cognitive and behavioral scientist and expert in social drivers of health. Her 16 years of experience include academic research and teaching, nonprofit leadership and strategic planning for international humanitarian assistance.

Prior to joining the American Heart Association, Jessica served as an analytics advisor at USaid where she developed a program of research that advised Congress on humanitarian funding decisions in the Farm Bill, spearheaded the development of a geospatial mapping tool used to select the implementation area for a $100M resilience and food security program in Madagascar and was nominated for the AI task team to draft agency AI policy and facilitate private sector engagement.

Jessica has also served as a science and technology policy fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. There she led the agriculture and nutrition affinity group and co-founded the AI policy affinity group. She holds a Ph.D. in community health and health behavior, an M.P.H. and a B.S. in biological sciences from the University at Buffalo where she competed as an NCAA Division I track athlete.

Mark McCoy is responsible for sourcing, conducting due diligence, and negotiating terms for new investments for the AHA’s Social Impact Funds, including the Bernard J. Tyson Impact Fund.

Mark comes to AHA with more than 15 years of diversified capital markets experience including 10+ years specializing in Impact Investing. He has designed, launched, and managed small business development programs, impact assessments, and bespoke investment products across five continents for numerous public and private institutions including the World Bank/IFC, CDC Group, Norfund, Deutsche Bank, SIDA and others.

Mark started his career at Archer Daniels Midland trading commodity option contracts at the Chicago Board of Trade and later founded a social enterprise in the hospitality sector while living in Nairobi, Kenya. Upon moving back to the U.S., Mark has worked for private family offices in various portfolio management and direct investment roles with varied focus including food security, health equity, poverty reduction, peace and security, and access to capital markets.

Mark holds an International MBA from the University of Denver and a BS in finance and economics from North Park University.

A seasoned expert in impact investing, social entrepreneurship and global health, Omer has spent over 25 years in both private and public sectors in the U.S. and around the world. Over 100 million people have been impacted through the work of his portfolio companies. Passionate about improving health and lives, Omer oversees all grant and investment opportunities as Managing Director of the Social Impact Funds.

Prior to joining the American Heart Association, Omer served as Managing Director of Finca Ventures, an early-stage global impact investing fund focusing on Agriculture, Global Health and Financial Inclusion that reached over 15 million people. Omer also led Innovative Finance for the Global Health Bureau at USaid. Specific initiatives included developing the Development Finance Corporation’s $2 billion Health and Prosperity Initiative, structuring a $50 million investment facility for companies focused on maternal health, and a $30 million guarantee facility for Small and Medium Enterprise healthcare providers in Africa affected by Covid-19.

Previous positions included Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Yunus Social Business and chair of the investment committee at Grand Challenges Canada. At Acumen, Omer was jointly responsible for $100 million of committed capital, and also served as one of five investment professionals managing a $2 billion venture capital fund at Barnard.

Frequently cited in mainstream media, Omer has lectured at Wharton, Duke and MIT Business Schools and advised on global initiatives including the USaid Covid-19 Task Force and the World Bank’s High Level Task Force on Innovative Financing. Omer holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Yale University.

Sarah Young is an Associate Portfolio Manager for the American Heart Association’s Social Impact Funds, including the Bernard J. Tyson Impact Fund. In this role, Sarah is responsible for sourcing, conducting due diligence and negotiating terms for new investments. She is also helping to evolve the technical assistance offerings from the Funds.

Sarah comes to AHA with seven years of experience in venture-backed technology startups where she built out finance functions and scaled operations teams. As a graduate student, Sarah led the Food and Agriculture Deal Team for the NYU Social Impact Fund and spent a summer as an associate on the Food Security Unit at the US International Development Finance Corporation. She began her career as an AmeriCorps member working with Habitat for Humanity in Monroe County, Indiana and Orange County, California.

Sarah holds an MPA in Social Impact Investing from New York University and a BA in Rhetoric and Public Advocacy from Indiana University Bloomington.

As a Senior Portfolio Manager for the AHA’s Social Impact Funds, including the Bernard J. Tyson Impact Fund, Valerie Dao identifies new investment opportunities to reduce gaps in health equity and provides strategic support to the Western and Midwest market portfolios.

She comes to AHA by way of Stanford’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society where she managed a research study exploring the role of nonprofit organizations in their communities across seven global regions. Valerie has 10 years of experience in the social sector, and her prior roles include working at a venture philanthropy fund and a consulting firm where she specialized in program monitoring and evaluation, organizational assessment and strategic planning.

Valerie is a Fulbright Scholar and holds a bachelor’s in political science from University of California, Irvine, and an MPP from the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.