Meet the mentors

Honest, practical support from people who understand early stage medtech. Explore our mentors below, then learn more about 1:1 mentoring if you’d like personalised guidance.

How Medtech Mentor works

Our mentors have supported over 200 early stage medtech founders and bring more than 50 years of combined experience across clinical practice, digital health, regulation, product development, and entrepreneurship.

Click on the image profiles below to read more.

Dr Harry Thirkettle

Harry is the Director of Health & Innovation at Aire Logic and serves as Business and Commercial Lead of the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme. A former NHS surgeon turned entrepreneur, he left clinical practice to focus on developing and implementing digital health solutions that improve outcomes at scale.

Harry has led major national digital programmes, including vaccination systems and patient engagement platforms, and mentors clinicians through the NHS Clinical Entrepreneurs Programme. He brings first-hand understanding of NHS pressures alongside deep experience in turning early ideas into viable health tech businesses.

He is particularly passionate about digital quality improvement, pragmatic innovation, and helping clinicians avoid common early-stage mistakes.

Best for:

  • Clarifying your problem, user, and value proposition
  • Business models, routes to market, and early viability
  • Navigating NHS and wider healthcare system realities
  • Deciding what to validate first, and what to ignore

Yasmin Karsan

Yasmin is a prescribing pharmacist with over a decade of experience across community, hospital, and academic settings. She holds a PhD in Community Pharmacy and Health Systems, alongside a Master’s in Artificial Intelligence.

As founder and CEO of a personalised medicine startup, Yasmin combines deep clinical insight with hands-on experience of building and scaling a regulated digital health business. Her work focuses on pharmacogenomics and using genetic testing to improve medication choice and reduce adverse drug reactions.

Yasmin brings particular strength in navigating complex regulatory and compliance landscapes for digital health and AI-driven technologies.

Best for:

  • Regulation, compliance, and evidence considerations
  • AI and data-driven health products
  • Translating complex science into real-world care
  • Safe innovation in regulated healthcare environments

Anusha Su

Anusha is a technology executive and product leader with 25 years of experience building AI platforms, digital ecosystems, and creator tools at Microsoft, Electronic Arts, and Sage, she spent nine years as VP at Sage building the company’s AI strategy from its first Copilot product to fully autonomous agents — including authoring the board-level AI Constitution that governed responsible AI deployment across Sage’s 6 million customers, the majority of whom are UK small businesses and startups. A Cambridge-based angel investor and co-founder of Startupangel.net now venturex.com, she has backed early-stage founders since 2009, including identifying a YCombinator company before Google acquired the team. As a mentor on Medtech Mentor, Anusha helps health-tech founders with AI product strategy, go-to-market execution, and platform architecture — and brings practical guidance on keeping tax, accounting, and finance under control as a founder, including how to use AI-powered tools to automate the financial admin that consumes early-stage teams. She has an MBA from Durham university and and MS from university of WA Seattle.

Stuart Cooper

Stuart is a digital designer and human factors specialist who helps founders visualise, prototype, and test health tech ideas quickly and sensibly.

He began his career working on Class III medical devices with leading consultancies and has since advised startups across pharma, SaMD, cardiology, robotics, and cell and gene therapies. As a founder himself, Stuart has brought a Class I cardiology device to market and built a paediatric VR game.

Stuart specialises in helping teams learn early, before committing significant time or money.

Best for:

  • MVP and prototype definition (digital or physical)
  • Human factors and usability thinking
  • Early testing and validation without overbuilding

Turning ideas into something tangible to learn from

Dr Nick Hayward

Nick is a neuroscientist, medical doctor, and technologist trained at the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, and the University of Eastern Finland. He is currently a Neuroradiology Fellow at Oxford University Hospitals and a Visiting Researcher at Aalto University.

As a Clinical Safety Officer for digital health products, Nick ensures emerging technologies meet high standards of patient safety and regulatory compliance. His experience spans clinical medicine, translational research, and venture advisory.

Nick supports founders working on scientifically complex or clinically sensitive innovations.

Best for:

  • Clinical safety and risk management
  • Evidence generation and scientific credibility
  • Regulated digital health products

Communicating complex ideas clearly and responsibly

What our mentors help founders with

Early stage medtech is full of decisions that feel high-stakes: what problem to focus on, who to speak to, what to validate first, and how to avoid building too early.

Our mentors help founders:

  • Clarify the problem, user, and value proposition
  • Sense-check business models and early assumptions
  • Prioritise validation and discovery work
  • Define sensible MVPs or demos without overbuilding
  • Think ahead about regulation, clinical safety, evidence, and adoption
  • Make clearer decisions about what to do next

The emphasis is always on reducing risk and making progress you can justify.

How to choose the right mentor

You don’t need to find the “perfect” mentor. A good starting point is to think about the decision you’re trying to make right now.

You might be looking for support with:

  • Problem definition and early validation
  • Business models and commercial viability
  • Designing MVPs or prototypes sensibly
  • Navigating healthcare, regulatory, or clinical safety considerations
  • Clarifying direction and communicating your idea

If you’re unsure, you can start with a discovery call via the 1:1 mentoring page and we’ll help you find the right fit.

What to expect from 1:1 mentoring

If you choose to work with a mentor, the goal is simple: help you think clearly, prioritise, and move forward without wasting time.
Most founders start with:
  • A free 20-minute discovery call to check fit and agree next steps
  • A 90-minute Mentoring Strategy Call for a specific decision
  • Or a 1-Month Sprint for structured momentum
→ Click here to find out more

Looking for personalised support?

If you’d like help thinking through your idea and deciding what to do next, explore 1:1 mentoring and book a discovery call.