Georgina Smith

Chief Accounting Officer

Georgina Smith was appointed as our Chief Accounting Officer, effective June 1, 2026. Prior to her appointment, she served as Controller for SynCardia from January 2026 to May 2026. Georgina has more than 25 years of experience in accounting and finance across diverse industries, including regulated utilities, advanced battery technology, aerospace & defense manufacturing, and mining. Before joining SynCardia, she served as Assistant Corporate Controller of Rain Bird Corporation from January 2024 to October 2025, where she was responsible for enterprise accounting governance, internal controls, financial reporting, regulatory compliance, and audit readiness. From May 2014 to December 2023, she held positions of increasing responsibility at Tucson Electric Power, including Manager of External Reporting from January 2018 to December 2023. Ms. Smith holds a Master of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the University of Arizona and is a Certified Public Accountant in the State of Arizona.

Alzira Da Martins

Director of Quality & Regulatory

Alzira has over 30 years in Medical Device, Combination Product, Pharmaceutical and Biologic industries with extensive experience in Quality Operations, Quality Assurance, Sterilization techniques including EO, Gamma, steam, e-beam, dry heat and Microbiology. Alzira has experience managing multi-site locations and global experience with manufacturing locations in Brazil, US, India, Germany, Mexico and China. She has PhD in sterilization PhD in Sterilization , master’s degree in microbiology, Black Belt Certified and FPX Certified/ Project management. Prior to Syncardia she worked for Johnson & Johnson – Brazil, US, Germany, China and India for 13 years. Baxter Hospitalar – Brazil for 12 years. Avanos Medical – Tucson for 3 years and CR Bard Medical – Nogales Mexico for 4 years.

André Simon, MD, PhD, FRCS

Vice President, Clinical Affairs

André is an experienced cardiothoracic surgeon. He previously served as the Director of the Heart Center at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh, KSA, and as the Director of Heart and Lung Transplantation and Ventricular Assist Devices at Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust.

He is the author of more than 300 peer-reviewed papers, reviews, and editorials, and a member of several international associations and societies, including the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation, the European Society of Cardiology, and the European Society of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery.

Frank Tinker, PhD

Chief Technology Officer

Frank has an extensive academic background and is credited with defining the only known mathematical model capable of reproducing the empirically determined efficiency of all known heat engines. He has been granted patents on six technologies, including mechanisms used to drive an artificial heart, analog computing topologies, and internal combustion engine enhancements.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a master’s and PhD in physics, earned while he was a Department of Education Fellow.

Matthew Schuster

Chief Operating Officer

Matt Schuster was appointed as our Chief Operating Officer in November 2023. Prior to this role, Matt was the Director of Research and Development for SynCardia from May 2023 to November 2023. From January 2021 through May 2023, Matt held various roles with Roche, including as an Engineering Contractor, Staff Mechanical Engineer, and Systems Development Lead. Prior to his roles at Roche, Matt was the Director of Manufacturing and Facilities at SynCardia from April 2018 to January 2021. He has played a key role in development projects for SynCardia, including the smaller sized 50cc total artificial heart and next generation pneumatic driver. Matt received his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Northern Arizona University.

Dr. Richard Fang

Interim CEO

Richard is the former CEO at Reach Surgical, a surgical instruments company, where he spent 15 years growing the company into an industry-leading, international brand with presence on six continents. His tenure there culminated in the recent sale of the company to private equity. During his time at Reach Surgical, he was the architect in a series of investments in the US, South America, China and Korea. These investments totaled more than $40 million and doubled the company’s revenues over three years. He also managed the construction and transition to a new 215,000 sq ft manufacturing facility. Prior to Reach Surgical, he led a variety of R&D projects at J&J in the US. Richard has an MBA from the University of Cincinnati as well as a Ph.D. in Physics from Purdue University. He is now the Founding Partner and Managing director of Hunniwell Lake Ventures, where he is using his experience to launch a new fund that will invest in overlooked segments of the medical device space.