Preetha Ram, PhD, MBA

Over a 25-year career, Dr. Ram has built expertise at the intersection of technology, innovation, and business, bringing strong strategic value to corporate boards.

As Managing Partner and CTO at Pier 70 Ventures, she focuses on Future of Health investments, applying expertise in AI/ML, analytics, life sciences, and operational leadership to scale promising companies. Pier 70 Ventures recently was recognized by the Associate for Corporate Growth with the Best Healthcare VC 2026 Award.

She serves as a Board Director at TiE Silicon Valley leading partnerships, and advises several emerging enterprises on growth, market expansion, and user engagement.

Previously, as CEO of OpenStudy—a B2C medtech startup—she built predictive analytics to monetize user activity, grew the platform to 65+ million global visitors and 40+ partnerships, achieved profitability, and executed a successful acquisition by Brainly. Under her leadership, OpenStudy secured funding from NSF, NIH, Gates Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, and top Silicon Valley VCs, and was named a Top 10 Most Innovative EdTech Company by Fast Company.

Earlier, Dr. Ram served as Emory College’s first Dean for Science, overseeing science education for 1,000+ majors and managing multi-million-dollar NSF and university budgets. She won Emory’s Winship Award of Excellence and the Andrew Heiskell Award, established the PreHealth Mentoring Office, and launched “Bench to Board” commercialization initiatives.

She holds a PhD in Life Sciences from Yale, an MBA from Emory, a BS from IIT Delhi, and a certificate in Generative AI for business value.