Ada expands its global leadership team to help drive company’s rapid growth

• Ada makes three new leadership team appointments, hiring Gülsah Wilke and Torsten Schero to the roles of Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer respectively, and naming Vanessa Lemarié as Chief Client Officer
• The new appointments bring extensive experience scaling technology companies and driving operational excellence at high-growth and incumbent businesses

Berlin / London / New York, July 15, 2021 - Ada, the global health company, today announces the appointment of digital transformation veterans Gülsah Wilke, Torsten Schero and Vanessa Lemarié to the roles of Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Client Officer respectively. Wilke, Schero and Lemarié will be central to Ada’s ambitious business growth trajectory in their new roles, as the company accelerates its path towards becoming the world’s leading personalised operating system for health.

The appointments follow a period of significant growth for Ada: its AI-based health assessment and care navigation platform is the world’s most popular and highest-rated symptom assessment app, with over 23 million assessments completed since launch. Meanwhile, the company has also rapidly launched a suite of AI-driven enterprise solutions, collaborating with a range of health systems, insurers, life sciences companies, and global non-profit organizations to integrate its symptom assessment and care navigation solutions across a wide variety of digital care journeys. Earlier this year, the company announced a $90 million Series B investment led by Leaps by Bayer to further accelerate this growth. Wilke, Schero and Lemarié join Ada’s leadership team alongside co-founder and CEO Daniel Nathrath, co-founder and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Claire Novorol, and Chief Technology Officer Dr. Urban Liebel.

Daniel Nathrath, CEO & Co-founder of Ada, said: 

“We couldn’t be happier to be welcoming Gülsah and Torsten to Ada, and to be welcoming Vanessa to the leadership team, as we enter a hugely exciting new chapter for the company. Our goal at Ada is to improve healthcare outcomes for more than 1 billion people around the world, an ambition we can only achieve with the very best people on-board; Gülsah and Torsten both have exceptional track records spearheading strategy and driving organisation excellence at high-growth businesses, and bring with them a wealth of operational and financial expertise. Vanessa has been absolutely critical to Ada’s continued success and business development strategy, and we are thrilled that she will continue to drive the company’s growth in her new role. These appointments put us in an excellent position to pursue our ambitious growth journey, expand our consumer and enterprise offerings, and transform the way people access healthcare for the better.”

Gülsah Wilke is a tech leader, advisor and investor who brings extensive experience scaling technology companies, creating organisational excellence and driving digital transformation. Most recently, Wilke served as an investor and head of operations, pricing and portfolio at Axel Springer. As a member of the supervisory board of StepStone, she was instrumental in shaping the success of Axel Springer’s biggest portfolio company as well as Axel Springer’s take private with KKR. Previously, she steered the Axel Springer Silicon Valley office, identified partnership and investment opportunities, and built a digital transatlantic hub. Prior to this, Wilke worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and IBM advising international companies on strategic and digital transformation. She is passionate about fostering diverse teams and leadership-building in tech, and uses experience, expertise, and network as Co-Founder of the 2Hearts Tech Community (supported by the Deutschlandstiftung Integration) to empower talent with migrant backgrounds in the tech ecosystem. 

As part of her role as COO, Wilke will oversee Ada’s strategy process and lead operations, legal, marketing & communications as well as people & culture.

Gülsah Wilke, Chief Operating Officer at Ada, said: 

“Having observed the market for a number of years, I have been thoroughly impressed by Ada’s superior technology and knowledge-base, industry-leading AI, and purpose-driven culture to provide people around the world better access to healthcare. I am thrilled to be joining the team at Ada, and look forward to further shaping the company’s already extraordinary success and growth alongside the team.”

Torsten Schero is a visionary and strategic thinker with over 15 years’ experience in CFO and CEO roles across startup, scale-up and incumbent businesses. He brings a wealth of experience driving operational excellence, building efficient teams and managing finance and business operations departments in high-growth businesses. Prior to Ada, Schero spent a number of years at Amazon Deutschland as CFO and Managing Director, Media Business for the DACH region, served as CEO at Rebuy Recommerce and Getnow, and has held a number of further executive and advisory positions. 

In his new role as CFO, Schero will oversee Ada’s financial strategy and its ongoing development as the company charts new growth internationally as well as managing investor relations.  

Torsten Schero, Chief Financial Officer at Ada, said: 

“It is hugely exciting to be joining Ada at such a pivotal time in its growth journey, and to be playing a key role in driving the company’s financial strategy and key investor relationships through this new chapter. As the healthcare market shifts increasingly into digital services, there is a huge opportunity for Ada and its superior AI technology. I strongly believe in people’s right to have access to health systems and medical knowledge, and am pleased to be working with such a great team to make this vision a reality for more people around the world.”

Vanessa Lemarié has previously led the company’s life sciences partnerships as Ada’s SVP Life Sciences & Rare Diseases, working with a growing range of pharmaceutical and consumer health companies to implement Ada’s technology and enable access to high medical quality health assessments and care navigation solutions, as well as leading Ada’s Rare Disease Initiative. Prior to Ada, Lemarié spent over fifteen years working with Bayer Pharmaceuticals, holding various Global and Regional leadership roles across Pharma Commercial Operations. 

In her new role as Chief Client Officer, Vanessa Lemarié will oversee Ada’s business development and commercial strategy and partnerships across all industries and health sectors. 

Vanessa Lemarié, Chief Client Officer at Ada, said: 

“It has been an absolute privilege to lead our life sciences collaborations over the last couple of  years, working with our amazing teams to make Ada the best health assessment solution for users that also generates value for numerous clients across healthcare.

Striving to always provide the best possible engagements with our clients, closing ambitious partnerships, and learning how we together best help users all over the world manage their health will be key to our growth and continued commercial success. I am thrilled to now be leading our commercial teams and further develop Ada’s exceptional client business.”

Ada is a global health company founded by doctors, scientists and industry pioneers to create new possibilities for personal health, and transform knowledge into better outcomes. Its core system connects medical knowledge with intelligent technology to help all people actively manage their health and medical professionals to deliver effective care, and the company works with leading health providers, organizations and governments to carry out this vision. The Ada platform has 11 million users worldwide, and has completed 23 million assessments since its global launch in 2016. 

In May 2021, Ada raised $90 million in a Series B investment round led by Leaps by Bayer, the impact investment arm of Bayer AG, with participation from the likes of Samsung Catalyst Fund, Vitruvian Partners, Inteligo Bank, F4 and Mutschler Ventures.

To learn more, visit https://ada.com. 

Jonathan Muck
Senior Communications & Public Affairs Manager

[email protected]