Robert (Chip) Hance

A medical device industry veteran with more than 25 years experience, Chip was CEO of Creganna Medical, a leading Ireland based supplier to the minimally invasive medical device industry. After a successful three-year effort to focus the company on higher growth markets and improve operational performance, Creganna Medical was sold to TE Connectivity in 2016. In 2012-13, Chip was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Center for Devices and Radiological Health within the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where he co-led the Innovation Pathway team focused on streamlining aspects of medical device clinical trials in the US. Prior to his FDA experience, Chip was most recently President of Abbott Vascular, the cardiovascular device division of Abbott. Over a decade in interventional cardiology at Abbott Vascular, he led the organization to global leadership in the drug-eluting stent market through the launch of Xience in the US, Japan and China. Chip also led the development and CE marking of Absorb, a bioabsorbable scaffold for the treatment of coronary disease and the acquisition and international expansion of Mitraclip, a percutaneous mitral valve repair device. Chip earned a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.