Shawn W. Cloonan serves as Life Science Lead & General Counsel of McCord

Development, Inc., where he oversees all legal aspects of the firm, advises on strategic development projects, and leads McCord’s efforts in developing assets to serve the life science and biotechnology industry.

Prior to joining McCord in 2020, Cloonan served as Chief Operating Officer, Executive Vice President & General Counsel of Texas Medical Center since 2013. In his role at TMC, Cloonan was responsible for all operations, planning and development as well as all legal aspects of the corporation including compliance with the TMC covenants.

Before joining the Texas Medical Center, Cloonan was a public finance attorney

representing health care, governmental and higher education clients for Vinson & Elkins LLP and Bracewell LLP. In addition to representation on bond financing, Cloonan represented clients on general counsel matters and real estate and development.

Cloonan holds a Bachelor of Arts – Magna Cum Laude in government from the

University of Texas at Austin and earned his Doctor of Jurisprudence with Honors from The University of Texas School of Law.

He currently serves as Chairman Emeritus of the Buffalo Bayou Partnership and is

active on its Executive Committee and Board of Directors. Cloonan was honored to receive the Houston Business Journal 40 Under 40 Award in 2013 and was named to the Top 100 Irish Lawyers in America List in 2015.

Gabe Lerner is a seasoned commercial real estate and investment management leader with over a decade of experience spanning mixed-use, office, retail, and large-scale land acquisitions. Currently, he serves as Executive Vice President at Lincoln Property Company in Houston, where he focuses on expanding Lincoln’s service businesses, as well as its development and investment portfolios in the market. Additionally, his priority is to grow Lincoln’s mixed-use development business.

Originally from Houston, Gabe has led real estate acquisition, development, and financing initiatives in markets across the globe and nationally, with a particular focus on the energy and real estate sectors. His comprehensive expertise encompasses Acquisition and Divestiture Management, Legal Due Diligence, and Asset Evaluation. Prior to joining Lincoln, Gabe held the position of Managing Director at Allied Orion Group. He was responsible for the acquisition, development, and alternative investment opportunities, concentrating on multifamily properties across the Sun Belt states. His strategic vision and leadership played a crucial role in expanding the company’s portfolio and driving its growth.

Gabe’s career also includes a tenure as Managing Director for one of China’s largest private real estate developers, ZTC Investments. In this capacity, he spearheaded investments, oversight, and management of projects outside mainland China, with a portfolio that included ventures in North America, Europe, Japan, and other global locales. Gabe started his career working as an attorney in Houston, Texas.

Meagan Gibbs is a Healthcare Engineering Director and Healthcare Area Market Sector Leader at HDR. She leads complex hospital, academic medical, and lab projects across the Central U.S., focusing on infrastructure resilience, constructability, and long-term operational performance. With deep expertise in MEP systems for 24/7 environments, Meagan works closely with owners to navigate regulatory requirements, phasing in live facilities, and capital planning decisions that balance first cost with lifecycle value. She is known for driving disciplined delivery, aligning technical rigor with schedule and budget certainty, and pushing teams beyond code-minimum solutions to deliver systems that support the research and care mission of the spaces.

Kurt’s professional engineering career spans over 40 years. His expertise includes structural engineering design for Mission Critical Facilities such as Data Centers, Health Care Facilities such as Hospitals and Clinics and Life Sciences Facilities such as Biopharmaceutical Pilot Plants and Production Facilities around the United States and the World. His area of expertise is in designing buildings to be occupable after natural disasters including Tornados, Hurricanes and Earthquakes. He has been the structural engineer of record for conventional “fixed Base Buildings” ranging from 1-23 stories, “Base Isolated Buildings” ranging from 1-5 stories, and the retrofit and new construction of buildings incorporating Fluid Viscous Dampers ranging from 1-22 stories. He has published numerous papers on passive energy dissipation and presented the findings at various conventions in Boston, San Francisco and Milan.

For over 23 years as the Founding Principal at PARADIGM Structural Engineers, Kurt spends most of his time developing new leaders at PARADIGM and mentoring staff in Chicago and San Francisco.

Dr. Robyn Cardwell serves as Assistant Vice Chancellor / Vice President for the Center for Biotechnology at San Jacinto College, where she leads strategic partnerships, workforce development, and regional, national, and global collaboration programs. She drives the growth of world-class biomanufacturing and biotechnology training initiatives, developed in partnership with the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT), to meet the needs of Houston’s rapidly expanding bioprocessing and life sciences industry.

With expertise spanning precision medicine, genomics, laboratory automation, and machine learning-driven scientific software, Dr. Cardwell has held leadership roles in advancing biotechnology products and services. She previously served as Chief Growth Officer at Omniscience, Global Business Development Manager for ABB Robotics’ Life Sciences division, and played key roles in commercializing innovative platforms at Genomic Health (now Exact Sciences), Natera, and Enthought.

She holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Virginia Tech and Wake Forest University and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Colorado State University.

Monique serves as the Executive Director for the venture capital firm

Portal Innovations in Houston; where their mission is to provide

crafted capital to enable life sciences innovators to build their

companies where they live. Monique has more than 15 years of

experience in supporting the growth of research scientists and

clinicians committed to developing translational life-saving

therapeutics into the clinic. She served as a technical sales

consultant for Miltenyi Biotec for ten years where she strategically

developed and progressed pipelines pertinent to organizational and

revenue growth targets primarily in the immuno-oncology therapeutic

market in the Texas Medical Center. Prior to joining Portal, Monique

was the regional sales manager for Sartorius Stedim North America in

the Bioprocessing Solutions division where she established and led a

team of dynamic account managers across the Central US.

As Assistant Director, Alba is responsible for business development and fiscal duties in support of the City’s comprehensive economic development activities that include business attraction, investment and development, and implementing strategies to foster economic growth within the community. Alba holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in International Business from Houston Baptist University

William “Bill” McKeon is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Texas Medical Center.

He is responsible for driving strategic, operational and programmatic initiatives across the Texas

Medical Center’s member institutions to enhance its leadership position in the life sciences.

McKeon joined the Texas Medical Center in 2013 as executive vice president, chief operating

officer and chief strategy officer.

McKeon attended Roger Williams University on the Harold G. Way Scholarship for Leadership

and Academic Excellence. He worked throughout his college years as a legal intern at

Asquith, Merolla, Anderson, Ryan & Wiley – a prestigious law firm in Providence, Rhode Island.

He graduated with top honors with a Bachelor of Science in Legal Studies. He earned his

master’s degree from University of San Francisco School of Management.

McKeon began his professional career at Du Pont de Nemours. He initially led the

implementation of large news publishing systems around the world and was later promoted to

run marketing and business development. During his time at Du Pont, McKeon lived throughout

the United States, United Kingdom and Sweden. His career shifted to health care when he was

recruited to Stanford University Medical Center, where he initially led the Cardiovascular

Medicine and Cardiothoracic Surgery business. He was then promoted to Director of Market

Development for all 17 business lines at Stanford.

He then went to Raytel Medical Systems - the largest cardiac monitoring business in the United

States. He served as Executive Director and digitized all businesses so that physicians could see

patients’ EKGs online from anywhere in the world. At Raytel, he won the Computer World

Smithsonian Award in Medicine.

McKeon came to Houston to join U.S. Oncology, which provides cancer care for over 25 percent

of the U.S. population. There, he served as Senior Vice President of Marketing and

Pharmaceutical Business Relations. During McKeon’s tenure, U.S. Oncology grew from $250

million to $1.4 billion, filed for IPO and was later acquired by the McKesson Corporation.

McKeon then moved to Medtronic Inc., the largest medical device company in the world. He led

Strategy and Emerging Technologies across all of the Medtronic businesses. His main focus was

to define the digital strategy for all Medtronic medical devices so that they could connect to

cellular devices.

McKeon was then recruited to serve as President and CEO of Microport Inc. in Shanghai. He

grew the business from $17 million to $157 million in two years. Additionally, he diversified the

business from one line to four lines and prepared the company for IPO. Today, Microport is

listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

McKeon then moved to London to serve as President and CEO of Cellnovo, the first mobile

diabetes management system in the world. He raised $10 million for its Series A round and $57

million for the Series B. Cellnovo is public on the European Exchange.