Founders

François Gilardoni, PhD, WID Co-founder
Dr. François Gilardoni is a venture capitalist, innovation expert and award-winning scientist educated in Switzerland and the USA with more than two decades of international experience (EMEA, USA, Africa and Japan) in the high-tech and financial industries. He has 16+years’ experience in high-tech venture boards; sourcing, defining, developing, and managing – from the first conversation through term sheet to deal close – high-quality investment in the technology sector (seed & early), and has screened over 600 hundred ventures. He manages high-impact R&D industrial ventures, works closely with academics, technology leadership boards, and other industry organizations to identify key business/ industrial challenges (open innovation), secure funding (dilutive, non-dilutive), and deliver projects on time and target. He led complex/ multi-stakeholders projects (e.g. projects in nanotechnology, cloud computing in aerospace, automotive, pharma; total budget: > €50mio+). His forte is to: build and operate ventures from scratch; restructure and turn around companies in distress; build, invest and manage portfolios of high tech assets/ ventures; bring technologies quickly to market, and develop long-lasting strategic/ business/ technological relationships; and manage crisis.. @GilardoniF

Tiese Manigo Gilardoni,  WID Co-founder
Tiese MANIGO GILARDONI is WID’s founding COO and Director of Communications and Strategy. With over twenty years of international business experience, her forte is understanding the nuts and bolts of a business, as well as the socio-economic, developmental, cultural, brand and legal implications of investing and deploying in specific markets. She negotiates on behalf of and/or against governments, startups, SMEs and the world’s largest multinational corporations in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and S. Africa. She guides decision makers and stakeholders with differing perspectives, i.e. technical, business, legal, policy, and public/private sectors. Her clients are startups, SMEs, legal firms, EMEA Government and private sector investors, spanning the IT, ICT, healthcare, cleantech, electronics, luxury goods and e-commerce Industries.

Didier Pittet, MD, MS, WID Co-founder
Dr. Didier Pittet is Professor of Medicine, Hospital Epidemiologist and Director of the Infection Control Programme and World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety at the University of Geneva Hospitals (HUG) and Faculty of Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland. He holds Honorary Professorships at Imperial College London, UK, Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Health and Social Sciences and at the Medical Center of Fudan University, Shanghai, China. Professor Pittet is Lead Advisor of the first WHO Global Patient Safety Challenge, “Clean Care is Safe Care”, and the African Partnerships for Patient Safety at WHO Headquarters. He is the recipient of several national and international honors, including a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) awarded by Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth II for services to the prevention of healthcare-associated infection in the UK (2007), the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America Lectureship for his contribution to infection control and healthcare epidemiology (2008), and the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases’ Award for Excellence (2009). Professor Pittet is co-author of more than 500 publications in peer-reviewed journals and 50 textbook chapters. He serves on the editorial boards of a number of journals, including The Lancet Infectious Diseases, the American Journal of Infection Control, Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control, and Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. He is also an editorial consultant at The Lancet. His current research interests include the epidemiology and prevention of healthcare-associated infections, methods for improving compliance with barrier precautions and hand hygiene practices, as well as innovative methods for improving the quality of patient care and patient safety. He is also involved in research on the epidemiology of infectious diseases, and public and global health issues. The experience of his team in engaging nations and healthcare facilities worldwide in a universal commitment to patient safety is unique. A leader in his field, Dr. Pittet launched the first Innovation Day at HUG in 2007 and is co-founder of WID. A novel about his pioneering work around hand hygiene, entitled Clean Hands Save Lives,  was released this year. @DidierPittet