Board of Directors

	Adam Abram Mr. Abram is Chairman of Franklin Holdings (Bermuda), Ltd., an insurance holding company.  He is also Chairman of Piedmont Community Banks Holdings, Inc. a federally chartered bank holding company he founded in 2009. Mr. Abram served as CEO and director of James River Group, Inc., a NASDAQ-listed company, from its inception in 2002 until its sale to Franklin Holdings in 2007. Previously, he founded and served as President of Adaron Group, Inc., a developer-owner of approximately 4 million square feet of commercial property in North Carolina. Mr. Abram serves as chair of the Duke University School of Public Policy Board of Visitors and serves or has served on the Boards of the Urban Institute, Human Rights First, and the Triangle Land Conservancy, among others.
	Benjamin Abram Benjamin Abram works for The Westly Group, a clean technology-oriented venture capital firm in Menlo Park, California. In addition to his role at the Chordoma Foundation, Benjamin serves as a director of FACE AIDS, and formerly served as a trustee of Duke University. He is a board observer of two privately-held companies, Glacier Bay and CleanWell, both in California. He is additionally a member of Class XIV of the Kauffman Fellows Program.
	Joel Beckman Joel Beckman is a Managing Partner of Greenbriar Equity Group LLC, a private equity fund. Prior to founding Greenbriar, Mr. Beckman spent 18 years at Goldman Sachs, where he was a Managing Director and Partner. He is also a Director of Hexcel Corporation and Western Peterbilt, Inc., a Senior Trustee and member of the Investment Committee of the University of Rochester, a Director of Stepping Stone Day School for handicapped children, UJA-Federation of New York, and Metropolitan Council on Poverty, and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Yale Law School Center for the Study of Corporate Law. Mr. Beckman was diagnosed with chordoma in 2009.
	Heather Lee, PhD, SPHR – Chairperson A certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR), Heather Lee is a principal in the nonprofit and public sector consulting firm, Developmental Associates, LLC. She spent 13 years as Associate Professor of Human Resources and Psychology at Peace College in Raleigh, NC and, prior to that, served for eight years as VP for Human Resources at Easter Seals of NC, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of people with disabilities. In 2008, Heather lost her 13 year old son, Justin Straus, to chordoma after a seven-year battle with the disease. She is dedicated to the mission of the Chordoma Foundation so that other families will not have to endure the loss of a loved one to this relentless disease.
	Andrew Schoelkopf Andrew joined the Robert Schoelkopf Gallery as Director in 1989. After the closing of the Robert Schoelkopf Gallery, Andrew joined Christie’s auction house as a Specialist in American Paintings and became Director of the American Paintings Department in 1995. Mr. Schoelkopf subsequently held a number of senior positions with Christie’s as Director of Business Development for North and South America and in his final post with the firm as President of Christie’s Internet Auction business. Andrew and his partner opened the doors of Menconi & Schoelkopf Fine Art in April of 2001 and are leading private dealers in the field, specializing in American paintings, drawings and sculpture of the eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and early twentieth-centuries. Andrew holds a Bachelor’s degree from Denison University and a Masters of Business Administration from Fordham University Graduate School of Business.  He is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Private Art Dealers Association of America and sits on the Art Show Committee of the Art Dealers Association of America.
	Chandra Sen, MD Chandra Sen is professor of neurosurgery at NYU Langone Medical Center and is a pioneer in the field of skull base surgery. He is a member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, a founding member of the North American Skull Base Society, and a current member and former president of the New York Society of Neurosurgery. Since treating his first chordoma patient in 1987, Dr. Sen has made chordoma a primary focus of his practice, and throughout his career has become one of the most experienced chordoma surgeons in the world. He has published several papers and book chapters on skull base and cervical spine chordomas, and frequently lectures on chordoma at international conferences. Dr. Sen cares deeply for his chordoma patients and describes improving the treatment of chordoma as one of his life goals.
	Josh Sommer Josh Sommer is Executive Director of the Chordoma Foundation, which he co-founded to speed the pace of chordoma research after he was diagnosed with a skull-base chordoma in 2006. Following his diagnosis, Josh spent two years studying chordoma in the lab of Dr. Michael Kelley at Duke University, where he published two research papers on chordoma. In 2008, he was awarded an Echoing Green Fellowship for social entrepreneurship to work for the Chordoma Foundation. To complement his work with the Foundation, from 2008 to 2011 he served as a Fellow in Strategic Philanthropy and Health in Duke’s Program on Global Health and Technology Access, where he studied different models for sharing of scientific data and biological materials. He currently serves a member of the National Cancer Institute Director’s Consumer Liaison Group, the Moffitt Cancer Center Total Cancer Care External Advisory Board, and the Board of Advisors of the Fibrolamellar Cancer Foundation. For his efforts to advance chordoma research, Josh was honored by ABC News as a Person of the Year in 2008.
	John Therien, JD – Secretary John Therien is a partner at Smith, Anderson, Blount, Dorsett, Mitchell & Jernigan LLP in Raleigh, North Carolina where he focuses his practice on technology transactions. He works with both privately and publicly held companies on technology licensing and collaborations, with an emphasis on pharmaceutical, biotech and other life sciences-related transactions. Prior to joining Smith Anderson, Mr. Therien practiced at Ropes & Gray LLP in Boston, Massachusetts.