Ben Pless has over 25 years of experience developing and bringing to market implantable medical devices and is currently CEO of Pivotal Design Labs, a medical device consulting organization. Most recently he was President and CEO of Autonomic Technologies, developing a minimally invasive neurostimulator to treat severe headache. Prior to that he was the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technical Officer of NeuroPace, a privately-held company developing electronic implantable devices for the treatment of epilepsy. Before joining NeuroPace in 2000, he was responsible for worldwide development activities for the Cardiac Rhythm Management Division of St. Jude Medical, Inc. Mr. Pless previously served as Vice President of product development for Ventritex, Inc. and General Manager of its Maven Capacitors division until the sale of the company to St. Jude Medical in 1997. He was a founder of Ventritex where he was instrumental in the development of one of the first implantable cardiac defibrillators. His career began at Intermedics, where he was a development engineer for implantable pacemakers.
Mr. Pless is a member of the board of directors of several start-up medical device companies and regularly provides consulting services to the venture capital community. Mr. Pless received a B.S.E.E. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and attended graduate school at Rice University. He is a named inventor on over 100 patents and patent applications.