BIO

Early in his career, Lewis consulted for over a decade to numerous global corporations via his own innovation studio, to develop and commercialize new science & technology across EMEA and North American markets. His portfolio of collaborations included work for therapeutics in cancer & respiratory disease areas, to cloud computing systems & big data applications. Clients included Microsoft, Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Motorola, Panasonic, Unilever, PepsiCo, and IBM. His studio was acquired in 2010.

For several years, he collaborated in Silicon Valley leading design strategy alongside high-growth startups including a high-profile venture studio, a transportation platform, a VC firm, an open-source web system, and a blockchain/crypto investment fund.

In 2013, Lewis was invited to work with a multidisciplinary team of scientists & engineers at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute. The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering uses Nature's design principles to develop new innovations for healthcare, energy, architecture, robotics, and a sustainable world. He worked on translation of the radical Organs-on-Chips ‘living human emulation’ science (funded by a DARPA $37m grant) out of the lab into a new spin-out venture to democratize the technology for understanding disease & enabling new cures - Lewis was appointed as Chief Strategy Officer of the start-up (Emulate, Inc.)

As CSO of Emulate, Inc. Lewis defined the pitches to raise significant funding from top tier investors including Founders Fund (Series A > D) and guided the organization through its first five years of operations and growth (2015 > 2020). Lewis led the strategy (vision & commercialization), product design, and brand communication functions at Emulate. He is named as a co-inventor of over thirty patents for Organs-on-Chips and the related ‘Human Emulation System®’. The technology is widely adopted by the U.S. FDA, major drug developers, and the U.S. Army to accelerate development of new solutions, including for Covid-19.

‘Organs-on-Chips’ was named as a "top 10 emerging technology" by the World Economic Forum with ‘the power to improve lives, transform industries and safeguard the planet’. The platform won “design of the year” by London’s Design Museum, was formally acquired into the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) collection, is deployed to study uncured diseases aboard the International Space Station, and is featured as the 'Future of Medicine' on the front cover of a special edition of National Geographic magazine.

Lewis was selected as a Global Fellow of Social Impact by MovingWorlds, to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). His work includes hands-on field work and strategic consulting with international social enterprises; applying human-centered design, technology & impact investing to solve pressing health, environmental, economic, and societal problems. Institute partners include Microsoft, EY, Siemens, MercyCorps, and Village Capital.

Lewis also served as a Fellow for Mercy Corps Ventures. Mercy Corps is a global team of humanitarians working together on the front lines of today’s biggest crises with a mission to alleviate suffering, poverty & oppression by helping people build secure, productive & just communities. Their impact investing arm, MC Ventures, partners with social entrepreneurs to iterate & scale bold solutions to the world’s toughest challenges.

Recently, Lewis was the Senior Fellow and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the LARTA Institute. Their mission (which he created) is “to foster science & technology innovation for sustainable planet”. Lewis engaged an innovation pipeline and investment portfolio of early-stage startups that are funded by government agencies such as NOAA, USDA, and DOE – translating their promising ideas into sustainable enterprises to feed, fuel, & heal the world. These startups develop innovation for nature preservation & repair, food & energy systems, and healthy & resilient communities. In 2023 the active 505 startups in LARTA’s incubator & accelerator programs were awarded $138m in non-dilutive funding and raised $230m in follow-on funding. As the head of LARTA’s innovation team Lewis led thesis development, portfolio strategy & curation, investment due diligence, and annual impact reporting.

Lewis is now hugely proud to be recently appointed as a Fellow of The Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University. The Institute was established in 1999 to collect and preserve Peter F. Drucker's work and make it available to leaders, managers, scholars, students, and writers, advancing initiatives that support the practice of management. Today, as a social enterprise, the Institute’s purpose is ‘Strengthening Organizations to Strengthen Society’. It does this by turning Drucker’s ideas and ideals into programs that are both practical and inspiring. It does this because society is only as strong as the organizations within it. The Institute is a close affiliate of the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management, which is training the next generation of leaders and managers to “do good while they do well”.

Lewis earned his Bachelor of Science in applied design & engineering at the University of Wales Trinity St David.

He studied Strategy (Design Thinking & Innovation) at Harvard Business School.

PURPOSE

How might we replace inaccurate animal-based testing in scientific research with a new human-centered sustainable technology, to understand disease, improve drug development, and rapidly create solutions to biological threats?

SYNOPSIS

Lewis was invited to work with an amazing team of scientists and engineers at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering - to help create & scale the radical ‘Organs-on-Chips’ technology.

Lewis was appointed as the Chief Strategy Officer of the spin-out company, where he helped to raise significant funding (Series A > D) and led the organization through the first five years of operation and growth.

The resulting ‘Human Emulation System®’ is a disruptive new biological computing platform that recreates ‘true-to-life’ living human biology, outside of the body. The system is enabling new insights into uncured diseases, R&D for new breakthrough medicines, development of safer foods and consumer products, and a new era of precision medicine to improve patient treatment outcomes in the clinic.

The tech was originally funded by a $37m grant from DARPA and the FDA at Harvard.

Lewis is named as a co-inventor of over thirty patents for Organs-on-Chips and the related and the related ‘Human Emulation System®’.