CEO Vacancy Triggers Management Shuffle at ENDRA Life Sciences

ENDRA Life Sciences Inc. is giving its executive management team an overhaul in the wake of its leader’s departure.

With former CEO Francois Michelon stepping down from his post to pursue other endeavors, the Board of Directors has appointed Alexander Tokman as his temporary replacement (acting CEO). The company also has welcomed to its senior management team Ziad Rouag as head of Regulatory and Clinical Affairs and Richard Jacroux as chief financial officer (CFO).

“As a member of the board, I want to thank Francois for his nine years of faithful service. I am honored to step in and execute on our plan to focus on core regulatory and commercial activities to successfully secure approval and launch our company’s well-patented technology, while exercising a strict fiscal discipline,” Tokman said.

Tokman is a growth-driven executive with more than 24 years of cross-functional leadership and P&L management experience centered around developing and commercializing new technology products and services for the medical device, biotech, consumer electronics, artificial intelligence (AI), and AgTech markets. He has a demonstrated track record in driving breakthrough revenue growth and valuations for startups, micro-caps and Fortune 100 companies and implementing improved strategies and operating mechanisms to accelerate business turnarounds.
 
Prior to ENDRA, Tokman was president of a privately held AI/computer vision SaaS company and was a CEO-in-Residence at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2). Tokman also currently serves as an independent board director for a technology company commercializing a dedicated breast CT imaging platform, and he’s a board member for the American Academy of Thermography, a non-profit organization focused on using novel infrared imaging applications to diagnose diseases. Before his stint with the private computer vision SaaS firm,, he successfully led an IoT technology microcap for more than 12 years and spent over 10 years as an executive with GE Healthcare, where he led several global businesses and successful commercialization of multiple business segments, including PET/CT.

Tokman earned both undergraduate and graduate engineering degrees from the University of Massachusetts.

“As we refocus our efforts on the critical company deliverables, I am also excited to welcome Ziad and Richard to ENDRA’s management team to help advance our goal of establishing the TAEUS system as a practical detection and monitoring biomarker solution for metabolic health. Ziad, who previously served as a consultant to ENDRA, brings extensive experience in regulatory affairs and will bolster our internal efforts as we move TAEUS through the domestic regulatory process,” Tokman stated. “Richard is a seasoned financial executive and will be an asset to the company as we grow and scale the business. Irina Pestrikova, formerly senior director, Finance, will help to ensure a smooth transition of daily finance operations to Richard, and remain an advisor to the company as she spends more time with her family.”
 
Rouag brings to ENDRA more than two decades of experience in the medical device industry as a leader of clinical operations and regulatory affairs for emerging startups and high-growth businesses. Most recently he was president and CEO of Biomodex, a digital healthcare company. Prior to Biomodex, Rouag served as vice president of Regulatory and Clinical Affairs at several companies including Juul Labs, PQ Bypass, and Altura Medical. Rouag earned both bachelor of science and bachelor of arts degrees from McGill University, and a J.D. from Rutgers University.
 
Jacroux has more than 20 years of experience in financial management and accounting and began his career at Ernst & Young LLP. He has been CFO at several technology companies, is the founder of Impact Solve LLC, an accounting and fractional chief financial officer service firm and is an adjunct professor at the University of Washington. Jacroux earned a bachelor of arts degree in business administration and accounting from the University of Washington, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.
 
ENDRA Life Sciences has pioneered Thermo Acoustic Enhanced UltraSound (TAEUS), a technology that characterizes tissue similar to an MRI, but at 1/40th the cost and at the point of patient care. TAEUS is designed to work in concert with the more than 700,000 ultrasound systems currently in use globally. TAEUS is initially focused on the non-invasive assessment of fatty tissue in the liver. Steatotic liver disease (SLD, formerly known as NAFLD-NASH) is a chronic liver disease spectrum that affects more than 2 billion people globally, and for which there are no practical diagnostic tools. Beyond the liver, ENDRA is exploring several other clinical applications of TAEUS, including non-invasive visualization of tissue temperature during energy-based surgical procedures.