Marga Ortigas-Wedekind

Marga’s studied at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business where she focused on International Business and Marketing and honed the strategic mind for which she is known. While at Stanford, Marga experienced an epiphany while enrolled in an Ethics class. As an assignment, she interviewed Ron Dollens, the CEO of Advanced Cardiovascular Systems (later Guidant Corporation), and was completely engrossed with how he characterized the responsibility he and his team faced when making decisions for a business in which they held patients’ lives in their hands. From this discussion, she saw that there is always a patient, a family, and a provider who benefit from a well-developed solution and appreciated the earnestness required to realize this opportunity. She eventually joined ACS/Guidant Vascular Intervention as Director of International Marketing and never looked back.

The theme of helping patients get a shot at a better life has reverberated throughout her career. Most recently she served as EVP of marketing and payor relations at iRhythm Technologies, a digital healthcare provider of cardiac monitoring services that she helped take from startup to successful IPO. One of the defining moments of her career was seeing the team’s image light up on Times Square when the company went public, knowing they had brought an important technology to market.

Prior to iRhythm, she was the EVP of global marketing and product development at Omnicell, Inc. a creator of pharmacy automation technology and analytics, and SVP of marketing, development and clinical affairs at Xoft, Inc. (acquired by ICAD), a startup that pioneered disruptive technology for cancer radiation therapy. She began her startup experience as VP sales and marketing for ProDuct Health (now part of Hologic) which developed an early breast cancer risk stratification and detection device.

With over 30 years of leadership experience, Marga has enjoyed many successes with companies at various stages of development. Ironically, it is the failures she has experienced that have reinforced some of her most essential learning.