Tamara is a health care executive with diverse and global experience with publicly-traded and privately-held companies, as well as with public health non-profits. She is Vice Chair of the Heluna Health Board of Directors and also its audit committee, as well as a member of its governance and nominating committee. She also serves as a member of the audit committee of Crittenton Women’s Union, a non-profit dedicated to helping low-income women attain economic independence, and she does volunteer work for organizations benefitting special needs children. Tamara previously served as a director of the privately-held French cell therapy biotech, LTK Pharma.
Tamara has served as the general counsel at NASDAQ traded biotech companies Cubist Pharmaceuticals and Transkaryotic Therapies in Boston, and Australian stock exchange listed Mayne Pharma in London. In these roles, she advised the companies’ boards of directors, participated in the strategic direction and management of the companies, and led legal, government affairs, compliance and risk management departments. Prior to those experiences, she spent 6+ years at Biogen Idec’s international headquarters in Paris establishing legal, compliance, government and public affairs departments during a period of dynamic global expansion.
Before entering the health care sector in 1998, Tamara spent 8 years in law firms in NYC, LA, Paris and Brussels. She spent 6 years as a litigator and later international corporate lawyer with Morrison & Foerster and 2 years as a litigator with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver and Jacobson. Consistent with both firms’ leadership in providing pro bono legal services, Tamara devoted significant time to advising non-profit organizations and indigent individuals while at those firms. She authored a submission in 1989 that successfully persuaded the US Department of Justice to liberalize admissions for USSR Jewish refugees seeking political asylum, and in 1991 she argued a case before the California Court of Appeals that established the right of indigent plaintiffs to have their cases heard in civil courts rather than by paid arbitrators, thereby protecting their access to justice.
Tamara received her economics degree from Duke University and her law degrees from the University of Michigan, the College of Europe (Belgium) and the University of Paris.