Management Team

Professor Richard Kitney OBE – Chairman

Richard Kitney is Professor of BioMedical Systems Engineering and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at Imperial College, London. Prof. Kitney has worked in BioMedical Engineering and Healthcare for the last 25 years. He has published over 300 papers in the fields of biomedical signal and image processing, medical informatics and the general application of computers to healthcare. Visbion’s technology is based on the result of 15 years of research in Prof. Kitney’s laboratory at Imperial College.

Prof. Kitney has been a member of both British Government and European Commission Committees on the application of Information Technology to healthcare and is involved in the formulation of healthcare policy for the UK and to the EU. He is currently a senior advisor to the NHS on Information Technology. Kitney is Chairman of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s UK Focus on Biomedical Engineering. as well as a member of the Academy’s Engineering Policy Committee. He recently wrote a major policy paper for the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK) on the Role of Engineering in the Post Genomic Age. He has also been a consultant to a number of major international companies.

Kitney has worked on the study of, cardio-respiratory control, medical information systems, biomedical image processing related to magnetic resonance and ultrasound, the development of Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS), and 3D visualisation techniques. Professor Kitney has worked extensively in the United States and has been a Visiting Professor at MIT since 1991. He is a Co-Director of the Imperial College-MIT International Consortium for Medical Information Technology.

Professor Kitney was made a Fellow of the World Technology Network in 1999 for his innovative work in the fields of health and medicine.  He was also made an Academician of the International Academy of BioMedical Engineering in September 2003 (this is the highest honour bestowed by the International Federation of BioMedical Engineering Societies). He is also a Fellow of AIMBE, the America Academy of BioMedical Engineering.

In June 2001, Professor Kitney was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to Information Technology in Healthcare.

Stefan Claesen PhD DIC CSci MIEE MIPEM – Chief Executive Officer

Stefan has significant experience in the application of information technology within the healthcare industry. In recent years this has involved the development of specific IT solutions for a wide range of medical specialities including minimal access surgery, general practice and radiology.

Stefan has been involved in the development of the DICOM standard for medical image communication. In particular, he played a key role in the development and verification of the ultrasound sections of the standard, advised on the development of the X-ray angiography supplement, and is now involved in the ophthalmology definitions as a member of WG9. He is often asked to act as an independent assessor of DICOM compliance and conformance.

Stefan has worked extensively on international collaborations in medical informatics, with institutions including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Southern California (USC). He currently holds an Honorary Research Fellowship at Imperial College.

Professor Rifat Atun MD MBA DIC FRCGP FFPH – Medical Director

Rifat Atun is Professor of International Health Management the Director of Centre for Health Management at Tanaka Business School, Imperial College London. A clinician by background, he is a leading expert in the medical technology space. He leads a multidisciplinary research group. Rifat undertakes research programmes with the World Bank, World Health Organization, research groups at leading universities and leading companies such as Pfizer Inc., Hoffmann-La Roche, Merck & Co., Vodafone Group, Tata Consulting Services, and Boots Plc; as well as advising a number of governments in Europe, Latin America, Central Asia and the Middle East. He is a member of the Strategic Technical Advisory Group of the World Health Organization for tuberculosis. He is a non-executive director of Molecular Vision Ltd, an Imperial College spinout company operating in the medical diagnostics space and a Director of Medixine Oy, a Finnish company which offers multimodal information and communication software for healthcare and wellness.

Emma Loisel MA – Investor Director

Emma Loisel is the Non-Executive Director of Visbion, representing the Investors.  She is an angel investor herself in Visbion and several other businesses. Emma’s management experience spans business leadership, strategy, marketing and sales, plus general business operations and efficiency management.  Her investment experience includes opportunity due diligence, deal structure, investment and exit.

Emma began her career as a Criminologist before moving to the City to join KPMG Consulting as a business manager.  During her tenure at KPMG she had 3 key roles; initially managing the Insurance Consulting practice, before becoming the Business Manager for the UK Consulting business; followed, at the request of KPMG’s Chief Executive, as Chief Operations Officer of Metrius, a Creative Consulting agency start-up under the KPMG umbrella.  Emma went on to spend 3 years as the Chief Operations Officer and General Manager of two internet based businesses, Atlas Europe and Mediabrokers. Working with the founder, Emma scaled and prepared these businesses for sale to aQuantive LLC. The businesses achieved revenues of £28 million annually, leading to a maximum exit value following a two year earn-out.  Emma holds a Masters in Criminology.

Nigel Stokes MSc MBA – Company Secretary

Nigel Stokes is an engineer, entrepreneur, banker and holds an MBA from London Business School. He is also the General Manager of Saint Mary’s Therapy & Imaging Limited, which he helped found in 2006. He has extensive experience in handling start-ups and has been involved with a number of successful spin-off companies from Imperial College. He has acted as Visbion's Company Secretary since early 2006 and has helped with the starting up of the Company, and has dealt with or advised on the key legal and financial issues facing the business. Nigel has many years' experience and a proven and successful track record in start-up financial, commercial, legal and jurisdictional matters. He holds a masters degree in chemical engineering from Imperial College.