Women's Economic Ventures
Kathy Odell became WEV’s CEO on January 1, 2020 upon Marsha Bailey’s retirement.
Kathy is a serial entrepreneur with over 30 years of leadership experience. She began her entrepreneurial career in 1985 as co-founder Medical Concepts, Inc., which over a five-year period became the world’s leading designer and manufacturer of video systems for minimally invasive surgery, resulting in its acquisition by Karl Storz Endoscopy in 1990. She remained with the company through 2000, when she resigned to pursue new entrepreneurial ventures.
From 2002 to 2008, Kathy served as CEO of Inogen, Inc., a manufacturer of advanced therapy devices for treatment of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). During Kathy’s tenure, Inogen received over $53M in venture capital. Today Inogen is a public company with a $2B market cap [NASDAQ:INGN].
From 1998 to 2012, Kathy was a director of Pacific Capital Bancorp, N.A. [NASDAQ: PCBC], a regional community bank with $6.5B in assets, where she served as Chair of the Compensation Committee and as a member of the Enterprise Risk and Governance committees.
Kathy has been committed to supporting women entrepreneurs throughout her career and joined the Women’s Economic Ventures board in 2010. In addition to her work with Women’s Economic Ventures, she serves on two non-profit boards, the UCSB Economic Forecast Project and the Sustainable Change Alliance, a community-based impact investing group. Kathy is a graduate of Stanford University.