Phyllis Whiteley, PhD., is a Venture Partner with Playground Global where she provides hands-on leadership in building, investing, and creating companies in all areas of Healthcare where technology can improve access to healthcare, the patient experience, and improved quality and speed while reducing costs. Playground Global is a deep tech investor where we leverage our vision and deep understanding of technology to help build companies that will have multi-generational impact. Phyllis’ career is founded on her passion for personalized medicine, global healthcare, and transformative life science innovations. She has founded and built multiple companies in the United States and abroad.
Her executive expertise includes strategic planning, financing, partnerships, restructuring, building executive teams and M&A. Prior to joining Playground Global, Phyllis spent over a decade at Wildcat Venture Partners and Mohr Davidow Ventures, leading to numerous successful exists. She was an Officer and Senior Vice President, Business Development, Licensing, and Alliance Management at Perlegen Sciences, Inc. Before joining Perlegen, she served as Vice President, Strategic Portfolio Management for Roche. Over her ten-year career with Roche she held various positions in Business Development based in Basel, Switzerland coupled with R&D leadership positions in the US. Phyllis also held a Senior Research Immunology role with Merck. Phyllis is a member of the Board of Directors for Lassogen Therapeutics, BodyPort (board chair), Alydia Health, a medical device company treating Post Partum Hemorrhage around the world and Nalu Bio.
Phyllis is dedicated to helping social entrepreneurs address the problems of poverty, empower women, and build resilience to climate change. She currently sits on the boards of the Personalized Medicine Coalition (Emeritus), UCSF Leadership Council for Global Health, University of Michigan School of Nursing Board for Science and Innovation and chairs the advisory board for the University of Texas Horizon Fund. Phyllis is also Global Social Benefits Mentor at Santa Clara University.
Phyllis holds a BA in Chemistry and Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.
