MEET Sharon KEDAR
Sharon Kedar is Co-Founder, Partner of Northpond Ventures. Northpond Ventures is a multi-billion-dollar science-driven venture capital firm based in Cambridge, MA; San Francisco, CA; and Bethesda, MD. Northpond has consistently been named one of the most active lead life science investors in venture industry rankings. It is deeply engaged in the academic ecosystem, having founded and launched The Laboratory for Bioengineering Research and Innovation at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University; the MIT-Northpond Program – Advancing Life Science & Engineering Innovation; the Northpond Laboratories — Program for Research and Innovation at Stanford School of Medicine; and sponsored a prize for women entrepreneurs at MIT.
Prior to Northpond, Sharon was CFO of Sands Capital. Over her 15-year tenure, Sands Capital grew assets over 30x from $1.5 billion to $50 billion. At Sands Capital, Sharon held multiple leadership roles across the firm over her tenure prior to CFO: Analyst/Portfolio Manager for the technology sector, Western States client relations, and Sands Capital Ventures board member. She was the first female Analyst and Portfolio Manager at Sands Capital. Prior to Sands Capital, Sharon was a consultant at McKinsey & Company.
While at Sands Capital, Sharon co-wrote two books on personal finance for women. “On My Own Two Feet: A Modern Girl’s Guide to Personal Finance” is currently in second edition as a Simon & Schuster imprint. Her work has been featured nationally. Sharon continues to be an advocate for women, more recently focused on women and entrepreneurship. In 2021, Northpond launched a Future Founders Competition with MIT, working to close the entrepreneurship gap for women on MIT’s STEM faculty. Sharon is mission driven and interested in helping solve tough problems to enhance the world we collectively inhabit.
Sharon is host of Innovate and Elevate, a video podcast launched in January 2024. The podcast spotlights top doctors, scientists, and innovators about leading-edge discoveries and how they impact our lives. Season one focuses on women’s health, featuring prominent guests, including Dr. Kathryn Rexrode, Chief, Division of Women’s Health at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital [Episode: Treat Your Body As If You Were Pregnant]; Dr. Canan Dagdeviren, Director of Conformable Decoders and Associate Professor at MIT [Episode: Dare to Dream: An Ultrasound Bra for Breast Health]; and Dr. Donald E. Ingber, Founding Director of the Wyss Institute at Harvard University [Episode: Mice Don’t Menstruate: Reimaging Women’s Health Using Organ Chips].
Through her work in advancing conversations about women’s health, Sharon has been invited to participate in discussions at the national scale, including The White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research in connection with the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) and the 2024 NYSE Women’s Health Investor Summit.
Sharon has served on many of Northpond’s portfolio company boards, including multiple IPOs. She is currently a board member of Emulate, a Harvard spin out focused on Organ-on-a-Chip technology. She is also an advisor at SEEN Hair Care. Sharon has an MBA from Harvard Business School, a B.A. in Economics from Rice University, and is a CFA charterholder. She lives in the Washington, DC area with her husband, Greg, and their three kids.
