Meet the Sermo executives.

Daniel Palestrant, MD, Chief Executive Officer & Founder

Daniel Palestrant is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cambridge-based Sermo, Inc. As CEO, Daniel is responsible for the overall vision of the Sermo community and business. His main tasks focus on ensuring that Sermo is a valuable resource to physicians while building a profitable and socially responsible enterprise. Daniel's first experiences with Healthcare Informatics came when he conceived, designed, proposed and managed deployment of CIBUR (CIGNA Internet Based Universal Resource), one of the first commercial Web-based healthcare resources for physicians and allied health professionals. No stranger to the entrepreneurial side of medicine, Daniel founded his first company, Azygos, Inc., in 1998. During that time, he successfully raised $2.2MM in funding and deployed the company's first clinical application on schedule and on budget, before selling the company to BioNetrix in May of 2001. After selling Azygos, Daniel joined BioNetrix (Now BNX Systems) as Director of Health Care. During his time at BNX Systems, Daniel helped numerous healthcare-focused businesses increase network security, improve patient privacy safeguards and comply with HIPAA. Daniel has done clinical and laboratory research in transplant immunology. He has a B.S. in biology from Johns Hopkins University, completed medical school at Duke University, and trained in General Surgery at Beth Israel-Deaconess Hospital, in Boston before leaving to launch Sermo.

Will Koffel, Chief Technical Officer & Vice President of Operations

In his role as Sermo's CTO, Will Koffel oversees product management, engineering and site operations, and drives all of Sermo's product and technology initiatives, including its many industry development partnerships. As VP of Operations, Will manages IT and Facilities, and drives Sermo's Account Management and Client Services organization, responsible for contract fulfillment and delivery of Sermo's products and services to the top healthcare companies in the U.S. Will was a founding member of the engineering team at Akamai Technologies, where he developed the initial monitoring and reporting tools for Akamai's worldwide network. He then moved into a role as lead architect for the Akamai customer portal. Will managed a growing consumer division for Internet advertising company Miva as their Director of Server Development. He re-architected their core consumer search and services platform, scaling to a base of five million active users in excess of 50 million monthly page views. Prior to joining Sermo, Will was co-founder and CTO of venture-backed Wis.dm, a consumer social community harnessing the power of Q&A to spark discussions. Will holds Bachelor's degrees in Computer Science and in Music Composition from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Adam Feinzig, Chief Financial Officer

Adam Feinzig joined Sermo in 2010 as Chief Financial Officer with more than 17 years of financial and operational experience in the technology industry. Most recently, Adam was Vice President of Finance at Gomez, an internet infrastructure company. In his role, Adam was responsible for worldwide accounting operations, financial planning & analysis, treasury, tax and internal and external financial reporting. Gomez grew at a 40% CAGR and while in the SEC filing process to go public was sold to Compuware in a highly successful transaction. Prior to that, Adam was Vice President of Finance at Stratus Technologies. Earlier in his career, Adam was Vice President of Finance at Notara, a software start-up and Director of Finance at InfoVista, a publicly traded software company. Adam began his career as a CPA including five years with PricewaterhouseCoopers in its Technology Industry Group. Adam holds a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst School of Management.

Rich Westelman, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing

Rich joined Sermo in 2010 and is responsible for Sales and Marketing. This includes supporting the field sales, inside sales and account director teams as they work with clients to integrate social media into their market research and promotional endeavors. Rich also provides strategic direction to the Marketing team in increasing the awareness and relevance of Sermo’s unique two-sided marketplace. Prior to joining Sermo, Rich was a “serial entrepreneur” helping to launch and run numerous high-tech ventures, including most recently EnglishCentral – an online language learning company funded by Google Ventures. Rich was the CFO at Speechworks International for five years and led the team to take the company public in 2000. Rich holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

Alexandra LaMaster, Vice President of Talent

Alexandra LaMaster joined Sermo, Inc., in July 2008 as the company’s VP of Talent. From managing an HR team to maintaining a unique company culture to coaching executives and managers, she ensures that Sermo stays focused on people and effective communication. Many of Alexandra’s responsibilities involve facilitating knowledge exchange, whether in the form of company-wide meetings or individual employee initiatives. Prior to joining Sermo, she served as Vice President of Human Resources at Endeca Technologies, Inc., where she helped boost the employee base from 110 to 485 (and company revenue by 1,000%) in three short years. Earlier in her career, she helped take Speechworks International, Inc. public as Vice President of People Strategy, and established complete HR infrastructures in 10 countries—all according to local law and custom. Alexandra holds a Bachelors Degree in Communications from Luther College and a Masters Degree in Business Communications & Organizational Behavior from Emerson College.

Adam Sharp, MD, Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Adam Sharp was a member of the original team that launched Sermo, Inc., in 2006—and remains the company's Chief Medical Officer. As such, he focuses on all aspects of the Sermo physician experience. His responsibilities include maintaining the transparency of the Sermo business model, creating positive peer-to-peer interactions, and ensuring that all physician-client engagements are mutually beneficial and rewarding. Dr. Sharp is also actively involved in the development and implementation of many Sermo product offerings, including Sermo Panels and Client Posts. In addition to his position at Sermo, Dr. Sharp continues to care for patients as an Emergency Physician. He holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Biology from Indiana University, completed medical school at Tel Aviv University and trained in Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr. Sharp is board certified by the American Board of Emergency Medicine.