Ashu brings more than 25 years of experience holding positions of increasing accountability at organizations ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies with revenues ranging up to $30B, spanning several industries including medical devices and software, wastewater, renewable energy, consumer products, hospital capital equipment and software, rapid diagnostics, and invitro diagnostics. ADAC Labs/Philips Healthcare, Covidien (acquired by Medtronic), Novozymes (now Novonesis), and Welch Allyn (now Baxter) are some of the consequential global multinationals he has worked for. Consequential from the perspective of gaining foundational skills and experience. New business development, strategic partnerships and alliance management, new product development and product management, and project management are his forte. Ashu’s new product development is rather unique and comprehensive, starting with developing the product concept in R&D, taking it to manufacturing via pilot production, and in parallel taking the product concept through the multiple phases of commercialization, all the way to launch. In March 2024 Welch Allyn, Inc. was awarded a patent (#11918539B2) in Wearable Health Management System, and he was one of the co-inventors.
His experience spans the Americas, Europe, Japan, and China with considerable domestic and international travel, thus offering unique cultural sensitivity and fluidity. Ashu has led up to 20-member global cross functional teams, and budgets of up to $10M. With the global and cross industry experience he excels at cross functional leadership to manage businesses, build partnerships, drive projects, and to explore, identify, and productize innovation.
He began his professional journey in Research & Development (R&D) in the then burgeoning Biotech Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. His five years at ChemTrak, Inc. (NASDAQ: CMTR) was a seminal experience in many ways, including changing his trajectory from a technical career with the desire to get a PhD to a business track with an MBA. ChemTrak, Inc. with <100 FTEs developed, manufactured, and sold rapid diagnostic tests for a variety of health conditions. Here he co-led the project to develop a lateral flow rapid diagnostic test, from concept to manufacturing, to detect the presence of bacterium H. pylori, a causative agent of stomach ulcers. This was his first experience with the Design for Manufacturing concept. The test was marketed as AccuMeter H. pylori. It got FDA 510(K) clearance for use in professional settings. Astra Merck was given distribution rights in the US to sell it, along with its companion medication Prilosec, the leading treatment for ulcers. Incidentally, he had a chance meeting with the Australian physician, 2005 Nobel Laureate in Physiology, Barry Marshall who demonstrated that H. pylori are the cause of many peptic ulcers. Dr. Marshall drank a broth of H. pylori to prove his hypothesis. Ashu had met him about 10 years before he was awarded the Nobel prize in medicine. There were many distinct experiences and inspirations from this R&D tenure that put the foundation to where Ashu is today. Taking a product from concept to manufacturing, people management, learning a new domain space with self-learning, work experience, and networking, the value of cross functional teams and diverse inputs, collaboration with academia, co-author of a peer reviewed journal article, and success with entrepreneurship. It instilled a new level of confidence and made him very adaptable. Always curious about new domain spaces, very comfortable with the new and unknown, and constantly exploring, evolving, and growing.
To get a strong foundation in concepts of business and to formally anchor his future business career, he went on to Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York to earn his MBA in the full-time program in Finance and Marketing with Innovation Management specialty. Along with business courses and projects, he took graduate level courses in Technology Transfer Law and Valuation of Intellectual Property at the College of Law and worked as a graduate assistant at the Center for Entrepreneurship, to fit with his future career path involving technology, business, and entrepreneurship.
Ashu has lived, studied, and worked in the Bay Area California, Central New York, Boulder Colorado, and Southwest Virginia. Presently he lives in the Roanoke Valley, Virginia with his wife and two children. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his family, in-person socializing with his professional network and friends, working out at the local gym and walking for exercise, traveling, and reading. The book that left the greatest mark on Ashu was the 1992 autobiography of Carl Djerassi PhD, the renown Bulgarian born American chemist, novelist, and playwright, widely known as the “father of the birth control pill.” The book was titled The Pill, Pygmy Chimps, and Degas’ Horse. It explores the life of a driven scientist, the intersection of science and business, and his evolution into a socially conscious person. He contended that scientists should not remain detached from society but have a responsibility to understand the practical realization of their discoveries.
Blue Ridge Innovation Management Advisors work with entities of any size and location, to fill in the resource gaps, to deliver on critical projects. We also advise entrepreneurs and startups primarily in the Roanoke Valley and the New River Valley areas of South West Virginia. The consulting services are structured around organizing a new venture and moving it forward to operationalize the innovation. A defining feature of the advice is to articulate and increase the value of the venture, to make it more attractive to the investors and the partners, therefore accelerating commercialization.
Ashu is presently serving as a fractional CEO of a self-financed pre-seed startup based in Virginia, in the Controlled Environment Agriculture space. The technology development is aimed at increasing operating efficiency of indoor vertical farms and greenhouses by optimizing energy use.
Stewardship, collaboration, trust, and long-term partnership form the bedrock of our successful consulting engagements.
Time permitting, Ashu has volunteered within the local innovation ecosystem and outside of it. Most recently he offered his time as a judge in the Virginia State Science and Engineering Fair 2025. Every year since 2021 he has been on the Judge panel for InnoVision Awards, which advances technology and innovation in South Carolina. In the past, he was a mentor in the Health Sciences & Technology Commercialization Fellows Program, which is funded by Virginia Tech University’s Office of the Vice President for Health Sciences and Technology. Leaders in Energy is another nonprofit where Ashu lends his time; the organization’s mission is to advance sustainable solutions and clean energy. Most recently he has been appointed as the Fundraising Chair as part of the overall Development strategy for the nonprofit.
We are entrepreneurial, cost-effective, and flexible in how we provide solutions and structure compensation, which is tailored to each client’s unique needs. Contact us today at
Ashu Jain, MBA
(pronounced “ä-shu jăn”)
Founder & Principal
Blue Ridge Innovation Management Advisors
Roanoke, Virginia
540.354.1465 (mobile)
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