Issi Rozen is a general partner at GV, where he primarily focuses on the formation of new companies and early-stage investments. Issi is an experienced biotech executive and a serial entrepreneur who co-founded multiple startups, including GV portfolio company Verve Therapeutics. “My background is quite unusual for life sciences,” he explains. “I started in music, got excited about biotech in business school, led strategy and business development efforts at several biotech companies, and then spent a decade at the Broad Institute, spinning out more than 20 companies and co-founding another five.”

Issi served as the Chief Business Officer and a member of the executive leadership team at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he led the creation of the Office of Strategic Alliances and Partnering. He was responsible for developing innovative scientific and business collaborations, initiating and establishing new ventures around novel technologies, and overseeing strategy and licensing of the Institute’s intellectual property portfolio.

“I’ve seen many different shades of companies, and I’ve always loved the opportunity to partner with founders and experiment with different structures to advance early-stage science,” he says. “Closely following the many startups spinning out of the Broad helped me learn to identify why some did better than others when all had potential.”

An accomplished jazz guitarist who spent his early career touring and recording, Issi is a former professor at Berklee College of Music. “Working with great jazz musicians is very similar to working with successful founders and academics,” he says. “They are extremely talented, passionate, and dedicate their lives to one particular thing. That love drives them, and they are willing to invest everything to make it happen.”

Issi earned his MBA at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.