Kevin Semcken, Chairman and CEO
Kevin Semcken is the Chairman and CEO of Able Planet Inc. Over the past 25 years, Mr. Semcken has led the development and commercialization of a wide variety of new technologies, many of which have become the standard of care, worldwide.Prior to joining the Company, he was President & CEO of HealthTek Ventures, a health care technology development company that restricts funding to early stage ventures that can be actively managed by Mr. Semcken, and his team. He has served on the board of several start-ups and has led a number of companies to substantial investor exits.
Beginning his career in Sales and Marketing in 1981, Mr. Semcken has a history of success in companies ranging from $B market leaders to early stage medical ventures. Since founding HealthTek Ventures in 1994, Mr. Semcken has served as President & CEO of Genesis Medical Interventional, President & COO of Medical Dynamics, Executive Vice President of San Francisco Science, President of UltraGuide Inc., and Vice President of Sales and Marketing for NeoVision Corporation. In addition, Mr. Semcken has consulted for numerous healthcare companies, including Creos Corporation, Nexcura, US Medical Corporation, MedDetect Corporation (Lockheed Martin), and US Surgical Corporation (TYCO), and he is an advisor to CTEK, a Colorado Technology Incubator.
Prior to establishing HealthTek Ventures, Mr. Semcken served as Vice President Sales & Marketing for Fischer Imaging Corporation where he turned around company sales leading to a successful IPO.
Mr. Semcken has an M.B.A. from Loyola University in Chicago.
Dr. Christopher Schweitzer, Chief Audiology Officer
Dr. Christopher Schweitzer received his Ph.D. in Auditory Sciences from the University of Maryland. In addition to a long career in hearing aid research and graduate level teaching, he has extensive experience in the hearing aid industry. This includes serving as Chief of Audiology and co-founder of Audiologic, Inc of Boulder which developed one of the first commercial digital hearing aid systems.
He served on the American National Standards Institute committee on hearing aids, and is past Chairman of the Probe Microphone committee. A previously elected Member of the Executive Board of the American Auditory Society, Dr. Schweitzer has published and lectured extensively in areas of amplification and rehabilitation. He continues to serve as Chairman and Senior Audiologist for the Family Hearing Centers of Colorado.
Kiva Allgood , VP of Marketing
Before heading up Marketing for Able Planet, Kiva spent over twelve years in the consumer products industry with GE and Motorola. Most recently she was the Senior Director of Sales for Motorola’s North America Mobile Devices Business. Prior to that Kiva was the Director of Global Product Marketing, as well as the Director of Operations for the CDMA Product Development group.
She
also served as the Mobile Devices champion for the launch of Six Sigma
for Product Development.
Prior to joining Motorola, Kiva held several leadership roles within GE
Consumer Products. Most notably as a certified Master Black Belt, head
of Global Web Marketing and as a Product Manager.
Kiva holds a Bachelor of Science in Communication Studies from Northwestern University and an MBA from Kellogg. She lives in Denver with her husband Dwight and two young sons. She is an avid skier and loves to read.
Desmond Smith, Director, Digital Signal Processing
Desmond Smith is an electronics engineer who began his career with the South African Broadcasting Corporation before becoming interested in hearing aids. He has more than 50 years experience in the hearing aid industry and has served on working groups of the South African Bureau of Standards, IEC and ANSI.
He is a past president and Fellow of the S.A. Soc. of Hearing Aid Acousticians, has served on the council of the S. A. Acoustics Institute and various committees of the Health Professionals Council of South Africa.
Desmond has traveled extensively and lectured in Europe and the USA. He presently practices as a Hearing Aid Acoustician and is CEO of Acoustimed (Pty) Ltd. which he founded in 1976. He was responsible for the design and manufacture of the first commercially available probe microphone systems using complex test signals.
