Leena Palav is a global operating executive, board advisor, and transformation leader with 20+ years of leadership experience driving growth, operational excellence, and value creation across healthcare, medtech, industrial, consumer, and impact-driven organizations.
She began her career at GE, where she developed deep expertise in strategic management, global operations, and leadership development. Over the course of her career, Leena has held senior executive roles including Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and General Manager, with full P&L ownership across multi-market global public companies, and smaller PE and VC-backed companies. She has led complex multi-site business transformations, scaled rapidly through periods of accelerated growth, built new operating models from ground zero, led M&A integrations, delivered on cost efficiencies and margin improvements, turned around businesses for rapid KPI improvements towards exit, and coached a wide group of executive leaders and managers.
As a PE/VC partner, Leena brings a rare combination of strategic vision, system thinking and hands-on execution to deliver measurable outcomes across the investment lifecycle – from operational due diligence and value creation planning to post-merger integration and exit readiness.
Leena has worked closely with boards throughout her career, both as a senior executive and as a board director. She currently serves as a Board Member for VC backed health-tech and robotics companies, and as a Trustee at Health Impact Partnership, supporting equitable financing access for SMEs in emerging markets.
In addition to her corporate and board work, Leena is actively engaged in startup ecosystems as a mentor across incubator programs in Houston, Washington DC, San Francisco, and New York. She brings firsthand entrepreneurial experience, having founded and successfully exited two consumer ventures.
Leena holds an MBA from the University of Wisconsin, an MS from the University of Manitoba, and a BS in EE from The National Institute of Technology, India. She is also certified in Lean Six Sigma BB, Change Acceleration Management and Project Management from the GE Crotonville Training Institute, and ISO and FDA Quality Management Systems from AAMI.
