Linda Suzu Kawano has worked to identify and commercialize early-stage innovations for over three decades.  Her experience includes assessing and licensing diagnostic technologies for Abbott Laboratories, directing Northwestern University’s Technology Transfer Program, performing business development and marketing for Amersham Corporation, and consulting with inventors, academic institutions, and companies in the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Kawano negotiated the license agreement for Northwestern University’s discovery, pregabalin, commercialized as the blockbuster drug, LyricaÒ. She founded her consulting firm, GroupOptima in 1996. Throughout its twenty-seven-year existence, GroupOptima has provided licensing, training and management assistance to universities, companies, and entrepreneurs.

Dr. Kawano’s particular interest is in the training and mentoring of students and professionals. Her experience includes teaching at The University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and training technology transfer officers and post-graduate students abroad. Dr. Kawano is a past board member of the Association of University Technology Transfer Managers (AUTM).  For her work in promoting university-business relations she received the AUTM Excellence Award and  the AUTM Volunteerism Award for her work on the AUTM Women Inventors Committee.

Presently, Dr. Kawano focuses her efforts on coaching scientists and other professionals in their presentations to non-scientists.  Drawing upon her experience and studies of performance and storytelling, at The Second City Training Center, she develops programs focused on teaching scientists and other professionals how to connect with their intended audiences.  Dr. Kawano was the business partner of the late celebrity Chef/Entrepreneur Homaro Cantu, a molecular gastronomist who was Executive Chef and owner of Moto Restaurant and CEO of Cantu Designs, a Chicago-based culinary innovation company.