Management Team

Director, President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Thompson is an early investor who was asked to serve as the company’s first outside director when Phoenix was formed in 2003 and has served in that role to the present. He is an attorney and currently lives in Des Moines, Iowa. Prior to agreeing to serve as Phoenix CEO beginning in January 2023, he was employed with the Iowa Department of Justice, where he served as Solicitor General. Mr. Thompson previously was in private practice and specialized in civil litigation. He also previously held management positions in the oilfield services industry and has served on non-profit boards.

Executive Director of Capital Development. Mary is a second-generation graduate from the University of Arizona, Tucson with a Bachelor of Science in Consumer Studies.
Mary is an innovative leader recognized for her collaborative approach with 26 years in the biotech, medical device, and pharmaceutical arenas. She has extensive experience in both the commercial and access sectors aligning market demand to business needs. Mary has held leadership roles in commercial sales, marketing, and managed care at UCB, LifeWatch, Daiichi Sankyo and Abbott Laboratories (now Abbvie).

Chief Science Officer, Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board, and Director. Dr. Newman obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of Connecticut and then served in postdoctoral positions at the Medical School of the University of Georgia as well as the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Vermont. He served as a faculty member at the University of Vermont Medical School for seven years and then spent a sabbatical year at Stanford University performing research on immune targeted therapy. He spent 24 years at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) in Houston, Texas where he held the D. B. Lane Distinguished Professorship Chair. At MDACC he served as the founder and Co-Director of the Pharmaceutical Development Center and the institution’s Analytical Center. He has published over 320 articles dealing with the preclinical and clinical pharmacology, toxicology and development of therapies for the prevention and treatment of malignant diseases.

Chief Operations Officer, Mr. Nester’s received a BBA from the University of Texas at Austin in 1980 and has worked in bank regulation, commercial banking and pharmaceutical research and development for 40+ years. More than half of this time has been associated with the research of the Nerium oleander plant and one of its primary therapeutic compounds, oleandrin. As the president of Ozelle Pharmacuticals, Mr. Nester was successful in obtaining the first ever Compassionate Use Investigational New Drug (CUIND) approval on “Anvirzel” prior to initiation of any human clinical studies. That company went on to have a successful Phase 1 study performed at the Cleveland Clinic where Anvirzel was found to be safe with intramuscular injection administration of up to 2.4ml per day. Since then, Mr. Nester has been involved in the research, development and marketing of many oleander based products.