Cherrystone's leadership team combines decades of operational experience from various industries, and a strong track record in building and running successful businesses. We understand entrepreneurship and how to help early stage companies succeed.

Ella Hood

Managing Director

Ella is an M&A lawyer, entrepreneur, and investor with broad experience across multiple disciplines. She is a Board Member of MassChallenge, a founder and Board Member of the Rhode Island–Israel Collaborative (RIIC), and currently on the Investment Committee of Purple Arch Ventures (AVG). As a mergers and acquisitions attorney, Ella has successfully negotiated multimillion-dollar investments and advised on portfolio companies’ expansion.
Ella believes in building a supportive community to spark innovation. She is an active member of several mentoring programs and a frequent judge at Brown University’s entrepreneurship program. She brings a global perspective and international experience acquired from living and working in various markets, including London, Tel Aviv, Chicago, NYC, and New England.
Ella holds an MBA from Northwestern University (Kellogg School of Management) and a law degree (LLB) from the University of London.

Stephen Schweich

Chairman

Stephen is a Managing Director in the Investment Banking division of Stifel Financial Corp (NYSE: SF), the financial services holding company. Previously, Stephen was one of the founders of the technology focused M&A advisory firm, Mooreland Partners (acquired by Stifel in 2019), President of Robertson Stephens International (London), and a Managing Director in the Equity Research department of Alex Brown & Sons (Baltimore).
Stephen has been an active investor in venture capital and private companies in Europe and the USA for nearly 20 years, and has served on the Boards of numerous technology companies including Locus Energy (sold to Genscape), Global Bay Mobile Technology (sold to Verifone) and SalonInteractive (current L’Oreal partner).
Since joining Cherrystone in 2011, Stephen has played a key role in sourcing and leading investments in a number of Cherrystone’s portfolio companies including Streamroot (sold to Century Link), Medumo (sold to Philips Medical), Narragansett Brewing (recap) and Advanced Silicon Group.
A native of New York City, Stephen moved to Providence in 2009 after working in London since 1996. Stephen serves on the Advisory Board of Breakthrough Providence and enjoys travel, skiing and kayaking. Stephen received his B.A. from Amherst College, and MBA from Harvard Business School.

Robert Manning

Chairman Ex Officio

Rob is President of Grays Point Investments LLC, a family office focused on private equity and real estate investments. He serves or has served on the boards of Cartcraft, Narragansett Brewing, Smartcells, Avaxia, Intica Biomedical, Respiratory Motion, Windgap Medical, Nodar, and has acted as a senior advisor to Item (now Ximedica). Additionally, he serves as the Treasurer and Chair of the Finance Committee of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra and Music School, and he is on the board of the Rhode Island Hospital Foundation.
Formerly Rob was a Managing Director and Division Executive in Citigroup’s Corporate and Structured Finance businesses, as well as a Corporate Senior Credit Officer. During his 26 years with Citi, he had market or country management leadership positions in the US, Japan, West Africa, Turkey, and the Middle East. His areas of expertise are international bank management, corporate and structured finance, leasing, securitization, real estate finance, and credit. In recent years he has focused on early stage company development and corporate capital structuring, particularly in the bioscience area.
Rob holds a B.A from Brown University and an M.A from Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Steve Blough

Screening

Stephen Blough is the functional group leader for Economic & Valuation Services within KPMG LLP's Washington National Tax practice. As the firm's senior transfer pricing economist, Steve oversees transfer pricing analyses for some of KPMG's largest clients and provides technical assistance on many other projects. He also serves as the Global Transfer Pricing Services leader for the Americas region.
Representative engagements include serving as lead transfer pricing adviser to a top global technology firm, focusing on intangible asset issues and global structuring; designing a global tax structure for a high-profile, rapidly growing Internet company; and leading a global project to design and help implement a new worldwide transfer pricing methodology for a leading communications firm, including support for in-house financial implementation, global compliance and FAS 109 review.
Before joining KPMG in 1994, Steve was an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, where he was responsible for the analysis of financial markets in their relationship to monetary and regulatory policy. He also spent six years on the faculty of the department of economics at Johns Hopkins University, where he taught graduate courses in econometric methods and macroeconomics. His publications have focused on the development of new statistical methods and their application to financial and economic issues.
Steved received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley and his B.A. in Economics from Swarthmore College.

Peter Gonzalez

Portfolio

Peter Gonzalez is a seasoned financial executive with over 25 years of experience in venture capital, M&A, and corporate finance. He currently serves as the Chief Financial Officer at Flueid, where he leads strategic financial initiatives, manages corporate development activities, and supervises the accounting functions.
Throughout his career, Peter worked as an investment banker for several companies and has advised on more than 50 transactions across various sectors, with a particular focus on fintech, payments, and enterprise software. His deal experience ranges from early-stage investments of less than $20 million to acquisitions exceeding $300 million.
Peter brings his expertise in capital raising, strategic planning, and operational management to venture-stage companies. He has co-founded successful startups, including Beeline Loans, where he raised over $20M in funding, and Inertia Advisors, where he headed the New York office and supervised the firm's Fintech practice.
A graduate of Georgetown University with a double major in Finance and International Business, Peter also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. He resides in Providence and, in his free time, enjoys sailing, skiing, and contributing to the fintech community through thought leadership and mentorship.

Susan Balloch

Screening

Susan is an investor in start-up companies. She has been involved in sourcing and evaluating investment opportunities and has served on boards. Susan enjoys judging start-up competitions and working with MBA students who are evaluating investments in early stage companies. Susan has both operating leadership experience and a background in investment banking. She was the COO of the Global Impact Investing Network. Previous to this, she was the COO of the Credit Suisse’s worldwide investment banking division. In her investment banking role, Susan was a managing director at Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette focused on M&A. Susan holds a BS from the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University and an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Susan is active in her community and has served on a number of non-profit boards. Currently, she is serving on the IYRS Board and the Newport County Fund Advisory Board. She and her husband live in Jamestown, RI and are very active sailors.

Howard Balloch

Screening

After a 25-year career in government service, culminating in a six-year stint as Canada’s Ambassador to China, Howard founded and ran a successful merchant banking firm that supported both state-owned and private Chinese firms in their overseas acquisitions and investments, as well as international firms investing in China. Resources, healthcare, education, and alternative energy were sectors of primary activity. His firm was ranked as China’s leading boutique bank for several years and was acquired by the larger Canaccord Financial in 2011.
Following the sale of his firm, Howard continued to run a Beijing-based private equity fund focused on young Chinese education and health care companies. Following its successful winding-up, Howard joined Hong Kong based PacBridge Partners, specializing in providing early stage and growth capital, as well as advice, to companies seeking to leverage disruptive technologies in the building of scalable businesses.
Howard has served as a director of a number of public and private companies and on the WEF Global Council on Metals and Mining, and was President and then Vice-Chairman of the Canada China Business Council.
Howard received a BA in Economics and Political Science and an MA in International Relations, both from McGill University, and continued his graduate studies at the University of Toronto and at the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques in Paris. He is married with four grown children.

Sarah Kelly

Screening

Sarah E. Kelly retired after a 31-year career in Research and Development at Pfizer. She held a series of scientific and matrix leadership roles spanning the interface of the drug discovery organization to portfolio governance and launch design for products. Sarah most recently served as Vice President of Pharmaceutical Sciences Small Molecule and is based in Mystic CT. Sarah currently heads a consulting company called TGIR consulting LLC. Its focus is on leadership and innovation in the life sciences.
Sarah serves on the boards of the Ocean Community YMCA and the Mystic Aquarium. She serves on the scientific board of PhyCO2 and Advanced Silicon Group.
Sarah received her Ph.D. in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from Yale University and her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Carleton College. She was awarded the 2019 Earl B. Barnes award for leadership in chemical research management by the American Chemical Society and is a 2018 CT Woman of Innovation Award recipient.

Jonathan Zinno

Portfolio

Jon is a partner at PwC focused on Deals (M&A) advisory. He has advised both private equity and corporations on more than 150 transactions ranging from less than $10 million to over $10 billion. He has a focus on the healthcare and life sciences sector. Jon brings his commercial, due diligence, deal structuring, and operational experience to Cherrystone and its portfolio of early-stage investments.
Jon is a graduate of Providence College and has an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School. He resides in Rhode Island with his wife and three daughters and, in his free time, enjoys golfing, running, and traveling.

Aidan Petrie

Outreach

Aidan is a founding Partner of NEMIC (New England Medical Innovation Center) and a Fellow of the Provost at RISD, focused on intersections between user centered design and healthcare. He was the founding partner of Ximedica, one of the worlds leading medical device developers. Ximedica integrates regulated devices with connected systems to provide the next generation of healthcare solutions. Aidan remains the Chief Innovation Officer Emeritus.
Aidan's passion for innovation and design has helped bring hundreds of products to market that range from simple drug compliance aids to wearable therapeutics, home monitoring products and complex surgical systems.

Madeleine Jacks

Research Analyst

Maddie is actively involved in all of Cherrystone’s due diligence processes -- coordinating meetings and supervising the production of final reports. Prior to joining Cherrystone, Maddie worked at start-up companies -- Micro Guard 47 as a Project Director, and The Makery Brookline as an Engineering & Operations Manager. She graduated from Cornell University with a BS in Mechanical Engineering (2019) where she was a member of the Varsity Track and Field team. In 2022, she received a joint Master's degree in Design Engineering at Brown and RISD.

Alan Watson

Life Sciences Advisor

Dr. Watson has more than 35 years of experience in the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, holding a number of senior positions in business development, M&A, licensing and R&D management.
He is a co-founder of Akston Bioscience Corporation in Beverly, MA, and formerly was Chairman and a Board Director of Targeson, Inc. in San Diego, CA. He is a former Executive-in-Residence at venture firm Oxford Bioscience Partners in Boston and currently consults for a number of early-stage biotechnology companies. In his role as a member of Cherrystone, he is a Board Director of portfolio companies Advanced Silicon Group, Inc. and Hilltop Biosciences, Inc.
Previously, Dr. Watson was VP of Business Development at SmartCells in Beverly, MA where he negotiated the sale of the company to Merck & Co for $500M in upfront and milestone payments plus royalties. His prior appointments include Chief Business Officer at Elixir Pharmaceuticals, SVP of Corporate Development at Cubist Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Merck & Co) and SVP, Intellectual Property and Licensing at Nycomed Amersham (acquired by General Electric Co). He previously held a variety of scientific, R&D and business management positions at Nycomed AS, Salutar. and DuPont Pharmaceuticals. where he invented the brain imaging drug NeuroLite.
Dr Watson received his B.Sc. (Hons) from the University of N.S.W. in Sydney, Australia, his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia and carried out postdoctoral research in the U.K. and at Harvard University. He also obtained an M.B.A. from Northeastern University in Boston.

Leadership