Leen Kawas on Going From Scientist to CEO to Venture Capitalist
Leen Kawas’s career path defies the traditional boundaries between research, executive leadership, and investment. Trained as a pharmacist and holding a PhD in molecular pharmacology, she began her professional life at the laboratory bench, driven by a fascination with how science could improve human health. Over time, her trajectory took her from leading experiments to leading a company, and ultimately to co-founding Propel Bio Partners, a biotech-focused venture fund supporting life science innovation. Each stage built on the last, giving her a rare combination of technical expertise, operational experience, and strategic perspective.
Kawas’s journey began in academic research, where she immersed herself in the complexities of drug discovery and development. Her early work deepened her appreciation for the rigor and patience required to translate a scientific concept into a therapeutic reality. Yet she also saw how many promising ideas failed to advance beyond the lab due to funding gaps, regulatory hurdles, or lack of commercial strategy. This awareness planted the seed for a career that would blend science with leadership.
That next step came with the founding of Athira Pharma, a biotechnology company focused on therapies for neurodegenerative diseases. As co-founder and CEO, Leen Kawas guided Athira from an early-stage concept to a Nasdaq-listed company. Under her leadership, the company advanced late-stage clinical programs and raised over $400 million, making her one of only 22 women founders in the United States to take a company public. This milestone was not just a personal achievement—it was a demonstration of how scientific vision, when paired with disciplined execution, can attract the resources needed to tackle some of medicine’s most challenging problems.
Her time as CEO provided lessons that would shape her future work. Kawas learned how to navigate the interplay between scientific priorities and investor expectations, manage cross-functional teams, and build partnerships across academia, industry, and finance. She also gained firsthand insight into the demands of running a public company, where every decision carries both operational and market implications. These experiences gave her a broader view of the life sciences ecosystem—one that extended beyond the walls of the lab or the boardroom.
After leaving Athira, Kawas turned her focus to venture capital with the founding of Propel Bio Partners. For her, this was not a departure from her previous work but an evolution of it. As an investor, she could apply her scientific knowledge and operational experience to support multiple companies at once, helping other innovators avoid common pitfalls and accelerate their progress. Propel Bio Partners was designed to be more than a source of funding; it is an active partner in building companies, offering strategic guidance, operational resources, and access to a network of industry relationships. In this interview on Billion Success, Kawas goes into this subject in more depth.
Kawas’s scientific background plays a central role in her investment approach. She is able to engage deeply with the technical details of potential portfolio companies, assessing not only the strength of their science but also the feasibility of bringing it to market. This ability to bridge the gap between scientific promise and commercial viability is, in her view, essential for selecting opportunities that can deliver both strong returns and meaningful patient impact.
Her transition from scientist to CEO to venture capitalist has also reinforced the importance of adaptability. Each role required a shift in focus and skill set—moving from designing experiments to managing organizations, and from running a single company to evaluating and supporting many. Kawas sees this adaptability as a key asset in the fast-moving, high-stakes world of life sciences, where both the science and the market can change rapidly.
Another constant across her career has been a commitment to broadening access to opportunity. As one of a small number of women to lead a biotech IPO, Kawas understands the barriers underrepresented founders face in securing capital and visibility. Through Propel Bio Partners, she seeks to back a diverse range of entrepreneurs and to look beyond the traditional geographic and demographic concentrations of biotech investment. She believes that the best ideas can come from anywhere and that expanding the pool of innovators ultimately benefits the entire industry.
Looking back, Kawas describes her journey less as a series of separate chapters and more as a continuum. Her scientific training informs her ability to evaluate and support early-stage innovations. Her CEO experience provides insight into the operational realities of scaling a biotech company. And her role as a venture capitalist allows her to combine these strengths to help multiple companies reach their potential. In each case, the throughline is a belief in the power of science to change lives—and in the need for strategic leadership to turn that potential into reality.
For Leen Kawas, moving from scientist to CEO to venture capitalist was not about leaving one identity behind for another. It was about building on each phase to create a career that can influence the life sciences sector from multiple vantage points. Today, through Propel Bio Partners, she brings that full spectrum of experience to bear, helping the next generation of biotech leaders navigate the path from discovery to impact.
Check out her bio at Eit Pharma to learn more about what Kawas is currently up to.
