our leadership & governance
Our management team collectively has decades of experience from leading key functions at large biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, including supporting the development and launch of more than 25 new medicines over the last twenty years. Many of us were heavily involved in, or led, the launch of modern anti-seizure medicines, so we are deeply familiar with the therapeutic area and the significant unmet medical need that remains.
Together we share a passion to serve children and adults with epilepsies and brain conditions.
leadership team
Meg Alexander
President & Chief Executive Officer
Meg Alexander is an experienced biotech builder who has played a critical role in advancing more than two dozen therapies from development to market. She has consistently led complex initiatives and cross-functional teams, playing a key role in driving growth and strategic transformation at some of the industry’s most prominent companies. As the former President and Chief Operating Officer of Ovid Therapeutics, she oversaw enterprise operations and lead the company’s evolution into a focused, clinically driven organization delivering innovation for patients with neurological disease.
Since joining Ovid, Meg has helped reshape the company’s pipeline and strategic direction. Her leadership has been central to refining Ovid’s focus and building the infrastructure needed to support long-term, sustainable growth.
Prior to Ovid, Meg spent over two decades guiding biopharmaceutical and Fortune 500 companies through critical growth phases, with a focus on product launches, risk mitigation, and enterprise value creation. She has played a key role in supporting the development and commercialization strategies for companies such as Pfizer, Novartis, Amgen, Janssen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Alnylam, and BioMarin, and guided global consumer brands like Nestlé and Coca-Cola. A proven entrepreneur, Meg founded, and scaled, the highly successful Reputation and Risk Management business at Syneos Health, one of the world’s largest clinical and commercial resource organizations.
Meg believes in the power of people and teams to create success. She has been recognized as a “Disruptor” by PM360 and a “Rising Star” by the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association.
Meg holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from The College of William and Mary and lives in New York.
Charles Carter
Chief Financial Officer
Charley brings 30 years of experience in operational finance leadership, financial planning and strategy development, and general management of G&A functions with decades of life science executive roles and strategy consulting. Charley joined Ovid in 2024 as Senior Vice President of Finance and Financial Planning. Prior to Ovid, Charley was CFO of CERo Therapeutics Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CERO) where he prepared the company for a complex de-SPAC transaction and helped launch CERo as a public company. Before CERo, Charley held CFO roles at iCAD, Inc. (NASDAQ:ICAD), GI Dynamics, Inc. (ASX:GID), multiple private life science companies, and as consulting CFO/head of finance for various life science clients. Charley’s initial biotech finance position was with Transkaryotic Therapies, Inc. (NASDAQ:TKTX) where he was head of financial planning and analysis during the $1.8 billion acquisition by Shire Pharmaceuticals, Plc. (NASDAQ:SHPG). Prior to TKT, Charley was a strategy consulting partner with Mercer Management Consulting after starting his career working as a scientist in the field of molecular virology. Charley earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Colgate University and master’s degrees in Molecular Genetics and Business Administration from The University of Chicago.
Victoria “Tori” Fort
Chief Strategy Officer
Victoria "Tori" Fort serves as Chief Strategy Officer, leading enterprise strategy, investor relations and strategic initiatives that support the Company's long-term growth and transformation. Since joining Ovid in 2025, she has led two successful financing rounds that extended the company's cash runway into 2029, strengthening Ovid's ability to advance multiple potential best-in-class medicines through clinical development.
Tori brings more than 20 years of experience at the intersection of corporate strategy, corporate affairs, capital markets and biotechnology. Prior to joining Ovid, she served as Senior Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Affairs at Frontier Medicines, where she established the corporate affairs function, led investor relations through a successful oversubscribed Series C financing, and helped guide the company's transition to a clinical-stage organization.
Previously, Tori founded and led uncapped, a biotechnology consultancy within WPP, where she advised emerging and established biotechnology companies. Earlier in her career, she served as Executive Vice President at GCI Health, advising global biopharmaceutical companies on corporate strategy, investor relations, communications and commercialization.
Throughout her career, Tori has helped biotechnology companies navigate periods of growth, financing, clinical development and corporate transformation. She has received numerous industry accolades, including recognition as one of MM&M's inaugural 40 Under 40 honorees.
She holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Smith College.
Petra Kaufmann, M.D., M.S., F.A.A.N
Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Kaufmann joins Ovid from Vigil Neuroscience (acquired by Sanofi), where she served as Chief Medical Officer and oversaw the company’s medical, clinical, biomarker, patient advocacy and regulatory functions. Prior to Vigil, Dr. Kaufmann served as Chief Medical Officer of Affinia Therapeutics and as Senior Vice President, Clinical Development, Translational Medicine & Analytics of Novartis Gene Therapies, where she played a key leadership role in the development and global approvals of Zolgensma®, the first gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy. Previously, Dr. Kaufmann held senior roles at AveXis (acquired by Novartis) and served as Head of the Office of Rare Diseases Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where she helped advancenational research and clinical-trial infrastructure for rare and genetic conditions. While at NIH, Dr. Kaufmann also served as a part-time reviewer for the Food and Drug Administration’s Division of Neurology Products. Dr. Kaufmann earned her M.D. from the University of Bonn, an M.S. in Biostatistics from Columbia University, and completed specialized training in epileptology and electroencephalography at the University of Bonn. Dr. Kaufmann trained in neurology and clinical neurophysiology at Columbia University Medical Center, where she later served as a tenured faculty member in the Department of Neurology. Dr. Kaufmann is a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.
Manal Morsy, M.D., Ph.D., MBA
Chief Regulatory Officer
Dr. Manal Morsy joined Ovid Therapeutics in 2025 as Chief Regulatory Officer, overseeing global regulatory activities for the company’s therapeutic programs. Dr. Morsy brings extensive regulatory leadership experience spanning biotech and pharmaceutical companies, with a highly successful history of expediting regulatory and product development paths leading to multiple commercial approvals across multiple indications, drug- and biologics-platforms. Before joining Ovid, she served as Chief Regulatory Officer, Head of Global Regulatory Affairs at Vaxxinity Inc. Prior to that, she was Executive Vice President and Head of Global Regulatory Affairs at Athersys Inc. where she tenured there for over a decade.
Earlier in her career, Dr. Morsy spent six years at PTC Therapeutics, where she served as Vice President, Global Regulatory Affairs. At PTC, she built the company’s regulatory function and led global regulatory strategy for multiple programs, including those targeting Duchenne muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis with Ataluren, the company’s lead product candidate.
Before joining PTC, Dr. Morsy held senior regulatory leadership positions at Tibotec / Johnson & Johnson, where she oversaw global regulatory efforts for pediatric development, tuberculosis, and HIV programs, including Prezista. She also served as Director of Worldwide Regulatory Affairs at Merck & Co., supporting new regulatory filings in the U.S. and internationally, as well as supplemental filings for approved products.
Dr. Morsy earned her MD from the University of Alexandria, Faculty of Medicine in Egypt, her PhD from Eastern Virginia Medical School/Old Dominion University, and her MBA from LeBow Business School, Drexel University. She has authored numerous scientific publications in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Nature Biotechnology, The Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and Annual Review of Medicine (ARM).
Kevin Norrett
Chief Business Officer
Kevin Norrett joined Ovid Therapeutics as Chief Business Officer in July 2026. A seasoned biopharmaceutical executive with over 25 years of experience, Mr. Norrett has a proven track record of executing high-value business development deals, and building commercial operations for both emerging biotech and established pharmaceutical companies.
Most recently, he served as Chief Business Officer at Soleno Therapeutics, where he led corporate development, portfolio strategy and program management. He eventually orchestrated the company’s $2.9 billion acquisition by Neurocrine Biosciences. As Chief Operating Officer at Codexis Inc. from October 2022 to November 2025, he drove the company’s corporate growth and P&L across the performance enzymes and biotherapeutics segment and streamlined of a diverse product portfolio into a focused corporate strategy, culminating in the launch of the first fully enzymatic manufacturing technology for siRNA therapeutics. As Chief Business and Commercial Officer at Sierra Oncology from August 2020 to September 2022, Kevin not only built the commercial strategy and operations for the future launch of Ojjara® (momelotinib), but also drove the company's portfolio expansion with the in-licensing of two new development assets to expand the pipeline. Finally, he led the company’s $1.9 billion acquisition by GlaxoSmithKline. Mr. Norrett was Chief Commercial Officer at Angion Biomedica from July 2019 to August 2020, establishing the go-to-market strategy and launch-readiness framework for Angion's clinical pipeline across acute organ injuries and fibrotic diseases, successfully positioning the biopharmaceutical company for its initial public offering (IPO in February 2021).
Mr. Norrett has also held senior leadership roles at Aimmune Therapeutics, ZS Pharma, Exelixis, and Genentech, where he developed corporate strategies and launched multiple products across oncology and rare diseases. He also spent several years in SG Cowen's health care investment banking group, completing over twenty financings and M&A transactions. He holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, an MS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from UCLA, and a BS in Biological Sciences from UC Davis.
Zhong Zhong, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer
As chief scientific officer, Dr. Zhong leads all non-clinical scientific and research activities supporting the advancement of Ovid’s pipeline of potential first-in-class and best-in-class therapeutic candidates. Dr. Zhong oversees Ovid’s scientific strategy, the Company’s research team, and academic collaborations with the goal of accelerating research underpinning the clinical development of the Company’s pipeline assets.
Dr. Zhong joined Ovid from Generation Bio where he served as Senior Vice President and oversaw DNA Science and R&D operations from 2019 – 2022. He was previously Vice President of Biology at Wave Life Sciences from 2016 – 2019, and led the discovery of oligotherapeutics for central nervous system, hepatic/metabolic, and muscle diseases. Previously, at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, he established a research site in Shanghai before moving to Boston in 2015 to oversee external research and innovation projects. From 2008 to 2013, as part of GSK’s leadership team for neuroscience R&D, Dr. Zhong established both platform functions and a Regenerative Medicine Discovery Performance unit. He also led the GSK neuroinflammation R&D team, which delivered clinical candidates for several multiple sclerosis clinical studies.
Dr. Zhong started his career at Johnson & Johnson, developing cell assay technologies as well as leading operations and research for the start-up Cell & Molecular Technologies through its acquisition and integration by Invitrogen (now Thermo Fisher Scientific).
Dr. Zhong received his doctorate from The Rockefeller University where he discovered Stat3 and Stat4.
Eliseo Salinas, M.D.
Senior R&D Advisor
Eliseo Salinas, MD, MSc is a pharmaceutical R&D professional with more than 30 years of experience developing medicines for a variety of therapeutic areas. He is an Executive R&D Advisor at Ovid Therapeutics. In his career, he has been directly involved with over 25 IND submissions and 15 international regulatory approvals.
During the last 20 years, Mr. Salinas has been Chief Scientific Officer, Chief Medical Officer, and Head of R&D for specialty pharma or biotech companies, developing small molecules, biologics, cell, and gene therapies. He was previously Head of R&D at Passage Bio, Chief Scientific Officer at Acadia Pharmaceuticals, Head of R&D and Chief Scientific Officer at Shire, Head of Development and Chief Medical Officer at Elan Pharmaceuticals, Head of Worldwide CNS Development at Wyeth, and Head of R&D at several small pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including continued active executive work for Delix Therapeutics.
Dr. Salinas lived his formative years in Argentina and received his MD from the University of Buenos Aires. He spent the next 16 years in Paris, completing his residency in Psychiatry at the Clinique des Maladies Mentales et de l'Encéphale, and obtaining a Master’s degree in Pharmacology from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie. After starting his career in France he moved to the US where he has been established for the last 26 years.
Julia Tsai, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President of Clinical Development
Julia Tsai, Ph.D., is the senior vice president of Clinical Development and Medical Affairs at Ovid, where she develops, leads, and drives the clinical development strategy of Ovid’s clinical pipeline. She joined Ovid in 2020 as vice president of Clinical Development-Epilepsies and led the transition of soticlestat from Phase 2 to 3 in a joint development program with Takeda. Prior to joining Ovid, Dr. Tsai held roles of increasing responsibility through her tenure at Marinus Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: MRNS) and was part of the founding clinical development team, which led the strategic growth of the company from inception through its IPO and beyond. She left Marinus as the vice president of Clinical Development, head of the epilepsy franchise, which included experience in rare and general epilepsy programs. Dr. Tsai brings more than 17 years of central nervous system development and regulatory experience from multiple indications within neurology and psychiatry, including: resistant epilepsy, post-traumatic stress disorder and orphan diseases (behaviors in Fragile X syndrome, West syndrome, Status Epilepticus, CDKL5 Deficiency Disorder, PCDH19 female-related Epilepsies, Dravet syndrome, Lennox Gastaut syndrome and Dup15q syndrome). Dr. Tsai holds a Doctorate in Physiology and Biophysics from the Neuroscience and Physiology program at New York University School of Medicine and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Cornell University.