The Team
The Team
Deena Sisitsky, Co-Founder, CEO, Member of Board of Managers
Proven executive management track record driving growth in the pharmaceutical and technology industries. Deena developed and implemented awareness of a “new to market” specialized infectious disease drug. She oversaw forecasting, budgeting, created nationwide physician focus groups, ad agency engagement and interface, soliciting, supervising and publishing the results of clinical studies, while overseeing the regulatory approval process during a global epidemic. Previously she designed and implemented strategic and cost effective campaign for advanced nano-structured carbon and metal composite material that attracted Fortune 100 customers.
Hiro Hara, Co-Founder, CSO. Member of Board of Managers
Hiro began his career at Hitachi, LTD, in Japan. After relocating to America, Hiro specialized in assisting US technology companies to advance into the Asian market. He set up an International Division of a Connecticut component manufacturing company serving the electronics industries and grew the business from annual sales of less than $300,000 to $10 million within two years.
Hiro developed PhytoSmart’s patented Sterile Plastic Algal Growth System (SPAGS) drawing on his knowledge of medical device manufacturing technology. This bioreactor system produces heterotrophic algae continuously in a sterile environment with a very high yield per reactor per growth cycle, in contrast to the more expensive yet less productive traditional heterotrophic algal fermentation technology.
David Levy, COO. Member of Board of Managers
David’s career has spanned 26 years in the pet product industry as advisor, board member, brand building, consumer, distributor, entrepreneur, inventor, investor, manufacturing and retail.
In 1997, he founded Zeus & Company Pet Supply. Originally opening in the Chicago, a second location was opened 2006 in Minneapolis and then a third in 2008 in Los Angeles. Much of the company’s success can be directly attributed to David’s successful strategy to pick and market the more than 120 brands, 60 of which he and his team helped build and most of which are major pet product industry brands today. After selling the company to two of the largest pet product distributors, David founded Pet Product Innovations, LLC (PPI) in 2011 to focus on inventing and marketing pet products to better the lives of pets and their owners. Revolutionary products were born such as Zen Clipper™, Paw Plunger™ – the No. 1 selling paw cleaner in the world, and SmartLeash – the only patented retractable dog leash that stops like a seatbelt.
Patrick Cregten, Operations Manager
Educated in Marine Biology and Aquaculture from James Cook University in Australia, Patrick had five years of commercial aquaculture experience in the U.S. and Canada before joining the PhytoSmart team. His expertise in recirculating aquaculture systems afforded him the skills in mechanical aptitude, teamwork and management that make him integral to PhytoSmart’s daily operating platform. At PhytoSmart, Patrick ensures the growth and health of the algal biomass through the operation of the patented algal bioreactor growth system from sterile cell preparation through algal culture scale-up. He is also charged with executing the safe handling of the product during post processing, packaging, inventory management and distribution operating phases.
Howie Hecht, Advisor
Howie is a Boston-based entrepreneur who loves creating and launching new products and helping other entrepreneurs succeed. He is cofounder of digital advertising startup AdsSciences which leverages their proprietary data science platform to run the world’s best performing ad campaigns for over 7 years. Through this work Howie has become an expert in marketing and advertising both B2B and B2C products and services across nearly every vertical. Howie also supports other entrepreneurs by both advising them and occasionally making seed-level angel investments in promising teams.
After earning his degree from MIT and the Sloan School of Management in 1996, Howie built up his background in management consulting and product leadership across many different verticals including content delivery (Akamai Technologies), networking (Sockeye Networks), security (Symantec via acquisition of Altiris via acquisition of Pedestal Software), compliance, financial services, mobile, and more. Howie advises PhytoSmart’s team on technology, marketing, fundraising and other areas.
Dr. Jed Fahey, Advisor
Dr. Fahey is a nutritional biochemist with broad training and extensive background in plant physiology, human nutrition, phytochemistry and nutritional biochemistry. He spent 27 years as a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where he helped to create, and then ran the Cullman Chemoprotection Center, and which has for many years developed
plant-based agents for the purpose of enhancing healthspan. In 2020 he accepted adjunct faculty positions at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the George Mason University Department of Nutrition and Food Studies.
Dr. Jeffrey Feinman, Veterinary Science Advisor
Jeffrey Feinman, BA, VMD, CVH, holds both molecular biology and veterinary degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Jeff’s natural curiosity drove him to study individuality and become a veterinary scientist. In 1980 he was admitted to the dual degree University Scholar program and in 1981 entered the Veterinary Medical Scientist Training program.
His scientific experience includes published papers and research at The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, UPenn’s School of Medicine in the Department of Biochemistry, and the PennVet’s s Department of Medical Genetics. After a big shift in his thinking that occurred from a clinical internship in Boston, Dr. Jeff decided to postpone his planned academic career to help individual patients.
Over the next decade of conventional clinical practice he realized that the modern scientific medicine he learned in academia was not the solution for the increases in allergies, degenerative diseases and cancer he was seeing in pets. However, by keeping a skeptical but scientific medicine open mind and experimenting (then observing the results reproducible) he looked “outside the box” of conventional medicine. The holistic context of “Natural Medicines” that work by optimizing “flow” of cellular energy like Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine, homeopathy, chiropractic, etc. provided the answer for why pets were getting sicker, and what to do.
Dr. Jeff is currently focused on sharing the many connections he sees between the current conventional veterinary medical paradigm and the potentially more sustainable model of ethnoveterinary medicine (EVN) practiced by indigenous people who live in accord with nature to care for their animals. Dr. Jeff integrates molecular biology with the homeopathic framework to activate and work with natural healing mechanisms using a framework of cellular coherence and information flow throughout pets’ bodies.
Vitality and Balance System (VBS) and homeopathy.
He is the director of the Holistic Actions! Foundation and Chief Empowerment Officer and founder of the Holistic Actions! online platform for pet parents where he teaches the method to pet parents and veterinarians. Dr. Jeff is Chairman of the Academy of Homeopathy (AVH) Research and Education committee, Director of the AVH Foundation, and was previously the holistic medical director for On The Wings Of Angels rescue in Odessa FL.
He and his wife Amy live with a super happy rescue pup Archie and Kitties Tigger and Aviva.
- Founder and CEO of Holistic Actions!
- Director of The Holistic Actions! Foundation
- Columbia Exposome Bootcamp: 2021
- Chairman of the Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy Education Committee
- Past president of Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy
- CT’s first Certified Veterinary Homeopath: 2000
- Veterinary Honor Society (Phi Zeta): Inducted 1985
- Member: American Veterinary Medical Association 1985-present
- Veterinary Medical Scientist Training Program: 1981
- University Pennsylvania Scholar: Inducted 1980
