Kris Khalil

Executive Director at New Orleans BioInnovation Center

Speaker

As the Executive Director of the New Orleans BioInnovation Center (NOBIC), Kris leads vision, drives strategy, creates partnerships and managers finance. Under his leadership, Kris helped NOBIC build a stabilized, diversified funding model while mobilizing over $25MM in new support from tenants, community partners, and public agencies.

Before being named Executive Director in February 2019, Kris was Managing Director of the New Orleans BioFund and still holds this title. As Managing Director, Kris has deployed $7.5MM across 25 early-stage local companies, with initial checks of $500K.In 2024, Kris re-launched the BioChallenge, a global biotech pitch competition that attracts new high-flying biotech startups to New Orleans year. He built a prize stack of over $100K in cash along with pilots and partnerships, and built a robust sponsor, judge, and partner ecosystem to support recruitment, execution, and post-event pathways for participants.

Prior to joining NOBIC, Kris was the portfolio manager of Propeller’s Social Venture Fund and an adjunct professor of Venture Capital at Tulane University School of Medicine and Loyola University New Orleans. Kris also serviced a portfolio of over $3 billion of working capital, construction, equipment, real estate, bridge financing, and acquisition loans up to $125MM for national financial institutions IberiaBank and Capital One Bank.

Kris is active in civic and community leadership, serving on the boards of JCC New Orleans, and Camp Dream Street for Children with Disabilities.A native of New Orleans, Kris holds an MBA from Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in Finance with concentrations in entrepreneurship and accounting from the Louisiana State University Honors College.