Jan Garfinkle founded Arboretum Ventures in January 2002, an Ann Arbor-based life-sciences venture fund dedicated to starting and building early-stage life-sciences companies. She serves or has served on the Board of Directors of HandyLab, Mirabilis, Uptake Medical, and Vasonova, and as a Board observer for NeoGuide and BAROnova.

Prior to Arboretum, she was President of Strategic Marketing Consultants; a consulting firm focused on the commercialization of life sciences technologies. Prior to Strategic Marketing Consultants she was a senior manager at two successful start-up medical device companies, Advanced Cardiovascular Systems (ACS) and Devices for Vascular Intervention (DVI). Both of these Northern California companies were acquired by Eli Lilly, becoming the foundation for Guidant Corporation, an Eli Lilly spin-out in 1994. Ms. Garfinkle joined each company early in its development, and held key management roles in marketing, clinical research and sales. Early in her career, she was a manufacturing engineer for Proctor & Gamble.

Ms. Garfinkle is past-President of the Michigan Venture Capital Association. She holds a BS degree in bioengineering from the University of California at Berkeley and an MBA degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.