S. Wayne Kay

S. Wayne Kay is the president and CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of San Diego County, which provides children facing adversity, often those of single or low-income households or families, with strong and enduring, professionally supported one-to-one mentoring relationships that change their lives for the better.

Kay spent most of his professional career in the medical sector in various business leadership roles. Most recently, he was the president and CEO of OncoGenesis Inc. — a company that was formed to provide women worldwide with access to point-of-care screening for cervical cancer. The low-cost test is in the advanced stages of development and testing, and will allow many women access to screening, significantly improving early detection over the current clinical/Pap and adjunctive HPV tests.

Prior to OncoGenesis, he was the president and CEO of Wireless Diagnostic Systems Inc., which is a medical device company spun out of the California Institute of Technology and The Scripps Research Institute. The digital medical company focuses on embeddable patient monitoring devices that use nanosensor technology to assist in predictive care and continuous monitoring for such chronic conditions as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

He is the former president and CEO of CardioNexus Corporation — a Panasonic Healthcare company that provides noninvasive cardiovascular screening of asymptomatic patients at intermediate risk for cardiovascular disease.

Kay also spent several years as president and CEO of Response Biomedical Corporation. The company develops, manufactures, and markets rapid on site diagnostic tests for use on the RAMP platform. This platform is sold worldwide and includes a variety of testing applications in the clinical, infectious disease, biodefense, and environmental arenas.

Kay made a profound contribution to clinical diagnostics with his introduction of the first rapid physician-office test for Influenza A+B while president and CEO of the Quidel Corportation. The company was a leader in rapid infectious disease testing globally.

He began his career at GlaxoSmithKline, where he spent his first 16 years in a variety of sales, marketing, and international operations. Kay received his bachelor’s degree in microbiology from Virginia Tech, and an additional bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of San Francisco. Kay is also received his M.B.A. from Pepperdine University’s George L. Graziadio School of Business and Management.