MARK HARRIS MBA PHD, widely regarded as a motive force advancing Nashville tech commercialization and entrepreneurship, has relocated with his wife and their two teenagers to Vancouver Island, British Columbia (BC), Canada.

Harris, 45, lived 25 years in Nashville, where he founded and-or led as CEO three startups in different lanes:

• Concert Genetics (payment accuracy for health services);
• HeroWear (exosuits to reduce supply-chain and other workers' strains);
• TriAthlete Productions DVD, a sole-proprietorship that returned all capital.

This past weekend, the Harris family safely* moved into their home in the island's City of Campbell River, population nearly 60,000, including adjoining communities.

Not long before Harris decamped Nashville, a July 15 press release formally announced that Nashville-based Concert Genetics had been sold on undisclosed terms to platform company Lyric, an assumed name for Magnum Transaction Sub LLC, which is a Pennsylvania-based affiliate of major PE firm TPG Inc. (TPG Capital).

Comox, Vancouver Isl., British Columbia

Well ahead of the sale, Harris said he and his wife, pathologist Elizabeth Harris MD, had studied relocation options, with driving factors including desire to ensure their sons had both experience living in another country and frequent opportunities for outdoors adventures.

After six months' consideration, only Canada and New Zealand had survived as options. The nod went to Canada.

Harris told VNC he is not only proud of Concert and Herowear, but also believes odds are good that some of the capital flowing from the Concert transaction will, directly and-or indirectly, help scale this region's capital-formation and tech commercialization.

Harris emphasized he has not moved to Canada with any concrete plans for starting yet another business. 

He has, however, happily acknowledged to some online well-wishers that he's not ruling-out helping to spin-out further businesses that are commercializing technologies.

Apart from leading startups, Harris's contributions to the Greater Nashville ecosystem have thus far included serving as an advisor on venture creation, commercialization and entrepreneurship for the advisory council of the Vanderbilt Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization (CTTC).

Both Harris and VU Vanderbilt Assistant Vice Chancellor for Technology Transfer Alan Bentley told VNC they hope to maintain that collaboration.

In the aforementioned January Lyric release, Lyric management said that during the past three years of pre-sale partnership, the partners had increased "the scope and impact" of their joint offerings by nearly 10X.

Halsey Wise MBA

Lyric's CEO is Halsey Wise MBA, who is, according to his LinkedIn profile, also a senior advisor to TPG Capital. Wise is also currently listed as chairman and-or board member of Tampa- and Kansas City-based healthtech firms.

Harris founded Concert in 2010, stepped-down as CEO in 2016, then stepped down from duties as chief innovation officer in 2019, remaining on the board until the acquisition by Lyric.

In 2016, he passed the CEO mantle to Rob Metcalf MBA, who has spent the past decade in that role and is now integrated within Lyric.

Harris was born in Niskayuna, N.Y., then spent much of his youth in Mechanicsburg, Pa., and his high schools years in London, England, the latter a result of his father's M&A duties within the electronics sector.

He earned his MBA at Vanderbilt's Owen Graduate School of Management in 2010; he earned his Ph.D. at VU in cancer biology in 2009 and his bachelor's in molecular and cellular biology in 2003.

While at Vanderbilt, Harris was active in campus cycling and tri-athlete clubs and ran VU cross-country and track.

That said, we must mention that not so many years ago, Harris undertook "an ultra running challenge consisting in running from one Rim of the Grand Canyon to the other and back." That's 42 miles and 21K feet of total elevation change. R2R2R.

Among other activities, Harris served as mentor and-or advisor at several organizations, including Jumpstart Foundry, Nashville Entrepreneur Center, NueCura Partners, the Albuquerque (N.M.) ABOid Innovation District.

VNC notes that TPG, which has done deals of various types in Middle Tennessee in the past decade or so, is led by CEO Jon Winkelried, who has also served on the Vanderbilt University board of trustees since 2012, and is father of several VU alumni. 

Other Lyric executives quoted in the July press release from Lyric include, in addition to Metcalf, former Lyric CEO Rajeev Ronanki, and Lyric President and CFO Ravi Umarji.

* Given breaking news of wildfires in many locales, we hasten to note that wildfire maps continually updated by BC government, media and others showed NO "out of control" fires on Vancouver Island, though dozens of such fires are apparently still raging in the south of mainland BC. BCG | CBC | VSun |

. corrections 0938 CDT 11 August 2026