Stephanie Kauffman

Stephanie Kauffman is President and Chief Operating Officer of the Melanoma Research Alliance (MRA), the largest private non-profit funder of melanoma research worldwide. She is a strategic growth leader known for mobilizing capital, partnerships, and cross-sector collaboration to accelerate scientific breakthroughs and patient impact. Since joining MRA, Kauffman has helped scale the organization’s revenue and global footprint, advancing innovative funding models that bridge philanthropy, industry, and finance. She plays a key role in expanding Leveraged Finance Fights Melanoma (LFFM), mobilizing leaders across private equity and credit markets in support of melanoma research. Under her leadership, MRA has advanced investments in early detection, AI-enabled diagnostics, and next-generation therapies, while convening leading researchers, clinicians, and investors to shorten the distance between discovery and patient impact. Previously, Kauffman held senior leadership roles at Universal Pictures and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, where she helped mobilize more than $500 million for cancer research and built transformative partnerships with Fortune 100 companies. She focuses on a future where cancer is identified before it becomes cancer and where capital, data, and collaboration accelerate that reality.