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About Us
Built by a Caregiver for Caregivers
"There are only four kinds of people in the world: those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers." - Rosalyn Carter
As the primary caregiver for his mother who lived one hour away from his New Jersey home, Watch Our Own founder Giancarlo Paolillo oversaw coordination of her care, keeping family up to date, helping to raise three young children and working up to 60 hours a week.
It’s crazy, stressful keeping all of the balls in the air while ensuring that you’re present for a loved one.
And it’s a familiar scenario millions of Americans experience and live daily.
As his mother’s health began to decline further, he needed to spend more time with her, assisting and managing her daily schedule, medications and more.
At the time there were some apps to help caregivers, but you needed to download three separate apps just to manage care for one person. As an experienced developer building complete solutions for some of the country’s top corporations as well as for first responders, Giancarlo knew there had to be an easier way to help caregivers manage it all and to better support their loved ones.
A few years later, in 2019, Giancarlo set out to do just that. With a team of experienced developers and advisors he launched Watch Our Own in 2020.
The Watch Our Own app is the first all-in-one, Caregiving Coordination app available and includes the company’s patented, custom-built Event Engine, which can immediately notify all caregivers of a medical incident and provide the option to connect directly to local EMS.
Our Story
“We began Watch Our Own to provide the tools missing for caregivers to enable balance, reduce stress and give peace of mind. These tools are not just for families with special care giving needs, but for all families." Giancarlo Paolillo CIO/COO/Co-Founder, Watch Our Own
Our Family
Sherrie has worked in the Human Resources field for over 20 years within the financial services and pharmaceutical industries.
She has held several senior roles managing people, advising leaders on people strategies and counseling employees. Sherrie began her career in a finance role at Beneficial Management Corporation (later acquired by Household International). Within three years, she realized her passion was working more directly with people and made the transition to working in human resources.
During the next 20+ years, she held positions of increasing responsibility, working in many functional areas of human resources such as recruitment, employee relations, training, employee development, talent management and organizational design.
Sherrie holds a Masters degree in Business Management and a Bachelor’s degree in Finance Management. In her non-business life, she enjoys hanging out with her family.
President/Co-Founder
Giancarlo has held positions ranging from CIO at YipTV, CIO at ACN, CTO at X Plus One, and Head of Emerging Technologies for Household International (now HSBC) where he was responsible for the design and support of over 30 million credit card customers within their E-commerce solutions in EU and USA.
In addition, Giancarlo was the Senior VP of Engineering for Vonage where he scaled the infrastructure and software development solutions from 6 points of presence to 36 in under two years with clients from less than 100k to greater than 2 million.
His responsibilities and experience encompass Network infrastructure, Systems engineering, Capacity planning, Network security, Ecommerce infrastructure, Database and data warehouse solutions, backup strategies, Storage Area Networks and NOC; building, redesigning, security within the Infrastructure and software engineering of each organization dealing with Network, Systems, and Applications and has created security teams trained by him.
More notably, during his initial five years in IT, Giancarlo designed/created turn-key system solutions for Police/Fire departments as well as municipalities such as Jersey City Police/Fire, Union City Police, Morristown Police/Fire, Newark Municipality.
During the span of his career, Giancarlo has built data centers; ground up Security teams; disaster recovery sites; migrated companies to meet SOX/AS5 compliance; Storage Life Management solutions; Re-vamped software architectures to scale; while reducing overall complexity and increasing our ROI.
CIO/CEO/Co-Founder
Peter Borodich
Head of Development & Founding Member
David Modoski
Head of Infrastructure & Founding Member
Advisors
Glenna Crooks
Advisor
Dr. Glenna Crooks was named a Disruptive Woman to Watch for the creative solutions to complicated problems she developed for governments and businesses globally.
In her latest venture, detailed in The NetworkSage: Realize Your Network Superpower, she pioneered a new way to improve human connections by identifying and understanding the networks that support people of all ages. This breakthrough methodology has recently been applied to family caregiving, including in her own experiences as a caregiver. It is the subject of her next book, Longevity Pioneering: Building Networks to Remain in Control of Your Life (currently in press).
As an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, Dr. Crooks was responsible for US health policy with a healthcare program portfolio of $70 billion, including oversight of agencies such as the CDC, FDA, and NIH. Later, she continued in advisory roles supporting government health priorities as Chair of the National Commission on Rare Diseases, member of the National Council of the NIH Institute for Child Health and Human Development, and the IOM Committee to Advise the DOD on Biowarfare Countermeasures. She was instrumental in developing innovative ways to develop biopharmaceuticals for children and people with rare diseases, to improve maternity care, to establish organ transplant programs, and to address biosecurity to protect both military and civilian populations.
As an executive during Merck & Co.'s "Most Admired Corporation" years, her policy group was recognized as the best in the Fortune 500. She is uniquely positioned as one of the few executives to have held senior policy and P&L positions in both government and industry.
As Founder and CEO of Strategic Health Policy International, Inc., she is known as a "one-woman think tank" with a talent for organizing chaos. Dr. Crooks serves on corporate and non-profit boards, including American Biogenetic Sciences, Inc., and the David A. Winston Health Policy Fellowship. She was the founding Vice-Chair of the Partnership for Prevention. She served on the Board of Scientific Counselors of the Pediatric Dengue Vaccine Initiative funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
She was the first civilian to receive the Surgeon General's Medallion, the highest award in public health. She received numerous other awards, including a Congressional award for her work to develop products for rare diseases and the Marie Curie Award for her innovations in senior care education.
A graduate of Indiana University, she continued academic pursuits as a Fellow of the Drexel University Center for Public Health and Community Involvement and the University of Pennsylvania Center for Neuroscience and Society.
At Indiana University, she trained for the Olympics in the martial arts until a near-fatal training accident required her retirement from contact sports. Now she practices tai chi and, as a mu shin Zen artist, donates her paintings to projects that raise funds for children with special needs
Dr. Shenae Samuels
Advisor
Dr. Shenae Samuels is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of MAP Community
Data & Evaluation Studio (MAP Data Studio) and a Health Services Researcher
focused on improving health outcomes and advancing health equity. Through her
signature MAP FrameworkTM (Mission. Action. Proof.), she supports mission-driven
organizations in the health and human services sectors in defining, measuring, and
communicating their impact to strengthen strategy, credibility, and funding.
Prior to launching MAP Data Studio, Dr. Samuels served as a Research Scientist,
progressing to Senior Research Scientist, at Memorial Healthcare System and Duke
University. In this work, she led research focused on patient outcomes across multiple
clinical areas, including oncology, with an emphasis on how care delivery and broader
factors influence outcomes. She brings a strategic lens to guiding organizations on
metrics, impact measurement, and data storytelling.
She has also held academic and leadership roles, including Assistant Professor and
Program Director at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. She earned her
Bachelor of Science in Health Education, Master of Public Health (MPH), and PhD in
Health Services Research from the University of Florida. During her academic training,
she was a recipient of multiple competitive fellowships, including awards from the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the McKnight Doctoral Fellowship,
as well as the Graduate School Preeminence Award.
Cesar A. Baez
Advisor
Prior to founding Centinela, he served as Head of Strategy, Institutional Business Development and Private Equity for Deutsche Bank Alternative Investments, a division of Deutsche Bank Asset Management.
Before that, Mr. Baez launched and was the first Head of Alternative Investments for the State of New Jersey Investment Division ( 2003-2005), a $72 billion defined benefit pension plan, where he served as a fiduciary and established the pension fund’s first alternative investment program with a 13%-15% allocation to Private Equity, Real Estate and Absolute Returns Strategies.
Mr. Baez previously served as Partner and Principal of Hicks Muse Tate & Furst ( 1994-2001), also of New York, Dallas, London, Mexico City and Buenos Aires, where he co-founded the firm’s Latin America private equity investment initiative which invested over $3 billion in the region across sectors including media, financial services, consumer products, manufacturing and technology.
While at Hicks Muse, Mr. Baez also served as President and CEO of CEI Media Holdings (a Hicks Muse portfolio company), the largest media holding company in Argentina, with assets in broadcast television (TeleFE and Tele Azul), cable TV and broadband (Cablevision), publishing (Editorial Atlantida) and sports marketing.
He was one of the senior executives in the launching of Pan American Sports Network in Latin America (a 24/7 sports oriented network) which was sold to Fox ( 2011). Mr. Baez was also the lead Partner in the acquisition of two Brazilian soccer teams Corinthians and Cruzeiro as well as overseeing the sponsorship of the firm’s Formula 1 investment in Alain Prost Racing.
In 2006, Mr. Baez, was awarded the prestigious Ellis Island Medal of Honor, which pays tribute to U.S. citizens from various ethnic backgrounds. The honorees are awarded for showing outstanding qualities in their personal and professional lives, yet maintaining the richness of their particular heritage.
Mr. Baez serves on the Board of Directors of Lenox Inc., The Smithsonian Museum Latino Gallery in Washington, D.C. and SportBLX a merger of sports and financial technology.
Mr. Baez was an Adjunct Professor at Wagner College where he taught a course on Alternative Investments to MBA candidates. He earned a B.S. degree in Economics and Business Administration from Wagner College of New York, NY. And is a resident of Rumson, New Jersey.
Roel C. Campos
Advisor
• Roel C. Campos is senior counsel in the firm’s Washington, DC, office. Roel’s practice consists of advising senior management and boards in their most sensitive and complex issues. His practice often involves conducting internal investigations and defending matters involving financial regulators, such as the SEC, DOJ, CFTC, and FINRA. He also advises boards on items such as cybersecurity, governance, cryptocurrency and proposed rulemakings by financial regulators. Beginning in 2002, Roel was appointed twice by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the US Senate as a Commissioner of the SEC, serving until 2007. During his tenure, Roel presided over hundreds of complex enforcement cases and rulemakings, involving the full range of federal securities laws. Prior to being appointed to the SEC, Roel raised venture capital with partners, was a senior executive and operated a radio broadcasting company. He began his career after graduating from the US Air Force Academy and served as an officer for five years. After attending Harvard Law School, he worked in Los Angeles for major law firms as a corporate transactions/securities lawyer and litigator. Roel served in the US Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. He prosecuted major narcotics cartels and, in a celebrated trial, convicted several kingpin cartel members for the kidnapping and murder of a DEA agent."
Examples of Recent Representations
• High profile founder/executive, defending him in an SEC investigation and from charges resulting from a tweet about going private.
• A drug company CFO, defending him in an fraud SEC investigation.
• A Fund Manager, defending him in an SEC fraud investigation and subsequent Administrative Law Judge proceeding.
• An insurance company, in a state insurance fraud investigation and audit dispute.
Highlighted Lectures and Publications
• “Ex-SEC Commissioner Roel Campos: We Should Not Initiate Risky Experiments in the Credit Markets,” Fox Business, January 4, 2020
• Speaker, "Guiding Principles for Cyber Risk Governance," Webcast, July 18, 2018
• Coauthored: Guiding Principles for Cyber Risk Governance (July 2018)
• Moderator, "SEC Enforcement Practice III," Regulatory Compliance Association, Webcast, March 27, 2018
• Coauthored a cybersecurity guide for directors: Primer on Cybersecurity for Boards of Directors (January 2018)
• Authored: What Directors Need to Know in 2018 About Board Diversity (March 2018)
• Speaker, “Regulation in 2018,” NICSA, March 2018
• Speaker, “The SEC Speaks,” Panels by Division of Enforcement and Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations, February 2018
• Quoted in “Trump’s SEC Makes Slow Progress on Trimming Rules,” The Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2018
• Speaker, “Enforcement and Insider Trading: Emerging Issues and SEC Priorities in 2018,” RCA Symposium, New York City, November 7, 2017
• Speaker, “Enforcement Practice 2017: Part II,” RCA Symposium, New York City, May 18, 2017
• Speaker, “Enforcement Practice 2017: Part I,” RCA Symposium, Bermuda, April 27, 2017
• Speaker, “SEC Enforcement Under Trump,” PracticEdge Curriculum, December 8, 2016
• Speaker, “Enforcement 2016: New Priorities, Initiatives, and Latest Developments,” RCA Symposium, New York City, November 2, 2016
• Speaker, “The SEC Speaks: Compliance Inspections and Examinations,” Practising Law Institute, Washington, DC, Feb. 20, 2015
• “Global Capital Markets Perspectives,” Practising Law Institute, April 25, 2012
• Speaker, “Regulation & Risk Thought Leadership Symposium,” Regulatory Compliance Association, April 16, 2012
• Speaker, “Shaping the Future,” Council of Institutional Investors’ Spring Conference, April 3, 2012
• Speaker, “Demonize the Executives: Corporate Governance in a Post Dodd-Frank World,” Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) 11th Annual Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Expo, March 21, 2012
• “Roel Campos on Standardizing Accounting Principles, Self-Funding the SEC,” Outside Publication, Bloomberg Brief, Feb. 24, 2012
• Speaker, “Board Diversity and Composition: Hiring, Firing and Evaluating the New Realities of Governance,” Seventh Annual Directors’ College for Stanford University, June 21, 2011
• Speaker, “Anti-Corruption Risk Assessments and Third-Party Due Diligence,” GCM Parker’s Second Annual Business Ethics Anti-Corruption & Fraud Prevention Strategies in CEE, SEE & CIS, Prague, March 24, 2011
• Coauthored, "The Retirement Protection Gap: Unequal Disclosures for Retirement Investors," BNA Pension & Benefits Reporter (March 2006)
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