Our Team
Danya Norton
Founder, Managing PrincipalDanya is an organizational strategist and executive coach who helps biotech and life sciences organizations build the leadership, systems, and ways of working needed to scale effectively and perform at their best.
Her work is grounded in a belief that strong organizations don’t have to choose between performance and humanity. The best environments create clarity, accountability, and high standards while giving people the trust, support, and autonomy to do their best work.
Danya partners with CEOs, executive teams, CPOs, and investors to strengthen organizational alignment, leadership effectiveness, and the practical operating systems that help companies execute on their strategy with greater focus and less friction. Her approach is pragmatic and highly tailored, with an emphasis on building capability inside the organization through developing habits that drive high performance.
She brings the same philosophy to AI adoption. Danya helps leaders build genuine human-centered AI fluency, identify where AI can create meaningful value, and integrate it into everyday work in ways that strengthen judgment, connection, and leadership.
Across her work, Danya’s focus is simple: build organizations where people can thrive, leaders can execute, and companies can scale in support of patients.
Marina Ahn
CoachMarina brings rigorous scientific training and professional coaching experience to Agate Partners, specializing in guiding biotech organizations through high-impact AI adoption. With a B.S. and M.S. from UC San Diego and firsthand experience as a research scientist in biotech, she understands the complexities of technical environments and scientific cultures.
At Agate Partners, Marina works at the intersection of organizational behavior and technological transformation, helping life science leaders bridge the gap between AI capabilities and human execution. By focusing on leadership alignment, behavioral design, and strategic optimization, she ensures executive mindsets and team workflows evolve alongside new technology — helping teams build AI fluency and become more agile and high-performing.