Sam Shames

Sam Shames joined Flagship Pioneering in 2026 as an Operating Principal, where he partners with venture teams to validate core hypotheses, drive product-market fit, design early go-to-market motions, and build the cross-functional teams required to scale AI-native and emerging technology businesses.

Prior to Flagship, Sam co-founded Embr Labs and served as Chief Operating Officer and then Chief Revenue Officer over a 12-year span, building deep operating experience in taking new technologies from early validation through commercialization and scale. He pioneered the Embr Wave, a new category of wearable thermal technology, and scaled the company to over $50M in lifetime revenue and hundreds of thousands of units sold globally. He also helped raise over $65M in venture financing and led teams across engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, finance, and go-to-market.

He is a co-inventor on 30 granted patents and has lectured on entrepreneurship and startups at MIT and Harvard. Sam earned a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT.