Kenny Blades is Director of Global Program Management at DOCS a divi­sion of ICON Plc. Dr. Blades, joined the pharma industry from academic research in 1999, and since then has worked across clinical operations, medical affairs, project management and program management in phar­ma, biotech, CRO and consultancy. Currently, he leads a hub of around 100 global, regional and associate project managers delivering a large pipeline of registration and post marketing trials across a variety of ther­apy areas for a major biotech company, in a functional service provider model. Dr. Blades is a member of the UK Medical Research Council, a working group for patient recruitment to clinical trials, and sits on the Editorial Advisory Board of the journal ‘Applied Clinical Trials’.

With more than 11 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, Christoph is working in his current role as a senior project manager in the project management office of the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR). He is responsible for drug discovery and development programs in the disease areas of autoimmunity, transplantation, inflammation, and ophthalmology working with multi-cultural teams in a global setting. He has extensive experience with biologics and low-molecularweight compounds. Christoph studied biology and, after gaining his Ph.D., completed two postdoctoral pieces of training in immunology at the Max-Planck Institute for Immunobiology and Albert-Ludwigs- University in Freiburg, Germany. Building on this strong background in immunology, Christoph joined the industry in 2005 as a biomarker expert and moved into project management in 2009.

Simon began his AstraZeneca career as a laboratory chemist before moving into process chemistry project management. An interest and involvement in the development of enterprise and functional project and portfolio management tools led to subsequent roles in portfolio and capacity management. He has worked within two technical functions (initially the chemistry and pharmacy development function then a combined regulatory affairs/patient safety/quality assurance function). He recently moved into pipeline strategy and management which serves as the home and centre of excellence for all cross-functional project and portfolio management, capacity management, analytics, and reporting.

Sigrún has over 30 years of experience in the health care/medical/phar­maceutical sector; ranging from hands on with patients in hospital to commercialising hospital and medical products, supply planning, mar­keting, project management and leadership, commercial and business strategy. For the past 6 years she has been leading launch excellence and project (program) management teams, from R&D phase through the entire pipeline; setting milestones, managing risk factors and timelines to progress and optimisation through leading multi-cultural and cross-functional global core teams in a matrix environment.

As an international finance manager, Alexis Poulet acts as a translator of complex business requirements into financials. This not only requires technical and analytical capabilities but also deep business understand­ing, together with transparent communication. Alexis has over 10 years’ experience in leading pharmaceutical & chemical companies, with a spe­cific focus on factually supporting strategic decision making and risk/ performance management. Alexis is currently global head of R&D finance & controlling for Ferring Pharmaceuticals, a global biopharmaceutical company with an R&D organisation of ca. 700 scientists, dedicated to the development of innovative treatments in the areas of reproductive health, urology, gastroenterology, endocrinology and orthopaedics. Prior to this, he was working for the Novartis Global Pharmaceutical Division as financial planning manager. Prior to Novartis, Alexis worked at Syn­genta, where he held a number of different roles, starting as an inter­nal auditor, then taking a lead role in SAP global implementation before becoming the head of finance, R&D Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Before leaving Syngenta, Alexis was global head of production and sup­ply financial reporting. Alexis, currently lives in Switzerland after working and studying in 6 different countries, which helped him to understand the challenges of today’s fast paced and volatile environment.

Kamil Mroz is a certified PRINCE2 trainer and Lean Six Sigma professional with many years of experience leading projects in the biotech and pharma sectors. Currently he is working at GSK in Belgium as a senior program manager and PM capabilities lead in manufacturing science and technology. He is deeply involved and passionate about contributing to the PM community by regularly speaking at PM conferences, actively contributing to publications and enthusiastically sharing his experience with the next generation of project managers. Since 2016, he has been organising a monthly net­working event for PMs in Belgium called “Pint of PM”. In 2013, he received the presti­gious International Project Management Association (IPMA) Young Project Manager of the Year Award for outstanding leadership and project management excellence, and since then he has been part of the yearly Global IPMA Jury to select future winners.

David is the director of strategic accounts and global operational head at QuintilesIMS, with 16 years of CRO industry experience. He is a re-sponsible, reliable, trusted and respected professional that partners and sets up governance and support structures with QuintilesIMS’ s pharma & biotech clients to use the assets of all parties involved to work together to understand, plan and deliver their portfolio.

For over more than 20 years, Anna Aillerie has been involved with stra­tegic market research, global launch management and portfolio manage­ment for well-known companies like Lipha, Merck KgaA, Merck Gener­ics, Mylan, and Lupin. Anna has extensively worked on a diverse set of assignments to acquire valuable experience in marketing, portfolio and project management from both big pharma, as well as generics perspec­tive. She holds a Master of Sciences in pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing from the University Paris VI, and is currently responsible for developing commercial activities in her role as director commercial bio­similars EMEA at Lupin.

Denise Moody, Global Senior Director of Project Management, oversees regulatory affairs and pharmacovigilance work for the PPD® FSP team. Denise joined PPD in August 2013 and is based in the Cambridge, UK office. She has over 25 years of experience working in the diagnostic and pharmaceutical industries with 15 years of those years working on projects. As a qualified clinical biochemist, (MSc, FIBMS) Denise started her business career working with Boerhringer Mannheim and has since worked for Chiron, Bayer, Hexel group, Amdipharm, Watson, and Actavis. During her time in pharmaceuticals, Denise has been heavily involved in the development and supply chain areas. Denise is very experienced in running and leading successful global projects and project teams, with the first-hand experience of managing start-ups, mature programs, and closeouts. Denise has a proven track record in successful project planning and management and building effective teams. Denise feels that transparency and open communication is paramount to delivering results. Having direct line management and matrix management experience, Denise has a reputation for delivering projects on time and on budget.

Frank is currently the head of study budget centre of excellence at Boeh­ringer Ingelheim’s headquarter based in Ingelheim, Germany. In this re­sponsibility, he oversees the tools and processes to plan and track clinical trial budgets exceeding one billion Euro per year. Frank is a physician by training and got his M.D. from the Technical University of Aachen, Ger­many. During the first years of his career in the pharmaceutical industry, Frank published frequently in peer-reviewed journals, mostly on demen­tia research. Frank has more than 10 years’ experience in leading inter­national project teams at Boehringer Ingelheim, successfully advancing projects through all clinical phases, from Phase I to launch.

Dr. Donatienne Phillips has a Ph.D. in infectious disease, is a certified project manager and certified 6 Sigma Black Belt. Business and people strategies, and focused leader with extensive experience in all aspects of management, project management and business. She drives growth within a commercial results driven environment with a proven track re­cord of implementation of process improvements and establishment of global process across multiple sites and countries. Her background is a rare combination of scientific, project management and process excel­lence qualifications and experience. Currently, she is a business director, and a strategic partner, and is passionate about bringing medicine to the market sooner. She develop solutions for complex business problems that drive business transformation and growth, while anticipating risks and proposing mitigation strategies. As a senior member of Covance, she leads global strategic projects and teams of scientific, operational and support functions to provide game-changing ideas that drive measurable business impact for key clients and profitability for the chemistry busi­ness (BioCMC and BioA Large and small molecules). As a senior partner in cross-disciplinary matrix teams, she leads strategic initiatives (includ­ing M&A, divestments), new opportunities and ensures sustainable long-term relationships at all level of the organisation. She pro-actively as­sesses scientific trends and their potential to support and/or drive clients’ business and our internal business initiatives. Over the past 25 years of academic and pharma industry experience, she has developed her ex­pertise and knowledge through a multitude of roles/functions within the organisation, starting as a scientist moving onto project management, program management, Six Sigma Leader and more recently business management.