Speakers & Panels – 2020 Questrom Health & Life Sciences Conference

Friday, October 30, 2020

Keynote Speaker

Warner Thomas was named President and CEO of Ochsner Health in 2012 after previously serving as President and Chief Operating Officer from 1998-2012. He is the CEO of Louisiana’s largest non-profit academic health system and its largest private employer.

Today, Ochsner employs more than 26,000 employees and more than1,500 employed physicians in over 90 medical specialties and subspecialties and conducts more than 750 clinical research studies. The system coordinates and provides clinical and hospital patient care across the Gulf South region through its 40 owned, managed and affiliated hospitals and specialty hospitals, and more than 115 health and urgent care centers.

Ochsner is the only Louisiana hospital recognized by U.S. News & World Report as a “Best Hospital” across one adult specialty category and one pediatric specialty and every year cares for patients from all 50 states and more than 70 countries. 

Under Thomas’s leadership, Ochsner has expanded access to care in Louisiana and the Gulf South as well as become a national and global destination for healthcare. Ochsner Health is committed to supporting the growing and unique needs of the communities it serves and providing specialty services where and when patients need it. Some of this is accomplished in partnership with other strong healthcare organizations across the Gulf South and provides the opportunity for Ochsner to scale patient-centered technology and other solutions to bring advanced care closer to home.

Thomas has been instrumental in developing a population health focus at Ochsner, delivering programs and resources that empower patients to effectively manage chronic conditions while also maintaining focus on preventive measures, screenings and education to help people stay well and avoid preventable disease. He also worked to launch innovationOchsner in 2015, an Ochsner lab designed to create health advancements to address national issues including chronic disease management, as well as to support and partner with companies working to revolutionize patient-centered care. Internally, Thomas spearheaded the creation of the Ochsner Learning Institute which provides free professional education for all Ochsner leaders to better prepare them to confront challenges, seek opportunity and ignite enthusiasm around best practices in healthcare.

Thomas is a board member of the American Hospital Association. He is a former member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission where he advised Congress on issues affecting Medicare. He has served as Chairman of the American Hospital Association Section for Health Systems Governing Council and is a past member of both the Board of the American Medical Group Association and the Association of American Medical Colleges Advisory Panel for Health Care and Council of Teaching Hospitals. Additionally, Thomas is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives, a Louisiana Hospital Association board member and a member of both the Young Presidents Organization and New Orleans Business Council.

Thomas received an undergraduate degree in accounting and computer information systems from New Hampshire College in Manchester, N.H., and his Master of Business Administration degree in 1994 from Boston University Graduate School of Management. He is also a certified public accountant.

Thomas is a recipient of the Boy Scouts of America Distinguished Citizen Award, the Anti-Defamation League 2018 A.I. Botnick Torch of Liberty Award, and was named the 2017 CEO of the Year by Biz New Orleans magazine, one of Glassdoor Top CEOs in 2018 and one of Ernst &Young’s Entrepreneur Of The Year® in the Healthcare & Related Services category for the Gulf Coast Area in 2019.  He was also named as one of Modern Healthcare’s Top 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare for 2020.

Telehealth and the Virtual Self

Over the past few months Telehealth has shot forward into the spotlight in our virtual world. Yet one year ago, its adoption was low and many viewed its widespread use as a thing of the distant future. As patients and providers continue to grow more comfortable with its uses, benefits, and drawbacks, where does Telehealth provide the greatest opportunity? What challenges lay ahead for continued adoption, reimbursement, and improvement?

Ann Mond Johnson became CEO of the ATA in 2018. Prior, she served as CEO of Zest Health, a technology-enabled service; Board Chair and Advisor to ConnectedHealth, a leading provider of private insurance exchanges; and co-founder and CEO of Subimo, a pioneer in healthcare cost and quality decision support tools for consumers. Ann began her career in healthcare data and information as Senior VP at Sachs Group (now part of IBM Watson/Truven Health). She also worked at a multi-hospital system in Minneapolis (now part of Allina).

Ann’s ability to inspire and lead diverse teams has helped build both profitable organizations and innovation in the industry. She maintains membership in the Healthcare Executive Leadership Network and Women Business Leaders of US Healthcare. Ann served on the Healthcare Advisory Council for UMB Bank and as an advisor to several start-ups. She was inducted in the Chicago Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame in 2016.

For Julie Viola, improving health outcomes is not an idle phrase. It has been a driving force in both her professional and academic life for well over a decade. That’s exactly why she earned her master’s degree in health administration from George Washington University in 2017. Her academic focus on population health in obesogenic environments stemmed from her earnest conviction that better health can come from healthier environments.

At Philips, Julie is deeply committed to the company’s bold vision to improve the lives of billions of people- telehealth and virtual care are critical components of that vision and something that is a driving force behind the healthcare innovation Julie and her many colleagues bring to health systems around the globe, helping them to do more for their patients. For Julie, success lies in her passion for connecting people and ideas; in understanding healthcare’s important challenges to deliver the best solutions where there is the greatest need.

Dr. Schwamm is professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, Vice President of Virtual Care for Partners Healthcare and Executive Vice Chairman of Neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, where he is the Director of Stroke Services, Co-Director of the Institute for Heart, Vascular and Stroke Care, and Director of MGH TeleHealth. His clinical interests are in cerebrovascular diseases, intensive care medicine, brain imaging and applied healthcare technology.

An internationally recognized leader in telehealth and vascular neurology, Dr. Schwamm is best known for his 20-plus years of pioneering work in the research, development and dissemination of telemedicine-enabled stroke care (telestroke), as well as his leadership of the American Heart Association’s Get with the Guidelines® Stroke program, which monitors and improves stroke care at over 3000 US hospitals to date by analyzing over six million stroke admissions. He is a member of many key American Health Association committees related to Stroke Prevention and Stroke Center Certification and serves as an expert consultant to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the Centers for Disease Control Paul Coverdell National Acute Stroke Registry, the Joint Commission and the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement. Dr. Schwamm is the author of over 400 peer-reviewed articles, serves on the editorial board of Stroke and the International Advisory Board of The Lancet Digital Health, and has chaired many of the current practice guidelines for telehealth-enabled stroke care delivery. He is the recipient of numerous awards for innovation, leadership and stroke advocacy and has an active federally funded research portfolio.

Dr. Schwamm graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1991 and completed his neurologic training and neurocritical care and cerebrovascular fellowships at Mass General. His research has been funded by Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, the Aetna Foundation, Dana Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Massachusetts Department of Public Health, CIMIT and the Department of the Army.

Nitin R. Joglekar is on the faculty at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. His interests involve Digital Product Management Thinking (DPMT), agility and machine learning techniques in data products and innovation processes, and digitization of production and supply chain management (DSCM) processes.

He consults and conducts funded research in the agile software, cloud services/digital technologies, energy/sustainability, and heath care sectors. Prior to his academic career, he has overseen product management and supply chain functions at established firms and founded a venture capital backed software startup. He has served as an NSF expert panelist. He is a member of World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council, wherein he focuses on business model innovations enabled by digital technology driven advanced manufacturing, supply chains and designs. He holds engineering degrees from Indian Institute of Technology, Memorial University (Canada), and MIT and doctoral degree in management science from the MIT Sloan School.

At Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, Professor Joglekar teaches courses related to his research themes at undergraduate, graduate and executive levels. He was the founding director of his schools’ online micro-master’s programs in Digital Leadership and Product Management. He offers a DPMT MOOC course (on edX.org). He will teach fostering innovative mindset in Questrom’s Online MBA program. He has won several awards, including the Broderick Award for Teaching Excellence and the General Electric Award for Team Learning. He has been a visiting faculty member at MIT Sloan School of Management and at University of Texas, and a visiting fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School, and Copenhagen Business School.

He has been an editor for entrepreneurship, innovation and technology management departments at top journals. Currently, he is a department editor for Industry Studies and Public Policy at Production & Operations Management (POM).His book, Innovation Butterfly, addresses management of innovation risks and allied analytics opportunities. His book Digital Product Management Thinking (DPMT) advocates integration of analytics, business model, coordination and design thinking.

Diagnostics: Plotting the course for care

Diagnostics and medical devices play a critical role across the healthcare landscape as nearly 70% of today’s medical decisions are determined or informed by in-vitro diagnostic lab tests and performed with medical devices. How can technology be leveraged to improve accuracy and build consistency while managing trust between physicians and patients? How do these companies manage differentiation in a crowded market?

David A. Pierce is the Boston Scientific executive vice president and president, MedSurg a position he has held since April 2018, and president, Endoscopy, a role he has held since February 2020. In this role, he has direct responsibility for the Endoscopy business, Canada and Latin America regions, and corporate marketing and market access, as well as oversight responsibility for the Urology and Pelvic Health business. Prior to his current role, Mr. Pierce served as the Senior Vice President and President, Urology and Pelvic Health since July 2016. In that role, he developed and executed strategies to bring to market industry-leading solutions for treating patients with urological, urogynecological and gynecological diseases. Previously, Mr. Pierce served as senior vice president and president, Endoscopy since 2011, and vice president, marketing for Endoscopy as well as group marketing director in the Endoscopy business. He joined Boston Scientific in 1991 as a territory manager before assuming management-level positions of increasing responsibility. Prior to joining Boston Scientific, Mr. Pierce also served as senior sales representative for Airborne Express and as a Captain in the United States Army. He earned a B.S. in Business Administration from Norwich University and an M.B.A. from Boston University.

Giovanni Russi is the Sr VP of Worldwide Marketing and Service at Instrumentation Laboratory, a Werfen Company. Based at the IL Corporate Headquarters in Bedford, MA, he leads the global marketing strategy for the Company’s business units—Hemostasis and Acute Care Diagnostics—with combined revenues of over $1 billion. His responsibilities include business strategy, product portfolio and lifecycle management, corporate and product marketing, business development, and global service.

With more than 20-year experience in the in vitro diagnostics industry, Giovanni started his career in biomedical research, before joining IL in 1997. He has been integral to the development and launch of many successful products, from instruments and reagents, to data management and services. His passion for improving the quality of laboratory medicine, healthcare efficiencies and patient care fuels the success he and his teams have achieved. Giovanni holds a BS in Biochemistry from the University of Milan, Italy.

Stacey Stevens is the President of iCAD, a global medical technology leader providing innovative cancer detection and therapy solutions.   Previously she held the position of Executive Vice president, Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer for iCAD.  In previous roles she has served in a variety of sales, business development, and marketing leadership positions with Philips Medical Systems, Agilent Technologies and Hewlett Packard’s Healthcare Solutions Group (which was acquired in 2001 by Philips Medical Systems). Prior to joining iCAD in 2006, she held the position of Vice President, Marketing Planning at Philips Medical Systems, where she was responsible for the leadership of all global marketing planning functions for Philips’ Healthcare Business. Ms. Stevens earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science from the University of New Hampshire, and an MBA from Boston University’s Graduate School of Management.

Iain M. Cockburn is the Richard C. Shipley Professor in the Questrom School of Business at Boston University, where he teaches and performs research in the areas of business strategy, intellectual property, economics of innovation, and management of high tech companies.

Professor Cockburn graduated from the University of London in 1984, and completed his PhD in economics at Harvard University in 1990.  Prior to joining the faculty of Boston University, he was the VanDusen Professor of Business Administration in the Faculty of Commerce at the University of British Columbia.  He is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Professor Cockburn is an authority on the economics of intellectual property.  He has published numerous papers in leading academic journals in economics and management.  Among his most highly cited articles are “Generics and New Goods in Pharmaceutical Price Indexes” in American Economic Review, “Scale, Scope, and Spillovers: Determinants of Research Productivity in the Pharmaceutical Industry” in RAND Journal of Economics, “Absorptive Capacity, Coauthoring Behavior, and the Organization of Research in Drug Discovery” in Journal of Industrial Economics, “Is the Pharmaceutical Industry in a Productivity Crisis” in Innovation Policy and the Economy, “The Market for Follow-on Biologics: How Will It Evolve?” in Health Affairs, “Finding the Endless Frontier: Lessons from the Life Sciences Innovation System for Technology Policy” in Capitalism and Society, “Patents and the Global Diffusion of New Drugs” in American Economic Review, and “Deals Not Done: Sources of Failure in the Market for Ideas” in Strategic Management Journal.

Professor Cockburn has been a consultant on business strategy to variety of life sciences and technology companies, and on public policy to government agencies in the US, the UK, and Canada.  He has provided expert testimony in numerous litigation and arbitration matters on issues such as licensing and collaboration agreements, patent damages, antitrust, class certification, brand-generic competition, Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement, off-label marketing, transfer pricing, and misappropriation of trade secrets.

Patient Access: Bringing care home

The healthcare delivery space is adjusting to create new models and access points. How do organizations look to increase patient access by bringing care to their doorsteps? By acting as a point of care, how does a company build relations with its patients, improve their adherence, and ultimately reduce the economic burden on the patient and the health system? What are the greatest hurdles and what opportunities lay ahead?

Amy Leonard is a vision-driven, goal-focused operations strategist and program management professional with a proven history of driving sustainability, innovation, quality, and growth across non-profit and healthcare organizations. In her most recent position as Vice President of Public Health Services for Legacy Community Health, she oversaw the organization’s community health and patient education prevention services. The department was instrumental in establishing the organization’s prevention to care continuum practice. Topics included HIV, HCV, Maternal/Child health, and Diabetes. In 2011 Ms. Leonard’s HIV prevention team received the “Healthcare Heroes Award” from Houston’s Business Journal for their HIV community outreach and testing efforts. Ms. Leonard is a frequent speaker at local, state and international conferences and at major universities, and has been featured on ABC News Special Report, NPR, Fox News and in Newsweek magazine.

Bryan Krastins is a visionary operational executive with 20+ years’ experience in the healthcare, diagnostics, and technology sectors with a history of unifying diverse groups to achieve strategic corporate initiatives. Mr. Krastins’ previous work with Thermo Fisher Scientific resulted in the creation of one of the world’s first Biomarker Translation Centers which became a Center of Excellence in the US, Germany, France, and China and included helping lead corporate acquisition initiatives. As CEO and Founder of Orb Health, he leads the company in delivering customer and shareholder value through Orb’s innovative Enterprise Virtual Care™ that transforms FQHCs/CHCs, Health Systems, and ACOs care capacity into a scalable virtual service for chronic care and beyond. He holds a BA from Franklin & Marshall College, and an MBA from the Questrom School of Business at Boston University. Mr. Krastins currently resides outside of Dallas, TX.

Dr. Masood received his Doctorate of Pharmacy from University of Southern California (USC). In 1992, Dr. Masood started one of the first home infusion pharmacies, Ultracare Home Health, with his wife Mona. In 1997, Ultracare changed its name to Crescent Healthcare, Inc. (CHI), which was sold in 2004, at which point Dr. Masood focused his efforts on developing a state-of-the-art infusion pump that eliminated the need for full time nursing while patients received IVIG treatments.

In 1999 & 2017, Ernst & Young awarded Dr. Masood the prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year in Healthcare award. Over the years, he has received numerous awards and recognitions for his work in home infusion and philanthropic ventures.

In 2010 Dr. Masood started KabaFusion, which has since grown to 28 pharmacy locations across the country, becoming the largest privately held infusion company in the US and a leader in the home infusion industry.

Karen Golden-Biddle is Questrom Professor in Management and Professor of Management and Organizations at the Questrom School of Business at Boston University. She received her BA degree from Denison University and MBA and PhD degrees from Case Western Reserve University. She served as Senior Associate Dean from 2011 – 2015, with responsibilities for faculty and school-level curricular change. She currently serves as Department Chair of Management and Organizations.  Professionally she is active in the Academy of Management, where she has been inducted as a Fellow.

Karen conducts research and teaches at the graduate level in the areas of cultural change and qualitative methodology. She has published two books and authored more than sixty articles and book chapters in management journals such as the Academy of Management Journal and Organization Science.  Recognition for Karen’s scholarship includes the 2013 Douglas McGregor Award (Journal of Applied Behavioral Science) for her paper on cultural change and organizational identity in mergers, and the Academy of Management’s Robert McDonald Award for the Advancement of Organizational Research Methodology for her study of constructing contribution in analyzing and writing qualitative research. Her co-authored book, Composing Qualitative Research, has been used in doctoral programs in top business schools across the world, including Stanford, University of Michigan, Northwestern, Cambridge, INSEAD, and Columbia.

Aging Nation: Innovation in healthcare for seniors

According to the U.S. census, the population of individuals over the age of 65 will increase by 10 million people between 2020 and 2025. As this population grows, alternative opportunities to address the unique health challenges it presents need to arise. How can innovation be fostered within the Medicare space? How do programs better address this growing population and reinvent how healthcare can be delivered or explored?

Alice Bonner, PhD, RN, FAAN, has been a geriatric nurse practitioner caring for older adults and their families for over 30 years. She is currently Adjunct Faculty and Director of Strategic Partnerships for the CAPABLE Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and Senior Advisor for Aging at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI).

From 2015-2019, she served as Secretary of the Executive Office of Elder Affairs for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. From 2011 to 2013, Dr. Bonner served as Director of the Division of Nursing Homes in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in Baltimore, MD. From 2009-2011, she was the Director of the Bureau of Health Care Safety and Quality, at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Her research interests include policy development to promote quality and safety in health systems and community-based settings; elder abuse, falls prevention, improving dementia care and reducing unnecessary antipsychotic medication use, and improving care transitions.

Erika A. Pabo, MD, MBA is a physician leader and social entrepreneur with deep experience in primary care delivery, technology enabled chronic disease management, and population health.

In her current role, she is responsible for design and execution of the Author by Humana’s clinical work providing whole health supports to groups future members.  The groups exists to knock down barriers to health and serve as a catalyst to help people live their best lives on their terms.

She continues to serve as faculty at Harvard Medical School and to see patients a half day per week as a primary care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital Advanced Primary Care Practice, South Huntington – a level III NCQA Patient Centered Medical Home.

She lives in Boston, MA with her husband Eric, her two sons Jasper and Silas, and chocolate Labrador Wally.  In her spare time, she enjoys reading, running, cycling, hiking and kitesurfing.

Roopa Akkineni is an Advisor at CVS Health, working in the Design and Innovation Lab within the Retail Pharmacy Growth division. Her work involves using interdisciplinary tools drawing from design thinking, public health and behavioral science to generate insights and incubate innovations. She has experience working on various projects involving optimizing patient care services, conducting qualitative work, mapping user health journeys, and prototyping new solutions. Currently, she is working on projects exploring gaps in medication adherence and navigating Medicare in senior populations. Prior to CVS she worked in the federal healthcare space conducting program evaluation for clients at Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ). She graduated from University of Michigan where she studied both Anthropology and Molecular Biology and received her MPH from Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.

Tal Gross is an associate professor in the Department of Markets, Public Policy & Law and a Dean’s Research Scholar at Boston University Questrom School of Business. In addition, he is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Tal’s research focuses on health insurance and household finance. He received his bachelor’s degree from The University of Chicago and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He previously taught at the University of Miami School of Business Administration and the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Optimizing Patient Outcomes

Personalizing medicine through biofluids represents an opportunity to improve patient outcomes by leveraging biomarkers. It provides the opportunity to get the right drug or treatment, to the right patient, at the right time. How can this technology be developed into new solutions or integrated into older solutions to result in better outcomes? How should the solution’s value be demonstrated to key stakeholders in order to encourage greater adoption and what critical challenges remain ahead?

Dr. Elizabeth O’Day is the CEO and Founder of Olaris, Inc., a precision medicine company that identifies “biomarkers of response” (BoR) to stratify patients into optimal treatment groups. Dr. O’Day is also the co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Biotechnology, she serves on the advisory board for the Precision Medicine Initiative and was an invited speaker at the annual meeting in Davos. She is also on the Board of Directors for the Personalized Medicine Coalition. Dr. O’Day received her PhD from Harvard University, where she was a National Science Foundation fellow. She was awarded a Winston Churchill fellowship and received a Master’s of Philosophy in Chemistry from the University of Cambridge. She has a Bachelor of Science degree from Boston College in Biochemistry, where she was awarded the Rev. Finnegan Award, the most prestigious award bestowed to an undergraduate, and nearly all of the nation’s top undergraduate research honors (Beckman scholar, Goldwater Scholar, Churchill Fellow, NSF Fellow, National Institute of Chemistry Excellence Award).

Michal Depa is a co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Jana Care, a medical device company that designs and manufactures smartphone connected diagnostic devices for testing of key blood biomarkers for chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart failure and chronic kidney disease. Previously, Michal was a researcher at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, where he worked on image analysis algorithms for medical imaging applications. He holds a MS degree from MIT in computer science and a BS from McGill University in electrical engineering.

Priti Hegde, Ph.D., joined Foundation Medicine as the Chief Scientific Officer in August 2019. Dr. Hegde oversees clinical product development, cancer genomics, and early-stage research, as well as regulatory and quality assurance, to accelerate advancement of the Company’s leading comprehensive genomic profiling portfolio. She is passionate about innovation in cancer research and translating innovations to precision medicine tools to advance care for patients.

Dr. Hegde has spent nearly two decades in the biopharmaceutical industry, with a proven track record in drug development, registration, and commercialization of therapeutics with companion diagnostics in cancer immunotherapy.

Prior to joining Foundation Medicine, Dr. Hegde spent 12 years at Genentech, a member of Roche Group, where she held roles of increasing responsibility. Most recently, Dr. Hegde served as senior director and principal scientist in oncology biomarker development at Genentech, during which she established and led the biomarker group accountable for translational science strategies in cancer immunotherapy. Dr. Hegde was instrumental in the approvals for atezolizumab in both the United States and European Union, as well as its forthcoming diagnostic filings.

Before joining Genentech, Dr. Hegde was the manager of disease and biomarker transcriptomics at GlaxoSmithKline. Dr. Hegde completed her post-doctoral fellow at The Institute for Genomic Research and holds a Ph.D. in Biochemical Pharmacology from SUNY Buffalo, as well as a B. Pharmacy from Mumbai University, India.

Jayakanth “JK” Srinivasan is a Research Associate Professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, and a Fellow at the Institute for Health Systems Innovation and Policy. Prior to joining BU, he led a research team at MIT working with the Army over a five-year period to iteratively transform behavioral health services for Soldiers and their families. He has also served as a faculty member at the School of Innovation, Design and Engineering at MDH in Sweden.

Prof. Srinivasan is an excellent source of information for systems analysis and health system transformation, with a focus on system redesign, modeling and analytics, performance management, and change implementation. His current research projects focus on: understanding how leader sensemaking and sensegiving can improve individual and organizational health outcomes; and enabling precision medicine in behavioral healthcare settings.

He is the recipient of the Commander’s Award for Public Service, the Army Outstanding Civilian Service Award, and is a senior member of the ACM.

Developing & Delivering the Cure

Development of life changing therapies and medications is challenging and costly but provides a solution to those who currently have none. What are some of the challenges these organizations face in order to fund and develop treatments and cures? How should organizational changes be managed in order to leverage the internal and external strengths? How are these companies developing solutions to address disparities in healthcare?

Ashley Cordova has served as Novocure’s Chief Financial Officer since September 2020. She is responsible for the oversight of Novocure’s global financial operations, including financial reporting, financial planning and analysis, treasury, tax, and investor relations.

From October 2018 to August 2020, Ms. Cordova served as the Company’s Senior Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations. Ms. Cordova joined the Company in June 2014 as Director of Global Treasury. In March 2015, she became the Company’s Senior Director, Investor Relations and Global Treasury, and in July 2016, she became the Company’s Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations. Prior to joining Novocure, Ms. Cordova served in various financial roles at Zoetis Inc. from 2012 to 2014 and Pfizer Inc. from 2005 to 2012. Ms. Cordova graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Music and Business from Furman University, and earned her International Master of Business Administration from the University of South Carolina.

George Llado is Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Alexion, responsible for building the company’s Global Information Technology function that enable Alexion to develop life-transforming treatments for patients with severe and life-threatening diseases.
As an industry veteran with 30 years of Pharma business and IT experience, he and his global team at Alexion develop and implement innovative technology and enterprise-level business information & applications infrastructure, global security and risk, enable data-driven insights across Alexion’s R&D, Commercial, Manufacturing Operations and Supply Chain functions.
Prior to joining Alexion, Mr. Llado served as Vice President and business line CIO for Merck’s Manufacturing and Supply Chain organizations, where he led the planning and development of IT solutions for the company’s Manufacturing Division. Before that, George was Merck’s Vice President, Corporate IT and business line CIO for several corporate functions. He also successfully managed the large-scale merger integration of Merck and Schering-Plough across the IT and Shared Business Services organizations. Mr. Llado has also held several other positions of increasing responsibility at Merck, and previously worked at Citibank, N.A.
George serves on the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) Board and the Temple Fox IBIT Advisory Board. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from New York Institute of Technology.

Mr. Fier is a seasoned biotechnology executive with over 30 years of experience in the industry, including both large and start-up organizations. He is currently serving as Chief Operating Officer and Integration Lead following Momenta’s acquisition by Johnson & Johnson. He has held a variety of operational and strategic roles at Momenta over an 18-year career, and continues to lead all manufacturing functions, program management and alliance management. Mr. Fier was previously Vice President of Clinical Affairs at BioTransplant Inc., where he led clinical development activities for both antibody therapeutics and medical devices. Prior to that, he held positions in product development and project management at Hoechst-Roussel (now Sanofi), Astra USA and The Medicines Company, and was involved with the development and launch of several successful products. Mr. Fier received his BS from Tufts University and his MBA with a Concentration in Healthcare Management from Boston University.

Rena M. Conti is the Associate Research Director of Biopharma & Public Policy for the Boston University Institute for Health System Innovation & Policy. She is also an Associate Professor at the Boston University Questrom School of Business. From 2006 through June 2018, Professor Conti was an Associate Professor of Health Economics and Policy at the University of Chicago Medical School and the Harris School of Public Policy. Dr. Conti is a health economist. Her research focuses on the organization, financing and regulation of medical care. She has written extensively on the pricing, demand and supply of prescription drugs. She earned her PhD in Health Policy from Harvard University.

Creating Lasting Solutions: How company hiring practices may impact disparities in healthcare

There are many ways in which companies are trying to address disparities in healthcare. How can hiring practices within healthcare companies impact this issue? What lessons and strategies can be shared across the healthcare space to tackle this challenge? Healthcare professionals across the country will share how they’re addressing their hiring pipelines in an effort to better serve their patients and communities.

Dr. Ann Barnes is the Chief Medical Officer of Harris Health System, the largest safety-net healthcare system in the greater Houston area. Ann is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. She is an associate professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and is a board-certified internist.

Prior to her current role, Ann was Chief Medical Officer at Legacy Community Health, a large federally qualified health center system that served over 170,000 patients annually. She was the executive sponsor for an innovative and nationally recognized clinic-based program, Health Leads, which identifies and addresses social determinants of health in patients.

Beyond her work in medicine, Ann is committed to identifying innovative strategies that promote health and wellbeing for Harris County residents and is involved in a variety of community efforts focused on upstream solutions for better health.

Morgan Montgomery-Rice is the Head of People at Buoy Health, a digital health tech start-up in Boston. While she realized being a doctor isn’t for her, Morgan is passionate about healthcare and implementing change via technology and believes that equal access to care is a right, not a privilege.

Lowell Price, MBA, is Vice President and Global Head at Evidera PPD. Evidera is a business unit of PPD which is a Global CRO responsible for helping our life science customers deliver life changing therapies. Lowell is accountable for the development and execution of the go-to-market strategy for Evidera. Mr. Price provides oversight and direction for the business development, marketing, and commercial operations teams to support Evidera’s growth objectives.

Mr. Price joined Evidera in 2018 after spending 20 years of his career in the healthcare industry serving in successive leadership positions within GE, Sunovion (Sepracor), Novartis, and Pfizer. As a seasoned commercial executive, he uses his extensive experience in building and leading teams to ensure that Evidera creates client value by leveraging its expertise to provide evidence-based solutions to life science organizations.

Prior to joining Evidera, Mr. Price served as the commercial leader for centricity perinatal for GE Healthcare Digital and prior to that he was the general manager of commercial operations for GE Healthcare Digital Americas. He also served as commercial integration leader after the acquisition of API Healthcare by GE and held other leadership roles after joining GE through the Experienced Commercial Leadership Program.

Mr. Price received his Bachelor of Arts in political science at Norwich University (Military College of Vermont) and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Charles G. Tharp is Professor of the Practice in the Management and Organizations Department, Boston University Questrom School of Business, and a Fellow and Research Scholar in the Human Resource Policy Institute. Charles is a former head of HR at Bristol-Myers Squibb and EVP at Saks. Inc, and has served in HR roles at GE, PepsiCo, Pillsbury, and Connecticut General Insurance.