At the 2021 edition of the the North American HR Executive Summit series held December 6-8 in Orlando, FL, we spoke with Mark Gonzales, SVP, Consulting of Perceptyx, about how the global pandemic has accelerated existing trends in employee engagement and employee listening while also prompting HR professionals to ask different questions and seek new answers as they work to retain their existing workforce and attract top talent in a competitive market while dealing with hybrid and remote work and the ongoing journey to define what the 'New Normal' will be.

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Mark Gonzales is an experienced thought leader with a broad background and diverse resume across industries and geographies. Enjoying success across global Consulting, Commercial and Human Resources roles throughout his career, Mark offers expertise, energy, insight and real-world solutions to clients and colleagues. His approachable style enhances tailored and outcome-oriented engagements.

Currently, Mark is Senior Vice President, Consulting at Perceptyx where he leads a team of advisors and strategists who collaborate with customer teams and executive leaders around organizational survey design, administration and results. He leverages a unique portfolio experiences, previously leading employee intelligence initiatives, talent management efforts and organizational effectiveness practices that have informed his solutions for a broad range of industries, companies and clients. 

Previously, Mark was Director, Global Diversity and Inclusion at The Hershey Company, where he enjoyed a 20-year career. As a Perceptyx customer, Mark led Hershey’s integrated Diversity, Inclusion and Employee Engagement practice and the delivery of related enterprise talent strategic initiatives. His prior HR leadership experiences included learning and organization development roles with corporate, manufacturing, operations, sales, marketing, finance and executive audiences. He has delivered initiatives and programming across North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

 Along the way, Mark has built sales leadership and customer competency as he grew businesses and teams. He delivered customized, creative sales solutions in customer roles and supported the development and success of sales professionals while in team leadership roles. In these sales roles, Mark has worked in multiple North American markets, across multiple trade channels and customers.

Mark volunteers his time at Radiant Health Centers of Orange County, where he serves on the Board of Directors as Board President and chair of the Strategy and HR Committees.

Mark holds a bachelors degree in Organizational Communication Management from University of Portland and is pursuing a master’s degree in Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning from Boise State University.

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Perceptyx, Inc. combines employee surveys and people analytics in a way that not only helps you see more of what’s going on in your organization, but also helps you see how to drive the organization forward. Too many surveys only focus on measurement, with overly prescriptive models that don’t offer a fresh perspective on the challenges facing your business. And they rarely connect the dots between the employee experience and business outcomes, making it difficult to know which actions will have the greatest impact. With a platform fully tailored to your specific organizational needs, Perceptyx makes it possible for organizations to see more clearly, see the bigger picture, and see the next steps. It’s why 30% of the Fortune 100 already rely on Perceptyx and why 95% of the organizations that come to us stay with us. Perceptyx. See the way forward.

www.perceptyx.com

At the 2021 edition of the Biomanufacturing World Summit series held November 15-16 in San Diego, CA, we spoke with Jack Garvey, the Founder and Managing Partner of Compliance Architects. Jack is a long-time supporter of the BMWS series who has co-chaired the event for many years on content related to Quality and Risk, and we had a fantastic conversation covering a wide range of topics related to the past, present, and future of biopharmaceutical manufacturing. How has COVID-19 changed the trajectory of the industry? What trends has it accelerated? What can biopharma executives take forward from their experience rising to meet the challenges of this crisis? What have we learned, and where do we go from here?

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Jack Garvey is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Compliance Architects, a leading consulting and advisory firm specializing in innovative quality and compliance solutions for FDA-regulated manufacturers. Jack possesses over 30 years of hands-on technical, operational, quality, regulatory and legal experience at top-performing life science companies including Johnson & Johnson, C.R. Bard, Ciba-Geigy, BASF Corporation and Ayerst Laboratories. As both a chemical engineer and practicing attorney, Jack possesses the legal, regulatory, quality and compliance expertise that allows him to excel at the complex interplay of science, law and business.

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Compliance Architects LLC delivers high-value compliance, quality, and regulatory consulting services to companies directly regulated by the U.S. FDA and other global regulatory authorities. With capabilities ranging from quality systems implementations to audits, inspection readiness, enforcement remediation, and outsourced compliance services, Compliance Architects LLC has the experience, expertise, and delivery capability to significantly improve your company’s business outcomes. Jack Garvey is CA’s founder and CEO, a chemical engineer and a practicing regulatory attorney, and has spent his entire career helping companies navigate the challenges at the intersections of science, engineering, business, and law.

www.compliancearchitects.com

At the 2021 edition of the Biomanufacturing World Summit series held November 15-16 in San Diego, CA, we spoke with Daniel Plotkin, the Strategic Account Director for Rapid Micro Biosystems, about how automation and rapid data analytics is transforming Quality and Quality Control for the biopharmaceutical industry, and how the latest generation of tools, tactics, and technologies is penetrating even the most stubbornly analog environments to get decision-makers the information they need faster than ever before, while also automating documentation for validation and compliance in a way that has always involved human intervention before.

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Rapid Micro Biosystems is an innovative life sciences technology company providing mission critical automation solutions to facilitate the efficient manufacturing and fast, safe release of healthcare products such as biologics, vaccines, cell and gene therapies, and sterile injectables. The company’s flagship Growth Direct® platform automates and modernizes the antiquated, manual microbial quality control (MQC) testing workflows used in the largest and most complex pharmaceutical manufacturing operations across the globe. The Growth Direct® platform brings the quality control lab to the manufacturing floor, unlocking the power of in-line/at-the-line MQC automation to deliver faster results, greater accuracy, increased operational efficiency, better compliance with data integrity regulations, and quicker decision making that customers rely on to ensure safe and consistent supply of important healthcare products. The company is headquartered and has U.S. manufacturing in Lowell, Massachusetts, and global locations in Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands.

www.rapidmicrobio.com

At the 2021 edition of the Biomanufacturing World Summit series held November 15-16 in San Diego, CA, we spoke with Ravi Samavedam, President and COO of Azzur Cleanrooms on Demand™, about the challenges biopharmaceutical manufacturers are facing in capacity, in facilities, in trained employees, and in sourcing the materials needed for production. Is there a way to partner with third parties to improve development timelines and reduce risk? How do the options change when we talk about smaller startups versus large companies?

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Ravi Samavedam is a Biochemical Engineer with more than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Prior to his appointment as President and COO of Azzur Cleanrooms on Demand™ in 2019, Ravi was a General Manager of Boston, and has been with the company since 2012. Prior to Azzur, Ravi has been part of the Technical Operations, Quality/Validation departments at Baxter, Amgen, and Shire. Ravi is an expert in phase appropriate cGMP implementation, Process Validation, Supplier Management, and Technology Transfer. Ravi leads Azzur Cleanrooms on Demand™ in offering flexible early phase cGMP manufacturing options designed to mitigate risk and increase speed to clinic. In addition to his work with Azzur, Ravi is an active member of industry and peer groups, and he is a frequent speaker at industry events.

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Azzur Cleanrooms on Demand™

From Discovery to Delivery™, Azzur Group provides the life science community full life-cycle solutions for all their GxP needs. From Azzur Cleanrooms on Demand™ facilities, to our labs, training centers and consulting offices across the nation, Azzur Group helps organizations start, scale, and sustain their growing enterprises. With nearly four decades of service to the life science community, we have become a trusted partner to the world’s leading pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, and healthcare companies, as well as their supply chain. Follow us on LinkedIn. For more information, visit azzur.com

At the 2021 edition of the Biomanufacturing World Summit series held November 15-16 in San Diego, CA, we spoke with Karim Abdelkader, Chief Commercial Officer of INCOG BioPharma Services, about the bottlenecks in capacity and supply currently facing the biopharmaceutical industry, and how finding partners and leveraging network connections is the best way to overcome those challenges. 

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www.incogbiopharma.com

At the 2021 edition of the Biomanufacturing World Summit series held November 15-16 in San Diego, CA, we spoke with Yash Sabharwal, Co-Founder & CEO of CherryCircle Software, about bringing visibility and transparency to the data generated during product and process development for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Quality by Design has been an industry standard for many years, but understanding the data and using it to build context for decision-making quickly and easily allows organizations to improve every step of their journey beyond what would be possible in a simple spreadsheet or other traditional documentation.

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Yash Sabharwal

Director, CEO, Co-Founder

Yash Sabharwal is an accomplished inventor, entrepreneur, and executive specializing in the funding and growth of early-stage technology companies focused on life science applications. He has started three companies and successfully exited his last two, bringing a wealth of strategic and tactical experience to the team.

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QbDVision powered by CherryCircle

CherryCircle is an innovative software company pioneering the development of modern digital solutions for the pharma/biotech industry to accelerate the manufacturing development cycle, increase the probability of technical success, and help get therapeutic breakthroughs to patients that much faster.

For many of the newest therapies being developed, the associated manufacturing processes are complex and the next generation of software solutions need to move the industry away from document-centric and spreadsheet-centric information management. CherryCircle has assembled a group of industry veterans with 100+ years of collective experience in process development, tech transfer, pharmaceutical quality, and regulatory compliance to develop the next generation of structured data solutions that will dramatically increase R&D efficiency.

www.qbdvision.com

At the 2021 edition of the North American Finance Executive Summit  series held November 1-3 in Scottsdale, AZ, we spoke with Michael Loscavio of REPAY about how invoicing, account receivable processing, and customer experience during billing and payment is undergoing a dramatic transformation through new tools and technologies that allow companies to automate and omnichannel portions of the Finance infrastructure that has often resisted the digital revolution to date.

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Michael Loscavio serves as REPAY’s Vice President of Sales and oversees sales in the accounts receivables and consumer finance space while forging integrative partnerships with collection management and loan management systems.  Before joining REPAY, Michael served as Chief Executive Officer at PaidSuite Payment Solutions, which offered a fully integrated suite of payment options to agencies, lenders, and other businesses nationwide.  Prior to PaidSuite, Michael managed investment portfolios for some of the largest universities in the country including Columbia, Stanford and Vanderbilt. 

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REPAY (NASDAQ: RPAY) is the premier full-service payment technology and processing provider for a variety of end markets. The REPAY payment platform provides direct integration to merchants’ core systems and access to a suite of payment technology products that includes credit/debit card processing, Instant Funding, ACH processing, IVR/phone pay, text pay, in-store kiosks, electronic bill payment systems, and white-labeled consumer facing payment portals, including a mobile app. With REPAY’s integrated omni-channel payment solutions, customers can pay anytime, anywhere.

www.repay.com

At the 2021 edition of the North American Finance Executive Summit  series held November 1-3 in Scottsdale, AZ, we spoke with Karlos Bustos, Board America's VP, Professional Services, about how the role of Finance within organizations is changing, how technology is enabling that change, and how that change impacts the way Finance leaders think and work. The interview was conducted just a few minutes after a fantastic presentation that can be viewed in its entirety here. 

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Karlo Bustos
VP, Professional Services
Board Americas, Inc.

Karlo is a seasoned strategy, finance and consulting leader bringing a combination of professional services and industry experience across finance, business analytics, product management, and regulatory/strategic transformation. Karlo’s core expertise lies in large scale transformation projects delivering successful change and improved enterprise value to global organizations through; strategic planning and execution, financial planning and analysis, process re-engineering, and market/competitive analysis. These capabilities have been accumulated by supporting his teams successfully delivering change to companies through various business contexts including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, start-up, evolution and other organic/inorganic cycles and events.

He has successfully deployed large scale technology implementations both as a customer and as a consultant. In addition, Karlo spent 7+ years leading his own management consulting firm partnering with large financial services firms at the senior leader/executive level to develop and deliver transformational and analytical solutions.

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Board Americas
Board is the #1 Decision-Making Platform, empowering people to have a transformative impact on their business by helping them to intuitively leverage their data in a flexible, all-in-one environment. Unifying Planning, Predictive Analytics, and Business Intelligence, the Board platform enables companies to produce a single, accurate view of business information, gain actionable insights, and achieve full control of performance across the entire organization. Using Board, global enterprises such as Coca-Cola, KPMG, Ricoh, Puma, and Toyota have digitally transformed their decision-making processes.

Founded in 1994, and now with 25 offices worldwide, Board International has long been recognized by leading analysts and subject matter experts including Gartner, Nucleus, and Dresner. www.board.com/en

At the 2021 edition of the North American Finance Executive Summit  series held November 1-3 in Scottsdale, AZ, we spoke with Sharice Jessup of Becker about how professional development for Finance is evolving, how businesses can attract and retain top talent through investing in their people, and how Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging is continuing to grow as one of the top trends Finance leaders are embracing as they build their teams and their organizations for the future.

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Becker, known for more than 60 years as the leader that people trust for the best in CPA Exam Prep, has over the years invested in an extensive library of CPE courses, designed both for credentialed and non-credentialed accounting and finance professionals. With more than 700 On Demand courses available for streaming 24/7, and 100+ scheduled Webcasts per month, Becker has you and your team covered. Also, as a strategic partner of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), we’ve enhanced every aspect of our CMA Exam Prep to be as close as you can get to the exam. Becker remains fully committed to CPA Exam Prep, with over 1 million candidates and counting! We are proud to share that the top 100 accounting firms and an expanding clientele of corporations, rely on us for their staff’s exam preparation.

www.becker.com

At the 2021 edition of the North American Finance Executive Summit  series held November 1-3 in Scottsdale, AZ, we spoke with Tom Hood, the EVP – Business Engagement and Growth of AICPA & CIMA. The global pandemic has accelerated and emphasized a number of ongoing trends in workforce and talent attraction, development, and retention. Tom shared some of his insights, as well as key points from the conversations he has been having with senior Finance leadership as they work to adjust their strategies to the evolving business landscape.

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Tom Hood, CPA, CITP, CGMA is currently the EVP Business Growth & Engagement for AICPA & CIMA and the Business Learning Institute. Tom just stepped onto the global stage after 23 years as the CEO of the Maryland Association of CPAs. He was named the second most influential person in accounting by Accounting Today Magazine for the ninth year! LinkedIn recruited Tom as one of their Top 100 Influencers with a following of over 750,000. He is a member of Forbes Finance Council and was inducted into the Accounting Hall of Fame.

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The Association of International Certified Professional Accountants® (the Association), represents AICPA® & CIMA®. We advance the global accounting and finance profession through its work on behalf of 696,000 AICPA and CIMA members, students and engaged professionals in 192 countries and territories. Together, we are the worldwide leader on public and management accounting issues through advocacy, support for the CPA license and specialized credentials, professional education and thought leadership. We build trust by empowering our members and engaged professionals with the knowledge and opportunities to be leaders in broadening prosperity for a more inclusive, sustainable, and resilient future.

cgma.org