With over 20 years’ experience in life sciences and biopharma, Chad Gerald is a proven leader with a comprehensive engineering, maintenance and reliability background. As a Maintenance and Reliability Lead, he is accountable for manufacturing and laboratory equipment performance for multiple cGMP manufacturing and warehousing sites. Throughout his career, he’s held a passion for mentoring and building high performing teams that consistently deliver business results through innovative, cost-effective solutions.

JD Fier is a dedicated facilities maintenance professional, known for improving efficiency and equipment reliability. With a solid background in managing complex projects, JD has effectively enhanced processes and infrastructure in pharmaceutical settin

With over 20 years of experience in industrial process improvement, Christophe Rondeau has developed expertise in managing key phases of continuous improvement, with a strong focus on optimizing production flows, ensuring optimal safety conditions, and structuring efficient maintenance departments. His work is centered around driving operational excellence through practical solutions that enhance safety, streamline processes, and support long-term productivity.

With over 17 years of experience, Mohamed Kassem is a skilled engineering and product management professional specializing in project leadership, maintenance optimization, and new product introduction in the pharmaceutical and industrial sectors. As Engineering Director and New Product Introduction Manager, he excels in coordinating cross-functional teams, improving operational efficiency, and managing product lifecycles from development to launch. His technical expertise, paired with strategic insights from prior roles in sales and product management, enables him to drive both innovation and operational success effectively.

Brian DiVasta is Director for Computer System Validation for ElevateBio for 4+ years. There his specialties are computer validation and quality assurance. Before his position at ElevateBio he was with Sanofi for 8+ years as Associate Director, ITS Compliance.

Holli is responsible for leading customer training initiatives globally. With over a decade of experience in bioprocessing, she specializes in downstream large-scale purification equipment, including single-use and chromatography column technologies. Her role encompasses designing and implementing training programs that equip customers with essential skills for equipment maintenance and troubleshooting. Holli has also held various technical and managerial positions at Cytiva and GE Healthcare, where she gained extensive expertise in field service, bioprocess hardware, and large-scale protein purification.

“As a former customer, I believe deeply in equipment maintenance training as the first line of defense to avoid unplanned downtime.”

With over 17 years of experience in maintenance and technical services, Hermann is a dedicated professional specializing in maintenance planning, reliability engineering, and spare parts management. As a Maintenance Coordinator at Takeda, he ensures seamless maintenance operations, optimizing programs to enhance equipment reliability and efficiency.

Throughout his career, Hermann has gained extensive expertise in computerized system validation, instrumentation, and qualification processes. His hands-on background in mechatronics and maintenance engineering has allowed him to take on increasing responsibilities, from technical service coordination to leadership roles. Passionate about innovation and continuous improvement, Hermann is committed to driving operational excellence in pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Business leader with over 20 years of experience driving Engineering, Maintenance & Reliability, Operations, and Capital & Strategic Projects. Proven ability to integrate these functions with site operations to maximize efficiency, productivity, and regulatory compliance. Skilled in aligning systems, equipment, and processes with corporate strategies to ensure optimal performance.

Extensive experience across diverse industrial settings, including biotechnology, pharmaceutical manufacturing and packaging (solids), highly automated electronics manufacturing, and construction capital projects. Expertise in developing and implementing maintenance and reliability strategies that enhance program execution, streamline processes, optimize equipment performance, and reduce deviations and costs.
Recognized as a Maintenance and Reliability Subject Matter Expert across the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Australia, leading pilot initiatives and setting industry benchmarks. Passionate about people development—mentoring and guiding early-career professionals, many of whom have rapidly advanced in responsibility and achieved exceptional performance evaluations.

Josh leads the global portfolio at Cytiva, driving the development and commercialization of innovative service offerings and managing the filtration integrity testing business. With extensive experience in product development, go-to-market strategy, and lifecycle management, Josh is dedicated to enhancing service solutions that improve operational efficiency and reliability in the biotech industry. His diverse background in luxury hospitality and technology strategy, along with an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University, adds a unique perspective to his role. Josh is passionate about combining exceptional customer experiences with advanced innovations, ensuring service offerings consistently meet high industry standards.

“By integrating technology and customer-focused design, we can enhance service capabilities to support biomanufacturing and create significant impacts for our customers.”

Takeda is a world-leading, value-driven, research-based biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Japan. Takeda's mission is to develop, manufacture and supply life-enhancing and life-sustaining medicines for the treatment of rare and complex diseases. Takeda seeks to improve people's lives by bringing to market new and better medicines that help to address the nation's most pressing healthcare needs. Their focus is on the areas of oncology, gastroenterology and diabetes.

Founded to serve health, Servier is a global group governed by a Foundation that aspires to have a meaningful social impact, both for patients and for a sustainable world. With its unique governance model, it can fully serve its vocation with a long-term vision: being committed to therapeutic progress to serve patient needs. The 21,900 employees of the Group are committed to this shared vocation, a source of inspiration every day. As a world leader in cardiology, Servier's ambition is to become a focused and innovative player in oncology by targeting hard-to-treat cancers. That is why the Group allocates over 70% of its R&D budget to developing targeted and innovative therapies in oncology. Neuroscience and immuno-inflammatory diseases are the future growth drivers. In these areas, Servier is focused on a limited number of diseases in which accurate patient profiling makes it possible to offer a targeted therapeutic response through precision medicine. To promote access to quality care for all at a lower cost, the Group also offers a range of quality generic drugs covering most pathologies, relying on strong brands in France, Eastern Europe, Brazil and Nigeria. In all these areas, the Group includes the patient voice at each stage of the life cycle of a medicine. Headquartered in France, Servier relies on a strong geographical footprint in over 150 countries and achieved a revenue of €5.3 billion in 2023.

Founded to serve health, Servier is a global group governed by a Foundation that aspires to have a meaningful social impact, both for patients and for a sustainable world. With its unique governance model, it can fully serve its vocation with a long-term vision: being committed to therapeutic progress to serve patient needs. The 21,900 employees of the Group are committed to this shared vocation, a source of inspiration every day. As a world leader in cardiology, Servier's ambition is to become a focused and innovative player in oncology by targeting hard-to-treat cancers. That is why the Group allocates over 70% of its R&D budget to developing targeted and innovative therapies in oncology. Neuroscience and immuno-inflammatory diseases are the future growth drivers. In these areas, Servier is focused on a limited number of diseases in which accurate patient profiling makes it possible to offer a targeted therapeutic response through precision medicine. To promote access to quality care for all at a lower cost, the Group also offers a range of quality generic drugs covering most pathologies, relying on strong brands in France, Eastern Europe, Brazil and Nigeria. In all these areas, the Group includes the patient voice at each stage of the life cycle of a medicine. Headquartered in France, Servier relies on a strong geographical footprint in over 150 countries and achieved a revenue of €5.3 billion in 2023.

ElevateBio is a technology-driven company built to power the development of transformative cell and gene therapies today and for many decades to come. The company has assembled industry-leading talent, built state-of-the-art facilities, and integrated diverse technology platforms, including gene editing, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and protein, vector, and cellular engineering, necessary to drive innovation and commercialization of cellular and genetic medicines. In addition, ElevateBio BaseCamp is a purpose-built, technology-enabled manufacturing platform offering process innovation, process sciences, and current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) manufacturing capabilities for viral vectors, RNA, and cell therapy production. Through BaseCamp, its expanding footprint, and its next-generation enabling technologies, ElevateBio is rapidly growing its collaborations with industry partners while also selectively developing its own portfolio of cellular and genetic medicines. ElevateBio's team of scientists, drug developers, and company builders are redefining what it means to be a technology company in the world of drug development, blurring the line between technology and healthcare.

With a rich heritage dating back hundreds of years, Cytiva brings a wealth of technical expertise and talent, a broad and deep portfolio, and exceptional service help researchers and biopharma advance therapeutics at every stage from discovery to delivery. We supply the tools and support our customers need to work better, faster, and safer, leading to the delivery of transformative medicines to patients. Our combined portfolio includes well-recognized names such as Allegro™, Supor™, iCELLis™, and Kleenpak™, in addition to ÄKTA™, Amersham™, Biacore™, FlexFactory™, HyClone™, MabSelect™, Sefia™, Whatman™, and Xcellerex™. Visit cytiva.com to learn more.

At Janssen, we never stop working toward a future where disease is a thing of the past. We’re the Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, and you can count on us to keep working tirelessly to make that future a reality for patients everywhere, by fighting sickness with science, improving access with ingenuity, and healing hopelessness with heart. We focus on areas of medicine where we can make the biggest difference: Cardiovascular & Metabolism, Immunology, Infectious Diseases & Vaccines, Neuroscience, Oncology, and Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.