Archives: Speakers

Hayley Mason MPA, is a dedicated professional with a fervent commitment to promoting effective governance and public policy. Holding a Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree from American University in Washington, DC, and a Bachelor’s degree in Global Affairs from George Mason University, Hayley brings a comprehensive understanding of governmental structures, policy analysis, and program evaluation to her advocacy work for individuals with rare diseases. Throughout her career, Hayley has focused on enhancing public service delivery and driving positive societal change.

Hayley’s journey began as an intern for the United States Senate and then at the Ability Center of Virginia, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting children and adults with disabilities lead productive lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Drawing from these diverse experiences, Hayley currently serves as a Policy Analyst with the National Organization for Rare Disorders. In this role, she collaborates with advocates, Congress, and government officials to champion increased treatments, access, and inclusion for individuals living with rare diseases. Driven by a profound desire to effect meaningful societal change, Hayley is committed to inspiring others to pursue excellence in public service and harnessing the power of effective governance for the betterment of all

Head of Clinical Operations for Epic Bio, where he oversees all Clinical Operations activities in support of Epic’s clinical trials. He has a background in patient care setting, as well as research-focused clinics on the ground level of clinical trials before moving into research management. For the last 20+ years he has led cross-functional teams carrying out global multicenter trials – in all phases of drug development – and multiple therapeutics areas including Neuro, Oncology and Immunology. He has experience with both large and small molecules therapeutics as well as gene therapies and now epigenetic therapies with Epic Bio.

For the last decade his focus has been on building capabilities for startup Biotechs to tackle rare and ultra-rare diseases and has launched first-in-human therapeutics for companies like Genentech, Audentes, Cytokinetics, Jasper Therapeutics and Kezar Life Sciences.

Ken has an International Executive MBA in Business and Finance from the International School of Management (ISM) in Paris, France.

Nasser Al-Ali is currently a senior Clinical Programmer at Denali Therapeutics and a PhD student in Statistics and Data Science at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is deeply interested in programming, particularly in automating processes to enhance efficiency and effectiveness. His focus extends to the utilization of machine learning in data cleaning, aiming to elevate data quality through innovative, real-time cleaning strategies.

Katrina “Kat” Paz is a Director of Clinical Programming from Denali Therapeutics.  Serving as a programmer for over two decades, Katrina has worked at Genentech, Gilead Sciences and Nektar Therapeutics.  She has worked as a Data Manager and Statistical Programmer but found her niche in Clinical Programming, creating outputs for data cleaning and monitoring.  Kat’s joys are leading technical teams with a focus in mentoring and finding efficiencies via tools and processes.

Stephen has been in biopharma for over 25 years and has worked in neurology with Elan Pharmaceuticals, gene therapy for rare diseases with Audentes Therapeutics and Encoded Therapeutics, virology with Gilead Sciences, and oncology with Genentech, Medivation, Clovis Oncology, and 23andme, and, currently, Corcept Therapeutics.  I started my career in clinical operations where I led company-sponsored studies and oversaw investigator-initiated studies.  I made the move to project/program management in 2014 to work on all phases of drug development from discovery through post-marketing activities and have assumed business development and alliance management responsibilities as needed for my programs.  I earned an MBA through the Gilead Sciences MBA cohort program, an MA in East Asian Art from the Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London, and an MS in Project Management.  I am a team leader dedicated to bringing new drugs to patients. I believe in life long learning, appreciate the here and now, strive to treat everyone with compassion and dignity, and lead with integrity and drive to meet corporate goals.

Nicole Miller, PhD is the Vice President of Molecular Diagnostics at Ultragenyx, a patient-focused biotech company led by Emil Kakkis that develops therapies for rare genetic disease. She focuses on advancing biochemical and genetic testing in support of reducing the diagnostic odyssey for rare disease patients. She has partnered to develop and launch ten gene locus specific databases and published several variant reviews for rare genetic disorders.  Prior to Ultragenyx, Nicole developed and led a similar function at BioMarin for about 9 years, focusing on rare disease patient diagnosis. Since 2010, Nicole has worked closely with the newborn screening and sequencing community in support of improving newborn screening for rare disease.  Prior to working in the rare disease field, she led a molecular pharmacology research team at Exelixis and led a biomarker program there for about a decade supporting research through clinical development. Nicole has a bachelor’s degree in genetics from U.C. Davis, a PhD in oncology from U.W. Madison and her postdoc was at UCSF. She sits on the board of the Professional Science Master’s program at the University of San Francisco since the program’s inception.

Dr. Maida is the Chief Clinical Officer for Oncotelic, Inc. and its joint venture, SapuBioscience, LLC, focused on immunotherapy of cancer and infectious disease. He has over 30 years of experience in clinical research in oncology and has worked with many Center of Excellence and Key Opinion Leaders. He is responsible for overseeing the operations of the company and has experience in finance, operations, research, and commercial clinical and scientific development, regulatory, and manufacturing for various therapeutic modalities. Previously, he served as Vice President of Clinical Research and General Manager, Oncology, World-wide for PharmaNet, Inc., and President and CEO of Replicon NeuroTherapeutics. He raised or assisted in financings in excess of $200 million for start-up and emerging biotechnology companies and negotiated licensing agreements with various centers of excellence and premier pharmaceutical firms. Over the past 18 years, he has served in various executive roles, including Chairman, CEO, COO, CSO, CFO, and business development. He also served as Senior Financial Controller of Lockheed Missiles, a $1.7 billion division.

Amanda Moore became CEO of the the ASF in 2019. Prior to that, she was the Director of Leadership Development, Diversity and Inclusion and Global Strategies at the YMCA of Greater Indianapolis where she worked for over eighteen years. Amanda earned her Masters in Leadership Development as well as a Certificate in Fundraising from the Indiana University School of Philanthropy.

Amanda and her family live in Indianapolis, Indiana. Amanda’s husband, Adam, is a nurse and an amazing artist. In 2015 Amanda and Adam adopted twin boys, Jackson and Baden. Jackson was diagnosed with Angelman syndrome in January of 2017 and since then Amanda has made it her mission to be an advocate for all people with Angelman syndrome.

Mr. Wright serves as VP, Energy, Utilities, & Resources Industry Solutions. In this role he is responsible for global strategy and business development to build and grow revenues across the energy, utilities, and resources (e.g. mining) industries.

Mr. Wright is an accomplished information technology executive with more than 25 years of success in energy-related businesses, across the upstream, midstream, and downstream lifecycle for traditional fossil fuels and renewables industries. He has managed multiple global SAP and Oracle implementations/operations, one of the first production SAP Business Suite on HANA go-lives, and one of the first production S/4HANA go-lives on AWS.

Mr. Wright has been a successful early adopter and developer of several current mainstream cloud technologies including an early online banking system, one of the first Microsoft Office sharing ventures, then as an early adopter of Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), the precursor of Office 365.

Prior to joining Rimini Street, after a short stint in private equity, Mr. Wright was Chief Information Officer and Vice President of IT and Digital for Engie North America, where he was responsible for all IT and Digital for the North American region of the French renewable energy company. His scope included Digital Solutions, Cyber Security, IT Architecture, IT Operations, and business applications for the Renewables, Energy Solutions, Networks, and Thermal/Supply business units.

Previously, Mr. Wright was Chief Information Officer for Pacific Drilling, a startup global deep water drilling contractor with operations in West Africa, Brazil, and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

Dave Keating is an American-European journalist based in Brussels who moderates live events. He is ranked as the number one EU social media influencer for 2023, coming second in 2022 and third in 2021 and 2020. He has been covering energy and climate policy for 15 years, most recently as the senior writer for EnergyMonitor.ai. Before arriving in Brussels in 2010, Dave covered the boardrooms of London, the US Congress in Washington, the cafés of Paris, the politics of Prague, the courtrooms of Chicago and the streets of New York City.