Archives: Speakers

Vinita Bhatt joined Maze Therapeutics in 2023 and currently serves as the Associate Director of Clinical Operations where she leads Maze’s first renal program in APOL1 mediated chronic kidney disease. Vinita started her career as a scientist and then later began working on the CRO side. Prior to Maze, Vinita held various clinical operations positions at sponsor companies, such as BridgeBio and BioMarin, where she focused on bringing rare disease/orphan treatments to patients.

Vinita earned a BA in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and MA in Biotechnology from Boston University and an MS in Biomedical Sciences at Rutgers University.

Susan Owen joined Pliant in June 2022 and brings over 20 years of clinical operations expertise across the areas of respiratory, oncology, cardiology and infectious diseases. Prior to Pliant, she most recently held the role of Executive Director and Head of Clinical Operations at Apexigen where she oversaw the company’s immuno-oncology portfolio. Prior to this, she held clinical operations roles at Cytokinetics, Genentech and InterMune where she managed the conduct of trials including Phase 2/ 3 clinical development respiratory program.

Ms. Owen received a B.A. in biological sciences from Smith College and a M.S. in epidemiology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s School of Public Health and Health Sciences.

More than 30 years’ experience in the packaging industry. Key focus on major large Enterprise accounts.

Over 15 years of Packaging experience, currently focussing on complex automation projects in the Benelux region for Packsize.

Jim DiCesare is passionate about delivering innovative Cost Benchmarking, CTA Negotiation and Site Payment services that support clinical research conducted by sponsors and CROs. With over 25 years of industry experience leading clinical operations teams at Merck, DrugDev, and now IQVIA Technologies, Jim has expertise across the contracting, budgeting, and investigator grant payment management continuum. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and has written for a variety of publications. He has a B.S. in Accounting from Kutztown University.

Founder, Owner, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at VERTU International and at Hotels and Resorts, Gérald carries an extensive background in various areas of the upscale & luxury service and hospitality industry.

Gérald started his career in 1992 at the Walt Disney company, holding various positions from hotel operations, sales, marketing and the organisation of very large conferences, as well as digital information management. He also worked with Florida based A&L Associates to run Hard Rock Café Europe secret shoppers and service quality management. Seven years later, Gérald pursued his career at the Imperial Palace in Annecy and at the end of 2000 returned to Paris as a regional director continental Europe for Millenium & Copthorne hotels.

In 2002, Gérald started his first privately owned Paris based and highly successful company, Luxury Communication and simultaneously held various Vice President positions for international groups in headquartered in New York and Houston including Dolce International and Benchmark Hospitality.

Gérald moved to Zurich in 2015 where he was appointed Managing Director at LUXCOM GmbH prior to deciding the creation of the VERTU International Group in 2015 and the launch of his own very specific hotel brand concept, VERTU Hotels and Resorts in 2018.