Archives: Speakers

Rob leads Schlesinger Group’s Clinical Research and Healthcare Divisions. Rob joined Schlesinger in 2013 and has over twenty-five years’ experience developing and managing healthcare industry marketing research and, more recently, clinical research strategies. Rob provides a unique view of the healthcare research landscape, having worked for Ipsos Healthcare, where he served as SVP. Before that, Rob was Vice President, Healthcare Research at Ipsos Understanding, where he ran the qualitative health division for Ipsos. Rob has also held senior positions at Oxford Health Plans (MCO), Merck Medco (PBM), Observant, and Pfizer. Rob has an MBA in Health Care Administration and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Marketing and Advertising.

Erica Figueroa began her clinical research career with Thermo Fisher Scientific, specializing in cGMP raw materials, clinical supplies, and global logistics. In 2017, Erica transitioned to work for Clinical Research Organizations (CROs) to be closer to patients, focusing on managing global clinical trials in pre-clinical to phase 4. Erica has worked on some of the most complex client engagements and thrives on building strategic partnerships with start-ups and those with an advanced pipeline of assets. She is highly involved in clinical research industry events, such as Outsourcing Clinical Trials, ACRP, JP Morgan, PDA, DIA, Women in Bio, and ASCO.

Heather helps clients answer their critical business questions and complete clinical studies by comprehensively managing their research needs. Heather is an exceptional problem-solver who, in a high-performance culture, fosters innovative and skillful solutions to ensure clients can meet their clinical research goals and objectives on time, to spec and within budget. She approaches business from a sense of partnership and is deeply committed to fostering longstanding relationships with clients. Heather serves as Vice President of Intellus Worldwide and co-chairs the award-winning and published Health Literacy Initiative. She has deep experience in pharmaceutical research, and was a 2016 recipient of the PMRG Circle of Excellence Award. Heather has a Bachelor’s degree in Public Relations and Applied Communication in Organizational Settings

Staci has 20 years of experience in the field of clinical research in both biomedical and social and behavioral sciences. She has served in various academic and industry roles, managing and implementing clinical trials throughout their entire life cycle and has extensive experience with both investigator-initiated and sponsor-initiated clinical trials, working with many of the leading industry sponsors and CROs. Staci has significant experience in device trials, focusing on Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs) and Clinical Outcomes Assessments (COAs), including electronic implementation and migration. She contributes to scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals focused on clinical outcomes.

Most recently, she served as the Institutional Review Board (IRB) Administrator for the Mercy Health System, spanning four states.

Oscar Abbink is responsible for analysis of the strategic implications of new technologies in the oil and gas sector in IHS Markit and leads the Upstream Technology and Innovation advisory service. He is widely respected for his knowledge and global experience with upstream oil and gas, energy industry monitoring and trends, and oil and gas digitalization.

Dr. Abbink has more than 20 years’ experience in the international energy sector, particularly in nearly all areas of exploration and production and related domains and he has traveled extensively to most major hydrocarbon-producing regions. He has led many research and consulting projects advising organizations with their technology strategy, benchmarking, and implementation, and their digital transformation. Previously, Dr. Abbink was Industry Leader, Oil and Gas, Business Consulting, with a major system integrator, and Director Oil and Gas with a major research organization.

Dr. Abbink holds a M.Sc. and an industry-sponsored Ph.D. from Utrecht University, the Netherlands and is fluent in Dutch and English.

Arka is a banking professional with a wide range of experience having worked for or served 20+ banks across United Kingdom, India and SE Asia. His North Star is finding opportunities to have impact by improving customers’ financial lives. He is passionate about all facets of mass scale banking: Retail, SME, payments. Arka believes that universal access to Banking is core to changing the world – think direct transfer of benefits, credit for those in the informal sector, etc.

Arka currently is the Head of Strategy for TSB Bank. Prior roles included being a Strategy & Innovation Principal at NatWest Personal Bank, a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, serving mid-size Indian companies as a Commercial Banking Relationship Manager and being a Personal Banker at a branch.

Project Financial & Planning Governance, Contractual Liabilities,
Meeting and Program Governance,
Knowledge Management

Sebastian has extensive experience serving leading mobility, industrial, and private equity clients. With a passion for creating new business models and growth opportunities, Sebastian leads our lifecycle products and services work for advanced industries in Europe, including digital services, aftersales, and auto financing or leasing. In addition, he coleads the advanced industries sales and marketing activities.

Examples of Sebastian’s recent client work include the following:

• developing new digital business models—such as e-commerce and digital sales—for mobility clients
• building a greenfield leasing attacker for a leading captive company
• supporting multiple strategic projects for leading automotive OEMs, such as lifecycle management, car data monetization, and direct-to-consumer business
• developing a growth strategy and aftersales-as-a-service offering for a private equity portfolio company
• enabling big data and advanced-analytics strategies for automotive companies
• leading an agility and leadership transformation for a global premium automotive OEM
• launching a holistic commercial-excellence program at a leading automotive supplier
• developing a global strategy for the aftersales division of an automotive OEM
• leading growth projects and digital platform building for aftermarket distributors

Sebastian is managing partner of our Düsseldorf office. He has launched our regional startup initiative and engages in transatlantic relationships—being a Young Leader of Atlantik-Brücke e.V—as well as various social initiatives.