Our Board Members
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Sylvester Wilkins - President
As a Sourcing Group Manager in GlaxoSmithKline's Corporate Services Procurement Organization, Sylvester is responsible for all Contingent Workforce for North America, representing approximately $200 million of external spend, spanning across all categories (i.e. Finance, Engineering, Professional, Admin/Clerical/Lt. Industrial, Legal, Scientific, and Information Technology) and all GSK business units. Over the past years, Sylvester has been on the cutting edge of developing and negotiating Outsourcing contracts for varies business units, negotiating Master Service Agreements with preferred contingent workforce suppliers, and developing preferred supplier strategies. He is also responsible for mentor small/diverse/minority suppliers that are accepted into the GSK Mentor program. and developing preferred supplier strategies for North America, which yield a $5 million in cost savings. He’s written several magazine articles and participate on numerous panel discussions on contingent workforce. He works continuously to ensure the protection of IP.
Prior to joining GlaxoSmithKline in 2000, Sylvester gained extensive experience in varies industries, i.e., Power Generation (GE-Nuclear and Fossil Fired Turbines), Computer ( Digital Equipment Corporation & Sun Microsystems, Inc), Sales Consultants, and Facility Management. During his career, he has held such positions as Vice President of National Accounts, Sales Manager, Business Development Manager, District Operations Manager, and Commodity Manager.
He is President of the Board of Directors for Diversity Alliance for Science which is an organization of Diverse Minority suppliers specializing in the life sciences area.
Sylvester holds a bachelor's degree from North Carolina A&T State University in Mechanical Engineering.
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Leah Brown - Vice President
Leah Brown Owner and President of A10 is unwavering in her vision for the company; to provide exceptional, compassionate, highly-talented clinical research professionals to projects that traditionally experience healthcare disparities. With a total of 20 years in the healthcare/regulatory compliance consulting space, Leah has a JD from the University of Kentucky, and was admitted to the North Carolina Bar in 1992. She also possesses the distinguished designation of Certified in Healthcare Compliance (CHC) and an IT degree from Virginia Commonwealth University. Most recently, she successfully completed two Executive Management Programs at The Tuck Business School and The Kellogg School of Business. Prior to Leah establishing A10, she was responsible for the marketing, architecture and coordination of complex technical solutions for hospitals and academic medical systems. She also served as Area Vice President for CHC Healthcare. Leah Brown is an awareness writer and speaker for workforce issues impacting clinical research. She has authored several articles including “Retention: An important Factor of Minority Subjects in Research” and “Taking Clinical Research Careers to a new “Life”. Leah serves on the Board of Directors for Diversity Alliance for Science, Inc.; Pharmaceutical/Bio-Tech Industry Chair – CMSDC; Member, Association of Clinical Research Professionals, Forum-At-Large Women Business Enterprise National Council and the Advisory Board for Enterprising Women Magazine.
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Charles Calvert - Treasurer
Charles Calvert is Senior Director, Worldwide Procurement (WWP) for Pfizer, Inc based in New London, Connecticut. He has over 25 years experience in a variety of technical, staff and management roles with Pfizer Inc, Abbott Laboratories and Monsanto Company. His current procurement responsibilities include leading the Global Development and Medical Category Strategy Teams responsible for the development of category strategic sourcing plans and global spend management.
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Jackie La Joie - Conference Co-Chair
Jackie La Joie is Associate Director of Supplier Diversity and has overall leadership responsibility for the development of a world class Supplier Diversity program at Merck. She has 18 years of Supplier Diversity program experience with consistently increasing responsibilities in program development, internal and external relationship development, staff training, outreach, 2nd tier, mentor programs, goal setting and reporting, and corporate-wide program implementation. Since joining the company in 2005, Merck's utilization of diverse suppliers has increased from 5% to more than 11%. The Merck program is fully supported by the CEO and key leadership and was created using world class best practices. Prior to joining Merck, Jackie was at AT&T. Jackie represents Merck on the Minority Supplier Development Council of PA-NJ-DE Board of Directors and the U. S. Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. She received the National Supplier Diversity Manager award from US Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce in 2006 and 2007, the Supplier Diversity Advocate award from the Carolinas MSDC and MSDC of PA-NJ-DE in 2006 and the YWCA Tribute to Women and Industry award in 2007. She has a B.S. in Accounting and Business Administration from High Point University and an MBA from Wake Forest University.
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Cheryl Talaber - Conference Co-Chair
Cheryl Talaber, Vice President, runs the day-to-day operations of Liberty IRB, an institutional review board which protects the rights of human research participants involved in pharmaceutical, device and behavioral studies.Liberty IRB is a 100% female-owned, independent, central IRB. This allows the IRB to review various studies, both multi-site sponsored by pharmaceutical or device companies throughout the country and investigator-initiated studies. Liberty is a member of CIRB, the Consortium of Independent Review Boards, a non-profit organization whose central mission is to protect the rights and welfare of human research participants while promoting an understanding among independent IRBs on ways to support this goal. In business for six years, Liberty IRB has completed Step 1 of AAHRPP and expects to complete the process in the next few months. Cheryl is a graduate of Emory University in Atlanta where she received her Bachelors and Masters degrees.
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Alison Macpherson
Alison Macpherson is the President and owner of Bright Pharmaceutical Services and Bright Media Services. She founded both companies in 2002. Ms. Macpherson has been in the clinical trials industry since 1988 where she began working as a Clinical Research Fellow on NIMH-funded grants at the Danielsen Institute at Boston University.
Ms. Macpherson started her own Contract Research Organization and Advertising Agency to focus on the needs of device, biotech, and pharmaceutical projects and specialize in patient recruitment challenges. Bright Pharmaceutical Services uses Bright Media Services to carry out patient recruitment projects for phase I-IV trials globally. Ms. Macpherson continues daily oversight and business development of both companies.
In addition to serving on the Board for DA4S, Ms. Macpherson has been on the Board of Big Brothers Big Sisters since 2001 and she was elected to the National Board for the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council in 2010. Ms. Macpherson was published in volume II of "From Inspiration to Realization" and authored the compilation "Potluck Wisdom for the Pharmaceutical Professional" in 2008. She is currently soliciting articles for "Potluck Wisdom", volume II to be published in late 2010.
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Sheri Shafir
Sheri A. Shafir is the Associate Director, Supplier Diversity at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation (NPC). She began her career at NPC over 9 years ago as a Strategic Sourcing Senior Procurement Specialist for Marketing Services and Patient Recruitment. Sheri is an active member of NPC's Diversity and Inclusion Council to further support NPC’s diversity & inclusion initiatives. Sheri serves as the Vice Chair on the NY & NJ Minority Supplier Development Council’s New Jersey section and the newly appointed co-chair of the ISM Supplier Diversity Pharma Forum. NPC is a national member of NMSDC, a bronze sponsor of the NY & NJ MSDC and NJAWBO, a silver sponsors of WPEO, an NGLCC Corporate Partner and member of the NGLCC Procurement Council and two star corporate sponsor of NaVOBA. Prior to working at NPC, Sheri was the Director of Advertising and Communications at McBee—a checks and forms supplier and worked 10 years at McGraw-Hill in NYC in Marketing and Production. Sheri earned a B.S. in Marketing and International Business at NYU Business and Public Administration and is an A.P.P.
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Nancy Jones
Nancy Jones joined Eli Lilly and Company in 1989, in the Research and Development Department, where she received two Patents for innovation and scientific accomplishments in the formulation of Lilly Insulin drug (Humalog). Later Nancy joined the Procurement Organization in 2000 as a Sourcing Associate. Her role included the development of shared partnership, strategy development and streamline processes which resulted in increase opportunities with Lilly, and establishing long term initiatives for key Suppliers. In her current position, Sourcing Diversity Associate, her responsibilities entails the, identification and the improvement of growth potential of diverse businesses, implementation of short and long term strategies and action plans. She seeks to leverage and grow existing suppliers and is an active participant in the development of these diverse vendors, via coaching, training and external outreach initiatives. She is a native of Tallahassee, Florida, and graduate of the Indiana Kelly School of Business. She is a member and supporter of the United Way (Loan Executive and Leadership programs), and the Daughters of Zion Ministries, an outreach to woman of diverse social and ethnical backgrounds.
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Alfonso J. Alanis
Dr. Alanis, is a majority founding partner, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Anaclim LLC. He is responsible for the overall strategy and performance of the company with a sharp focus on meeting customer needs. Prior to joining Anaclim, Dr. Alanis worked for Eli Lilly and Company for 20 years in different research and development, managerial and executive positions, and was directly involved with the development and the support of several products including Humatrope ®, Reopro ®, Xigris ® and Byetta ®. From 1994 to 2000 Dr. Alanis was Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Global Clinical Research of Eli Lilly and Company and was responsible for an extensive re-engineering of Lilly’s clinical development processes resulting in more than a doubling of the productivity of this component, the creation of a global data management strategy and the internationalization of Lilly’s clinical trials to more than 62 countries around the world. According to Centerwatch ®, during Dr. Alanis’ tenure as Lilly’s Chief Medical Officer, Lilly’s Medical Department was consistently ranked number one in the Pharmaceutical Industry in the United States and in Europe. Dr. Alanis is recognized as an expert and a leader in global clinical drug development. A U.S. citizen, Dr. Alanis was born in Mexico City where he attended Medical School and graduated Magna cum Laude from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1977. He obtained his Internal Medicine, Infectious Disease and Clinical Microbiology training at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio from 1978 to 1984. Dr. Alanís has been the recipient of different academic and research awards and honors, and a number of licenses and certifications including a certification by the American Board of Internal Medicine and the Mexican Board of Internal Medicine. He has authored several scientific publications and chapters in peer-reviewed medical journals and textbooks of medicine. He is an active member of the American College of Physicians, the Infectious Disease Society of America and the American Society for Microbiology. Dr. Alanis lives in Zionsville, Indiana with his wife Maria del Carmen and his four sons.
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Susan T. Vassallo
Susan T. Vassallo presently serves as Vice President of Corporate Communications at Henry Schein, Inc. (NASDAQ:HSIC), the largest distributor of healthcare products and services in the combined North American and European markets and a Fortune 500® company. Ms. Vassallo oversees all communications activities – including public relations, internal, external and executive communications – and leads teams of external agency personnel in addition to her communications staff. Her initiatives have resulted in numerous articles in major national media including the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, CNBC and others. Her efforts also have contributed to Henry Schein's being named “Most Admired” in its industry in the Fortune's 2008 list of America’s Most Admired Companies, and being ranked first in social responsibility for four consecutive years. Ms. Vassallo also serves as Co-Chairperson on the Marketing and Communications Committee for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Immunization Program. Prior to joining Henry Schein, Ms. Vassallo managed the Media Relations group at Grumman Corp. She holds a B.A in Communications from Marist College and is a member of numerous professional organizations including the Healthcare Distribution Management Association’s Public Relations Committee; the International Association of Business Communicators; the Public Affairs Society of America; and the National Association of Female Executives.
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Sally Macaluso
Sally Macaluso is a Senior Director in Global Procurement at Merck & Co., Inc. Merck is a global research-driven pharmaceutical company that was established in 1891. Merck discovers, develops, manufactures and markets vaccines and medicines to address unmet medical needs. Sally began her 18 year career at Merck in the Merck Research Laboratories where she worked in Medicinal Chemistry in the HIV Protease and Thrombin programs. Her past 13 years at Merck have been spent in Global Procurement in various positions of increasing responsibility. Sally currently leads the Research Procurement team which supports the procurement activities for the Merck Research Laboratories. Sally received her BS in Chemistry from Bucknell University and her Masters in Chemistry from Lehigh University.