Global Inclusion and Growth Week 2023

A global health physician and social entrepreneur, Peter Drobac is the Director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. The Skoll Centre promotes social innovation by developing talent, promoting actionable insight through research, and catalysing deep exchanges with a global community of innovators.

Peter was a co-founder and first Executive Director of the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) in Rwanda. Working at the intersection of health, education, and technology, UGHE aspires to train the next generation of global health leaders and to become a worldwide innovation hub for health care delivery science.

For over a decade Peter played a key role in the transformation of Rwanda’s health system, which has delivered unprecedented gains in population health and prosperity. As Executive Director of Partners In Health in Rwanda, Peter established community-based health system incubators that developed and scaled care delivery innovations from infectious diseases to cancer.

Peter’s academic interests include implementation science and the development of high-performing health systems. As an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, he taught global health, social medicine and clinical infectious disease. He holds a Master of Public Health from the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, and a Doctor of Medicine from the Medical College of Wisconsin.

A Recognized champion

Lex is the best totally blind long and triple jumper in the history of the U.S. Paralympic movement. He is the current world record holder in the long jump, a five-time Paralympic medalist, a four-time long jump world champion, and an 18-time national champion. He is the only totally blind athlete to ever eclipse the 22-foot barrier in the long jump.

Many of his fellow eight-year-olds could be seen riding bicycles, shooting baskets, or frolicking on nearby playgrounds, but Lex was dealing with a far more challenging opponent. His sight began to slowly fade entirely due to recurrent retina detachments. Ten operations failed to stabilize what little sight he had left. After the final surgery, Lex’s mother Verdina Gillette-Simms, had the difficult task of telling her son he would likely never see again. She vowed to teach Lex everything he would need to know to be successful in life. Her hard work and love were the foundation for Lex’s accomplishments.

A dream come true

At the age of 19, Lex won his first Paralympic silver medal in the long jump. His achievements at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens, Greece were the culmination of years of hard work and training. Since that time, Lex has solidified himself as a tenacious competitor for Team USA. Each of his athletic performances since that time have resulted in medals with the most recent being silver in the long jump at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games.

Lex now has not only competed in but medaled in five consecutive Paralympic Games and he's looking for more. Ultimately, there is one goal, and that is to win gold for the United States of America. As an athlete, motivational speaker, and singer-songwriter, Lex epitomizes the phrase “No Need for Sight When You Have a Vision ®”.

Linda Slanec Higgins, Ph.D, joined Gilead Sciences in 2010 and is currently Sr. Vice President of Research Strategy, Innovation, and Portfolio.  In her first nine years at Gilead she led Biology, significantly expanding the therapeutic area scope and capabilities of the department. In 2019, she founded the External Innovation Department within Research, enabling 20+ successful strategic partnerships to accelerate the discovery of transformational medicines. She previously served as the President & CEO of InteKrin Therapeutics and as Head of Research at Scios, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company, where she provided leadership for drug discovery, preclinical development, and translational medicine.  

Dr. Higgins is passionate about biopharmaceutical discovery and development, and has been dedicated to excellence in applied scientific research since 1991. She has led projects and departments in multiple therapeutic areas including CNS, fibrosis, inflammation, cardiovascular, virology, and oncology. Dr. Higgins built many of these as new areas at Scios and Gilead.

Dr. Higgins earned an A.B. in Behavioral Physiology from Kenyon College, a Ph.D. in Neurosciences from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, and completed postdoctoral training in Molecular Genetics at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.  She has authored over 50 original peer reviewed scientific papers and invited reviews and is an inventor on over a dozen patents.

Dr. Laquisha E. Crawford is a leader that centers her leadership philosophy around vision engagement, effective change management, and accountability. Laquisha earned a BS and an MS degree in chemistry from Lincoln University, PA, and Drexel University, respectively. She earned a doctorate degree from the University of Southern California in Organizational Change and Leadership.  Laquisha has over 20 years of progressive leadership experience working in the Pharmaceutical industry, inclusive of 8 years international experience living and working in Basel, Switzerland where she was formerly the responsible person and the Head of Quality for External Manufacturing Biologics and Parenteral at Bayer Pharmaceuticals AG. She currently serves as the Executive Director of Development and Commercial Biologics Quality at Gilead Sciences Inc. located in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.

Chris leads the Global Technical Operations department (Tech Ops), which includes Global Manufacturing, Global Quality, Process Development, and the Global Supply Chain.

Chris is a global business leader with over 30 years of biotech and pharmaceutical operations experience across various functions within Technical Operations. Chris joined Kite in 2018 as Site Head of Cell Therapy Operations in Fredrick, MD.  Prior to that Chris was with Astra Zeneca, where he was VP & Site Head of Operations for their monoclonal antibody site.  Previously Chris spent 10 years at Novartis in positions of increased responsibility, including VP & Site Head of Vaccines Operations, and VP & Global Head of Technical Operations Strategy.  In this role Chris was responsible for product life cycle management, long range production planning and manufacturing network strategy for a network operating in eight countries. Prior to his time at Novartis, Chris held various manufacturing and engineering leadership roles at Amgen.

Chris holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Eastern Michigan University and master’s degree in business from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. He is also a frequent guest lecturer at Duke and North Carolina State Universities for operational excellence in biomanufacturing and biotechnology processing.

Lisa Lahey is Founder of Minds At Work, a coaching and consulting firm serving businesses and institutions around the world, and is on the faculty of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

An expert in adult development and an experienced educator and executive coach, Lisa works with leaders and leadership teams in both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations.  She currently leads and teaches the Personal Mastery program in Harvard’s Education Leadership, Organizations and Entrepreneurship program, a degree designed to advance equity, access, agency, and excellence in education. Her passion for adult education, women’s development, diversity and inclusion, and care for the aged have earned her special attention from the healthcare, nonprofit and education sectors.

Lahey and long-time collaborator Robert Kegan are credited with a breakthrough discovery of the “immunity to change,” a dynamic which impedes personal and organizational transformation. Her work helps people to close the gap between their good intentions and behaviors. This work is used worldwide by executives, senior teams and individuals in business, governmental, and educational organizations. For her seminal research, creation of developmental diagnostics and models, and prolific writing on the topic of adult development, Lahey has earned numerous awards, particularly Boston University’s Gislason Prize for contributions to organizational leadership and the Vision of Excellence Award from the Harvard Institute of Coaching.

Her books, How The Way We Talk Can Change The Way We Work (Wiley, 2001), and Immunity to Change (Harvard Business Press, 2009) have been published in over a dozen languages. Her latest book, An Everyone Culture (Harvard Business Press, 2016) was named “Best Management and Workplace Culture Book of 2016” by 800-CEO-READ. Immunity to Change and An Everyone Culture recently earned a place on Harvard Business Press Ideas with Impact List, joining just 19 other titles. Lisa has been on the faculty of the World Economic Forum’s Davos Conference, and had her work featured in The Atlantic, MSNBC News, Harvard Business Review, The New York Times Sunday Business Section, Oprah Magazine and Fast Company.

A passionate pianist and nature lover, Lisa has two married sons and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband. 

Maria Hinojosa dreamt of a space where she could create independent, multimedia journalism that explores and gives a critical voice to the diverse American experience. She made that dream a reality in 2010 when she created Futuro Media, an independent, nonprofit newsroom based in Harlem, NYC with the mission to create multimedia content from a POC perspective. As Anchor and Executive Producer of the Peabody Award-winning show Latino USA, distributed by PRX, and Co-Host of Futuro Media’s award-winning political podcast In The Thick, Hinojosa has informed millions about the changing cultural and political landscape in America and abroad.

Joydeep Ganguly is Senior Vice President, Global Operations, Gilead Sciences, responsible for several strategic functions, including corporate engineering and operations, capital planning, risk management, and the program management office. He serves as the company’s Chief Sustainability Officer, leading environmental sustainability efforts, and oversees footprint strategy and corporate real estate. He is a member of the company’s executive ESG committee, as well as a Board member of the Gilead Foundation. Prior to Gilead, Joydeep held roles of increasing responsibility at Biogen in the areas of technical operations, manufacturing and supply chain. He earned a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, a M.B.A. from North Carolina State University and an MHA from Cornell University.

Ken Shitamoto is the Executive Director of IT Quality and Compliance leading the Privacy, Quality Assurance, and Quality Engineering functions.  Ken is a committed change agent and champion for his daughter and industry.  He is a member of the FDA-Industry CSA team and GAMP America’s Steering Committee and has worked on several industry guidance documents.   Ken started his career in the business working in large-scale biologics manufacturing and meandered across quality assurance, compliance, project management,  GMP, GCP, SaaS providers, CRO, telecommunication, education, startups, etc., before joining Gilead ten years ago.  Ken holds a BA in Molecular Cell Biology from UC Berkeley and a MS in Computer Science from San Jose State University.

Uma Yu is Kite’s Global Head of Brand Strategy and Launch Excellence. She leads the global integrated brand planning and launch readiness efforts for in-line and pipeline brands. Uma is also an LGBTQIA+ youth activist and part of Gilead's PRIDE Alliance SoCal chapter leadership team. Uma has a career pedigree from Amgen, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Merck, and various NGOs, and a successful track records in pharmaceutical/device commercialization. She speaks tech and exec and has an MPH from USC’s Keck School of Medicine.

Perika Sampson is the Global Head of Inclusion & Diversity at Gilead Sciences. She is charged with leading a team of subject matter experts who provide advice, counsel, and leadership on inclusion and diversity strategies, programs, training, and practices. She partners with colleagues across the organization on matters related to health equity, community engagement, and talent acquisition. Perika also serves on Gilead’s Corporate Responsibility/ESG Working Group.

Prior to joining Gilead, Perika was the Senior Regional Diversity Officer for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. Her responsibilities included driving diversity and inclusion, executing talent acquisition strategies, facilitating community engagement, and supporting business development initiatives. She also managed national partnerships and led Wealth Management’s HBCU and Return to Work initiatives. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, she founded and managed Dearborn Consulting Partners where she consulted on diversity and inclusion strategy and initiatives. Prior to her consulting career, she served as Vice President Marketing and Strategy in the Private Client Services division of Bank One. Additional corporate roles included senior marketing manager at Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., and institutional relationship manager at Jurika & Volyes and RCM Capital Management in San Francisco, CA. She was also a founding Director of Marketing for two internet-based financial services companies. 

Perika is an alumna of the University of California Los Angeles. She recently served on the City of Los Angeles’ Private Sector Taskforce on Race and Equity. While in Chicago she completed a stint as co-chair of the. Financial Services Pipeline Initiative’s Steering Committee in conjunction with representatives from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Chicago Community Trust. Perika currently serves on the Virginia Workforce Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center Advisory Committee. She is chair of the Black Wealth Summit Advisory Board. She leads the Oakland Symphony’s Taskforce on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. She is also a member of the American Heart Association and the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Chorus board of directors. 

Perika is committed to serving in the communities in which she lives and works. She resides in Los Angeles, California. 

Keeley Cain Wettan is a Senior Vice President in Legal at Gilead Sciences, Inc. managing a large, international team of over 70 lawyers and legal services professionals. Keeley currently manages the Litigation & Investigations and Corporate Legal teams, handling high-risk global litigation, government and internal investigations, and corporate legal functions, including corporate governance, contracting, and strategic transactions. Keeley has been involved in numerous high-risk matters over the past ten years, helping to shape the company’s legal strategy on a variety of issues. She is currently the Chair for the Gilead Foundation and leads the Legal department’s Inclusion and Diversity efforts.

Prior to joining Gilead, Keeley was a Senior Associate at the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York City where her practice focused on general litigation and government investigations. Keeley received her J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

Warner Biddle joined Kite in 2020, where he currently serves as Global Head of Commercial.

A seasoned healthcare executive with a successful industry track record of growth and business development, Warner was Vice President for the Breast/Gynecologic and Skin Cancer Franchises at Genentech prior to joining Kite. During his prolific tenure, he led the cross-functional strategy and launches for several key commercial and pipeline products while driving significant portfolio growth.

Prior to his oncology roles, Warner served as Vice President, Sales and Marketing for Ophthalmology at Genentech and also held various global leadership roles in Europe and Canada across multiple therapeutic disease areas at Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline.

Warner received a bachelor’s degree in commerce with Honors from the University of Saskatchewan.

Sandra Patterson is the Senior Vice President – Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller of  Gilead. She has more than 20 years of experience working for large and medium size public multinational companies in the bio-pharmaceutical, consumer products and technology industries. She joined Gilead in 2011 as Director of Technical Accounting, Controls and SEC Reporting and has grown with the company, which had 4.500 employees and revenues of $8 Billion when she joined.

The Controllership Organization, which Sandra leads, is currently formed by a group of 350 very committed individuals who have four key goals this year:

• to lead and/or execute the accounting, control and reporting activities of the various Regions, driving the quality and compliance of the information reported in the company’s financial statements and management reporting 

• to provide Financial Shared Services to the various Gilead Functions including payroll, accounts payable, billing and collection of receivables, 

• to advice business partners on strategic or non-routine transactions on their related accounting, control or reporting implications, and 
• to support the implementation of SAP which will introduce Gilead to a next generation Enterprise Resource Planning tool

In addition to her Controllership experience, which includes building high performing teams, organizational design, change management, mergers and acquisitions, business integrations, and other technical aspects, Sandra has extensive experience working in cross-cultural business environments, which has expanded her appreciation for diverse and inclusive environments.

Sandra is passionate about people development and has supported various initiatives devoted to the development of people at Gilead such as Women @ Gilead Circles, CFO Employee Development Committee, has been a Corporate Mentor and currently serves as one of the Co-Sponsors of GILEADOS. Externally, she is a member of the National Board of Directors of ALPFA, the Association of Latino Professionals for America, where she has served in the Strategy, H.R. and Nominations Committees. 

Sandra attended High School in Guatemala, where she grew up, and attended college in San Francisco State University. She has a large extended family in the Bay Area which gives her the opportunity to be a daughter, niece, sister, cousin, aunt and mother of a wonderful 17-year old, who is going to college in the Fall.