Mission
To accelerate Operational Excellence across the life sciences ecosystem by connecting people, organizations, and ideas to advance learning, leadership, and industry impact.
Vision
To become the defining institution advancing Operational Excellence across the life sciences through innovation, leadership, research, and cross-industry collaboration.
Meet the Team
Meet our team of dedicated professionals, each bringing a wealth of expertise in operational excellence, life sciences, and design. Together, we’re committed to driving innovation, continuous improvement, and delivering impactful results. Our collaborative approach ensures we achieve the highest standards in everything we do.
Board of Directors
Tori Arens
Tori Arens is President, Drug Product at Alcami where she has responsibility for three manufacturing sites and the overall Drug Product business unit. Tori brings over 27 years of technical and manufacturing leadership experience spanning multiple modalities, including biologics, drug product, and gene and cell therapy. Before joining Alcami, Ms. Arens was the Vice President and Site Lead at National Resilience’s genetherapy site in Research Triangle Park (RTP). She earned her B.A. in Chemistry and M.S. in Pharmaceutics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Mayra Marquez
Mayra Marquez is Chief Operating Officer for LaSalle Group International and an accomplished executive with over 25 years of experience leading continuous improvement, business strategy, transformation, and operational initiatives. Her career spans Fortune 500 organizations across life sciences, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, and other industries. Mayra holds a degree in Industrial Engineering and an MBA in Accounting/Finance and is a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt. She is recognized for driving impactful change, developing high-performing teams, and transforming business practices to deliver sustainable results.
Nitin Das
Accomplished and results-driven leader with over 25 years of experience spanning multiple industries focused on driving operational excellence, strategic initiatives, business operations and program management. Strong track record in leading cross-functional teams and driving strategic initiatives that helped generate over $200M in cost savings and $350M in revenue. Core competencies include project and portfolio management, complex problem-solving, technology transfer, risk management, new product introductions, environmental sustainability initiatives, operational excellence and continuous improvement.
Leadership Team
Cristina Maldonado
Founder & Chair
Cristina Maldonado is the Founder and Chair of the Operational Excellence Network (OEN), where she leads the organization’s strategy and mission to advance Operational Excellence across the life sciences ecosystem.
An Operational Excellence leader in the biopharmaceutical industry, Cristina specializes in building organizational capabilities that strengthen strategy execution, continuous improvement, leadership, and operational performance. Her experience includes leading cross-functional transformation initiatives, developing Operational Excellence systems, and helping organizations translate strategy into meaningful action.
Cristina founded OEN with the belief that Operational Excellence is more than a collection of tools. It is an organizational capability that helps organizations learn, adapt, and continuously improve. Through OEN, she brings together industry professionals, academic institutions, and organizations to exchange knowledge, develop leaders, and strengthen the life sciences community.
She is completing her MBA at NC State University’s Jenkins Graduate School of Management.
Mitra Abab
Creative . Digital
Mitra is a cross-industry leader and innovator with a background in life sciences to hospitality to entertainment. She guides both digital strategy and creative direction within the operational excellence space, while championing human performance and error reduction across teams.
Certified in NLP, Mitra integrates behavioral insight with lean systems and visual management to enhance performance, decision-making, and collaboration. Known for her expertise in continuous improvement and her ability to deliver meaningful, people-centered results, she helps organizations build resilient, efficient systems by aligning people, purpose, and process.
Christine Cousineau
Logistics & Operations
Christine Cousineau has a Bachelor's of Science in Forensic Science from Madonna University and 5 years of experience in Biotech-Biopharma Research and Manufacturing. She began her career in Ann Arbor, Michigan developing and manufacturing Covid-19 PCR test kits. In late 2021 she moved to Durham, North Carolina to expand her resume and explore possible career paths in the Life Sciences. During her transition into Gene and Cell Therapy research, development, and production she learned about Operational Excellence (OE). She saw the impact and benefit first-hand and recognized the current knowledge gap that exists in the industry around OE. Christine's passion for creative problem solving and drive to streamline
everything that crosses her path, is exactly what Operational Excellence demands!