of North Carolina
Mission
To bridge the gap between academia and industry by fostering a community where students, professionals, and industry leaders collaborate to drive operational excellence, innovation, and career development in the life sciences sector.
Vision​​
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To build a sustainable, high-impact ecosystem where operational excellence transforms organizations, empowers professionals, and accelerates life sciences innovation in North Carolina and beyond.
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 serves as the Chief Operating Officer for LaSalle Group International. Holds over 25 years of experience leading local, regional, and global roles in continuous improvement, business consulting, business strategy and transformation, project management, Business Process Management (BPM), Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Change Management and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. She has broad and dynamic Fortune 500 experience in Medical Device, Pharma, Healthcare, Biotech, Gene Cell Therapy, Energy, and Fashion.
Mayra holds a Major in Industrial Engineering and an MBA in Accounting/Finance. She also has earned various certifications in her career such as Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Project Management, Change Management, and Behavioral Coach. She is known for her ability to leverage her functional expertise, bilingual communication skills, and strong situational fluency to drive impactful changes and foster inclusive workplace cultures. Throughout her career, Mayra has demonstrated a remarkable agility in connecting with high-level customers, partners, and peers, while successfully mobilizing and mentoring multinational teams. Her ability to employ various tools and methodologies has earned her multiple leadership awards for optimizing processes, transforming business practices, and delivering high-quality and impactful 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 a leader in operational excellence with a background in business
operations and process optimization in the life sciences industry. She has successfully led
initiatives that streamline workflows and drive measurable impact. Cristina has experience in
Lean methodologies, portfolio management, and implementing site-wide solutions that have
delivered millions in cost savings and operational improvements. She has a Bachelor’s in Molecular Biology and is currently pursuing an MBA at NC State University, further strengthening her expertise in business strategy and organizational development. Passionate about innovation and continuous improvement, Cristina is committed to building a collaborative community that empowers professionals to drive excellence in their organizations.
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!
Smitha Ragannagari
Secretary
Smitha Ragannagari is a seasoned Operational Excellence leader and Clinical Trial Strategist with over 19 years of hands-on experience driving efficiency across the drug development lifecycle. With expertise in executing all phases of clinical trials, including complex Oncology and Rare Disease programs, Smitha brings a unique, holistic perspective. Her career path—from a Study Coordinator at an institutional site, to progressive roles at a Biotech in RTP, NC (CRA to Global Project Management), and leadership positions at CROs—enables her to identify and optimize process bottlenecks from every angle. Smitha is passionate about leveraging best practices to accelerate trial timelines, enhance data quality, and reduce operational costs for Biotech and Pharma companies of all sizes. She has her Masters in Medical Microbiology from India and Masters in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology with Specialization in Biotechnology from Georgetown University, Washington DC. When she is not developing operation excellence strategies in Clinical trials, you will see her spending time with her furry baby a Maltipoo.