Perform & Advance: OPEX Tools to Secure Promotions

Career advancement requires more than strong performance. It requires learning to think, communicate, and lead at the next level.

As professionals progress in their careers, the nature of their work changes.

Early in a career, success may be defined by personal expertise and the ability to deliver results. As responsibilities grow, however, the expectations change. Leaders must connect organizational goals to the work of their teams, remove barriers, solve increasingly complex problems, develop others, and eventually translate strategy into action across functions.

The question becomes: How do you develop those capabilities before you have the title?

That was the focus of OEN's Perform & Advance: OpEx Tools to Secure Promotions.

Operational Excellence as a Leadership Capability

Operational Excellence is often associated with improving processes, reducing inefficiency, and solving problems. But the same disciplines used to improve organizations can also help professionals become stronger leaders.

Structured approaches such as PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) encourage professionals to move beyond reacting to problems. They teach us to define problems clearly, test ideas, evaluate evidence, learn from results, and determine what should happen next.

Those habits matter far beyond traditional Operational Excellence roles.

They help professionals communicate with greater clarity, move conversations from opinion to evidence, demonstrate measurable impact, and approach increasingly complex challenges systematically.

In other words, OpEx tools can help develop the behaviors organizations expect from their future leaders.

From Doing the Work to Leading It

During this interactive session, participants explored how expectations evolve as professionals move into higher levels of leadership and how Operational Excellence principles can support that transition.

The discussion connected PDCA and change management to practical leadership capabilities including communication, time management, problem solving, and talent development. Participants also worked through a life sciences case study, applying both approaches to a realistic organizational challenge.

The goal was not simply to introduce new tools. It was to demonstrate how structured approaches to improvement can help professionals think more strategically, communicate more effectively, and lead through increasingly complex challenges.

Making Your Impact Visible

Doing meaningful work is important. Being able to clearly demonstrate the impact of that work is also part of leadership.

A well-structured improvement effort creates more than a better process. It can create evidence of problem-solving ability, initiative, learning agility, cross-functional leadership, and business impact.

Those experiences can become stronger performance-review conversations, better interview examples, measurable résumé accomplishments, and evidence that someone is already beginning to operate at the next level.

The session also explored another often-overlooked avenue for development: passion projects. Taking the initiative to build something outside the boundaries of a formal role can create opportunities to practice leadership, expand networks, develop new capabilities, and demonstrate what you can do before someone formally gives you the responsibility.

The Takeaway

Career growth isn't simply about doing more.

As responsibilities increase, professionals must learn to think at a broader level, communicate their impact more clearly, and develop the capabilities required to lead increasingly complex work.

Operational Excellence provides more than tools for improving processes. It provides ways of thinking, learning, and solving problems that can help professionals grow into stronger leaders.

The Speakers

Mayra Marquez

Chief Operating Officer, LaSalle Group International

Mayra Marquez is Chief Operating Officer of LaSalle Group International, with more than 25 years of experience spanning continuous improvement, business transformation, strategy, project management, change management, supply chain, and manufacturing. Her career includes leadership roles across medical device, pharmaceutical, healthcare, biotech, gene and cell therapy, and other industries. Mayra holds an MBA in Accounting and Finance and certifications including Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, project management, change management, and behavioral coaching.

Dave Solloway

Associate Director, Working Professional Career Services, NC State Poole College of Management

Dave Solloway is Associate Director for Working Professional Career Services at NC State’s Poole College of Management. With more than 4,000 hours of leadership coaching experience, Dave has also designed leadership development programs at organizations including Fidelity Investments and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. His work focuses on helping professionals build meaningful relationships, strengthen their leadership capabilities, and bridge the gap between doing the work and leading the organization.

Cristina Maldonado

Founder & Chair, Operational Excellence Network

Cristina Maldonado is the Founder and Chair of the Operational Excellence Network and an Operational Excellence leader in the biopharmaceutical industry. She specializes in building organizational capabilities that strengthen strategy execution, continuous improvement, leadership, and operational performance. Through OEN, Cristina 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.