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Ann Ford
Ann Ford recently served as Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer at Medline Industries, Inc., in Northfield, IL. After completing her nursing education at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI, she received her Juris Doctor degree from DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, IL.
Until she became an attorney, Ms Ford worked in high-risk obstetrics, pediatric intensive care, and neonatal intensive care. Upon graduating from law school, she spent 11 years in private practice representing physicians, nurses, and hospitals. After private practice, Ms Ford transitioned to in-house legal and compliance roles, including Vice President, General Counsel for two Chicago-area hospitals. In her previous role as Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer at Medline, she oversaw the global ethics and compliance program. In addition, she had been intimately involved with the development of a Medical Affairs function at Medline.
Ms Ford has served on various committees throughout her career, including the hospitals’ Institutional Review Boards. She is a frequent speaker on healthcare legal and compliance topics.
Anna Walz
Anna Walz is a 25+ year veteran in the pharmaceutical industry. She is the Founder and CEO Emeritus of MedEvoke, a MEDISTRAVA Company (Medical Division of Huntsworth). MedEvoke is a global medical consulting firm dedicated to working with Medical Affairs leaders to drive alignment through development of clear medical strategies that can be globally communicated, measured, and analyzed. This has, for the first time, enabled Medial Affairs to track the impact of internal efforts on the external scientific and digital exchanges.
Anna currently serves as Senior Strategic Advisor to MEDISTRAVA and provides professional guidance on the formation of a cross-company Medical Analytics Function that will overlay the community of medical affairs agencies within the healthcare division of Huntsworth. Her external responsibilities include working with key clients and professional organizations on market implementation and validation of the medical analytics function. Internal responsibilities include providing input on annual strategy planning process and relevant roll-out workstreams. Anna also serves of the Board of Directors for Healios AG, a Swiss-based medical device software manufacturer that is dedicated to finding solutions in clinical research and patient monitoring through innovative digital technologies.
Anna, who often speaks on the topics of medical strategy, launch excellence, impact metrics for medical affairs, female entrepreneurship, and diversity in the biosciences, is also a regular guest-lecturer on the topic of Pharmacology & Drug Marketing at the Rutgers Medical School. In addition to speaking, Anna has a keen interest in her own continuing education and is a graduate of both the Tuck-WBENC Executive Education program and the Entrepreneurial Master’s Program (EMP), a joint collaboration of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Anna has been one of the most vocal champions for MAPS since its inception, has served as Co-Chair of the Standards & Guidance Committee, and is currently serving on the organization’s Board of Directors and on the Fund Development Committee.
Danie du Plessis
Danie is currently EVP, Medical Affairs at Kyowa Kirin and is a senior pharmaceutical executive with 25 years’ experience mainly in Medical Affairs. He has a passion for modernising medical affairs and track record in leadership, people development, capability building and coaching. Danie is a qualified MD with a Masters in Clinical Pharmacology who combines medical and life science qualifications with an MBA. Danie has extensive experience building international teams, driving change and working in regulated markets for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) across Europe, the Americas, Middle East, Africa, Australasia and Japan.
He previously worked for Eli Lilly & Company for 17 years in different medical roles as well as marketing and sales. During his different roles, he was based in South Africa, United Kingdom and Australia. Before joining the Pharmaceutical Industry, Danie had his own primary care practice.
Lode Dewulf
Lode Dewulf currently works as board member, consultant, coach and volunteer in the fields of his passions: personal development, patient affairs, medical affairs and business strategy. He sees these part-time roles as a real privilege, after a rich and varied full-time career of over 30 years in the pharmaceutical industry, which he joined after his medical training and practice.
As a physician he worked in general/family medicine settings, as well as in several hospital specialties in both Western and Third World settings. In industry he served and gained experience in several functions, including Medical Affairs, Drug Safety, and Health Economics, always taking the patient’s needs as goal and reference point. He worked in different disease areas, companies, countries and continents, which added to a very diverse experience base. His scope of responsibility within industry grew over the years, and he held several global roles, including as Global Medical Director, Global Head of Compliance and Global Head of Medical Affairs.
In 2012 he was appointed as the industry’s first senior executive officer dedicated to Patient Affairs. In this role he has helped to build bridges and impactful alliances between the willing, which have contributed to deep changes in strategy and culture within companies as well as to several external initiatives with great patient value, such as PFMD, PARADIGM and new FDA Guidance on Pregnancy and Lactation requirements.
He feels most proud of the relations and friendships that he has been able to build over the years. This also includes the mentoring and growing of several talented colleagues into impactful leadership roles, something he continues to do through his teaching and his work as executive coach.
