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.
Travis Hege
Travis Hege is the Chief Executive Officer of the Medical Affairs Professional Society and manages the global operations for the organization. One of the founding members of MAPS in 2016, Travis oversees the operations team, based in Golden, Colorado, as well as team members based in London and Hong Kong. Prior to MAPS, he was Founder and President of BSG Communications, a boutique Medical Affairs consulting firm based in San Francisco, for eight years. Travis is a proud Tar Heel alum, and currently calls the foothills of Denver home, where numerous farm animals and a lovable French bulldog, Rico, happily occupy any spare time.
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.
