Nicholas Brooke is the Founder and Executive Director of The Synergist, an incubator and managing organization to multi-stakeholder platforms that brings key players together with the express aim of solving significant societal problems through collective actions. The Synergist also helps individual organizations to build the capacity and capability to better engage with key stakeholders in partnerships to solve societal issues. Bringing his Synergist and caregiver hats together, he is the Executive Director of PFMD.org, a pre-competitive multi-stakeholder global collaborative platform dedicated to stimulating innovation in medicine and device lifecycles, digital health, and health system through systematic patient engagement, WITH patients

As president and CEO, Ellen Coleman leads VOZ Advisors and is responsible for all aspects of the overall firm path and direction. Ellen brings considerable experience in working with patients with life-threatening and chronic illnesses giving her a view of the entire patient experience. Prior to joining VOZ, she was executive vice president of EmergingMed, spent 11 years as associate executive director for CancerCare, and worked at Johnson & Johnson. She served for 10 years as a medical social worker caring for people with HIV at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and assisting neurosurgery patients at Westchester County Medical Center. She has an MPH from Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health and an MSSA from Case Western Reserve.

Sharon Dion is vice president at MK&A, a global healthcare stakeholder relations consultancy. In this role, Sharon works with diverse clients to build mutually beneficial partnerships and patient-centered strategies. Sharon's previous roles include Director, Patient Engagement, Oncology for a leading pharmaceutical company, Patient Strategy Director, and vice president for a global market research agency. She holds a BA from Tulane University and MBA from the American Graduate School of International Management.

Carol is an independent consultant dedicated to Takeda Pharmaceuticals. She is leading implementation of Takeda's R&D patient engagement strategy to connect research and development teams with patients, bringing their input into discovery, clinical development and marketed products. The goal is to enable R&D to shift their focus of developing drugs for patients to developing drugs with patients. Carol has 35 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and medical device industry working globally to develop and launch new products addressing the needs of patients. Her expertise is in organizational strategy, program leadership, project management and leading global, cross-functional teams.

Dawn Richards, PhD, is the founder of Five02 Labs Inc., and Director of Patient and Public Engagement at Clinical Trials Ontario. With a PhD (Analytical Chemistry) from the University of Alberta and experience in different roles over 25 years, it is her diagnosis with rheumatoid arthritis in 2006 that led her to combine her passion for science with making the most of her diagnosis. In her role at CTO, Dawn is charged with executing on CTO’s strategic pillar of patient and public engagement.

Dr. Roz Schneider is a catalyst toward patient-centered healthcare and research, transforming healthcare quality and efficiency by partnering with patients. She applies human-centered design toward better health outcomes, and to create and communicate with stakeholder communities. Patient centeredness has been a common thread through Roz's clinical practice and her academic and industry career, including a global role she created in Pfizer's Chief Medical Office; as an independent consultant to companies, educational, and non-profit initiatives; and now as VP, Scientific, Medical, and Patient Affairs at Theravance Biopharma.

Karlin Schroeder, M.A., is the Associate Vice President of Community Engagement at the Parkinson’s Foundation, where she leads the Research Advocacy program. Through this program, Karlin creates and directs projects to incorporate patient expertise into research design and implementation with industry, academic centers and government. Her special interests include metrics and improving diversity in patient engagement in research. She is a steering committee member with the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative, working on the Quality by Design initiative. She is also a member of Patient Focused Medicines Development. Karlin has a B.S. in psychobiology and psychology and an M.A in health advocacy.