Darren Woods is an expert in leading organisations through change, supporting Operational Excellence journeys, and inspiring teams to implement cultures of continuous improvement.
CEO of WD Excellence, Darren brings almost 20 years of Lean Six Sigma experience to his field and has had the pleasure of working with Life Science companies including MSD, Astellas, APC, VLE therapeutics and Wuxi.
Darren is passionate about accelerating organisational improvement by creating the ideal conditions needed to optimise employee engagement, improve team dynamics, and develop leaderships’ emotional intelligence.
A PhD candidate, Darren holds an MBS in Business Practice, an Honours degree in Engineering and is Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certified.
He has also recently become obsessed with running long distances and buying way too many pairs of running shoes.
Experienced Director of Operations having fulfilled a variety of roles in the semi conductor and biotechnology industry. Skilled in Operations Management, Continuous Improvement, Business Relationship Management, and Technology Transfer. Avid supporter and practitioner of digitisation, lean, and business process optimisation.
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Marie McCarthy is a Globally Accredited (WACN) Mindset Coach with Neuroscience and an International Mindset Speaker. Marie features regularly on Dublin City FM and Newstalk Radio. The incorporation of neuroscience in organisations enables a deeper understanding of employee behaviour, cognitive processes, culture, and employee motivation. Facilitating more effective leadership, talent management and retention, and overall performance.
Marie has had a successful corporate career spanning 14 years within the Pharmacy Sector in Ireland, which enables Marie to truly understand the corporate setting and its challenges. Marie helps entrepreneurs and organisations understand themselves and their teams at a deeper level. Aligning their people to the organistaions strategy, and culture by utilising ISO-accredited diagnostic tools and alignment mapping. Enabling organisations to build high-performing teams, aligning with their strategy, culture, and their people resulting in improved commercial outcomes and human capabilities.
Fiona Fennell is currently the Network Manager of our sponsor, the Engineering Skillnet who support workforce development for engineering industries. Fiona is a Masters graduate from the University of Limerick with a background in talent acquisition. She has spent seven years as a soft skills coach and trainer for regulated sectors in the area’s of critical thinking and risk/uncertainty heuristics. Fiona regularly contributes to white papers on cognition and collaborative cultures and most recently to the publication : “Risk Intelligent Neuro Leadership – a Guide for the Modern Decision-maker”.
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Jerry Shanahan BE, MSc Jerry is a proven leader with over 35 years of cross-industry experience. Jerry has held a variety of senior roles across the electronics and medical device industry, including Vice President of International Operations for DePuy, Johnson & Johnson, Chief Operating Officer for Enterasys Networks, Managing Director at Cabletron Systems and Engineering Manager at Intel, Ireland. For the past 10 years, Jerry has had the opportunity to work with Global organisations across many industry sectors in his role as Partner at Oliver Wight consulting. In December 2020 Jerry stepped away from his role as an Oliver Wight Senior Business Consultant and is now focusing on some extensive research in the area of Executive Strategic Decision making, leveraging the process of S&OP/IBP. Jerry has a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (BE) degree from University College Cork and a Master of Science (MSc) in Total Quality Management from the University of Limerick, Ireland
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A results-driven operations management and operational excellence professional with almost three decades’ experience across the health care industry. 20 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical segment with a focus on operations management and cGMP compliance, and 10 years’ experience working as a single contributor within an Enterprise Centre of Excellence.
Regarded as a SME/technical expert with proven project and functional management skills, well versed in working with a matrix of global and site teams to shape systems and deliver value to sites, all with a focus on delivering strategic object