Program 2022

Milson Gondim currently serves as Senior Vice President, Small Molecule Network - Elanco Manufacturing. Dr. Gondim has worked in various areas of leadership including biotechnology, consumer care, and small molecule. Strong focus on acquisition, integration, capacity modeling, improvement projects and strategic initiatives. Milson received his D.M.V. degree from the State University of Ceara, Brazil and Ph. D. in Immunology from the Ceara Federal University. Milson also received his MBA from the European Business School in Spain, and Project Management Master Degree from Dom Cabral University in Brazil.

Pramatha Payra has more than 20 years of expertise across chemicals and materials manufacturing, from research & development to process implementation and quality management.
His experience ranges from water treatment technology to polysilicon production (for both solar and semiconductor markets), and he has led both US domestic and international projects in South Korea and China. Payra holds a PhD in Chemistry from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and is credentialed as a PMO & Six Sigma Master Black Belt.

Inspired by the significant value prescriptive AI delivered to local manufacturers as an industry consultant, Frans Cronje co-founded DataProphet in 2014. His mission is to establish this innovative, results-driven company as the leading global provider of AI-as-a-Service for manufacturing. Frans was amongst Fast Company SA’s top 20 industry leaders under 30. He is also a regular keynote speaker on the international circuit at key manufacturing vertical summits, conferences, and other prestigious events.

In 2019, the WEF invited Frans to speak at its Annual Meeting of the New Champions (the “Summer Davos”) in Dalian, China, recognizing DataProphet as a Technology Pioneer.

Steve currently serves as the Program Manager of the NASA Tournament Lab (NTL) and Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) which are working to infuse challenge and crowdsourcing innovation approaches at NASA and across the federal government.  The NTL/CoECI focuses on the study and use of curated, crowdsourcing communities that utilize prize and challenge-based methods to deliver innovative solutions for NASA and the US government. 

In 2015, Steve was named as one of 20 Challenge Mentors for U.S. Government Services Administration’s (GSA) Prizes and Challenges government-wide community of practice.  Steve has worked with various projects and organizations to develop and execute over 100 different challenges.   He speaks regularly about NASA’s work in crowd-based challenges and the future of work both publicly and internally to the NASA workforce to promote the use of open innovation tools.

Steve has a Mechanical Engineering degree from Rice University and has worked at NASA’s Johnson Space Center for 32 years.  Prior to joining the NTL/CoECI, Steve worked in mission control, flight software development for the Space Shuttle and International Space Station, command and control systems development for the X-38, and led the Command, Control, Communications, & Information (C3I) architecture definition for the Constellation Program.

Amit Lodh leads the AWS Solutions Architecture team(s) to partner with enterprise customers in Central US (Texas, Louisiana, Missouri and Kansas) and running a practice of operation technology Solutions architecture to address the needs of enterprise industrial customers.

Before joining AWS, Amit worked in Schlumberger in various leadership roles in the areas of digital product development/management, strategic marketing and M&A for over 20+ years. Amit received an MBA from London Business School, a MS in Computer Science from University of Houston, an MS in Geophysics from Rice University and an MS in Geophysics from Indian Institute of Technology, India. Amit is based in Houston, Texas.

As Sr. Director, Administration and Supply Chain, Marco is responsible for all the daily operations pertaining administration functions, such as Financial Management, Human Resources, Purchasing, Legal and Restructuring, and Supply chain management. He joined Cuinba Group in 2019, being responsible for the already mentioned areas for the four companies that are part of the group.

Previous to that, he has occupied several Management positions, such as Global Director, Supply Chain Management, where he was responsible for all the daily operations pertaining supply chain management for all the global operations of GST Autoleather (now Pangea). He has deep experience in areas such as: production and materials requirements planning, inventories management, customer care, and inbound/outbound logistics. In addition, he has served in different Directive and Managerial roles in areas such as Finance, Project Management, Continuous Improvement and Strategic Planning.

Marco received his B.S Degree in Industrial Engineering with a minor in Systems from Monterrey Tech., in Mexico, and has also three master degrees: an MBA from Thunderbird, School of Global Management, a dual degree on MSc in Information Management from Lancaster Management School at the United Kingdom, and a Master on Tanning Processes from CIATEC, in Mexico.

Sultan Aziz is Senior Director of Product Supply Strategy and Management and responsible for Johnson & Johnson Supply Chain’s Manufacturing for The Future Program Office. 
In close collaboration with JnJ’ Manufacturing Segments, oversees a wide ranging of projects from early stages of Test & Learn to broad scale deployment focusing on critical business drivers and digitalization of JnJ’s Manufacturing foot print. 
In addition to the Manufacturing for The Future Program Office responsibilities, Sultan also oversees the Business Planning and Operational activities for the Strategy and Deployment Organization. Prior to his current role, Sultan was Senior Director of R&D Capacity Management in JnJ’s Janssen Research & Development Organization.  Sultan holds a BS in Biology and MBA in Finance.

Sultan Aziz is Senior Director of Product Supply Strategy and Management and responsible for Johnson & Johnson Supply Chain’s Manufacturing for The Future Program Office. 
In close collaboration with JnJ’ Manufacturing Segments, oversees a wide ranging of projects from early stages of Test & Learn to broad scale deployment focusing on critical business drivers and digitalization of JnJ’s Manufacturing foot print. 
In addition to the Manufacturing for The Future Program Office responsibilities, Sultan also oversees the Business Planning and Operational activities for the Strategy and Deployment Organization. Prior to his current role, Sultan was Senior Director of R&D Capacity Management in JnJ’s Janssen Research & Development Organization.  Sultan holds a BS in Biology and MBA in Finance.

Neil Betteridge is currently Senior Vice President Category Development for fairlife in USA. fairlife is the fastest growing consumer milk brand in North America which has patented innovative protein concentrating technology. They were recently acquired by The Coca-Cola Company.

 

Neil grew up in New Zealand on a dairy farm and studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Canterbury. Neil has more than 20 years in the dairy industry in a range of roles from Operations Leadership, Maintenance & Technology Leadership through to Capital Project management in a wide array of dairy products from infant formula, aseptic drinks, lipids and whey-based ethanol.

 

Neil is passionate about leadership, developing high performance teams and loves taking great nutritious dairy products to the world. He has been active on University Advisory Boards along with Food & Engineering Society Committees. In 2016 Neil was awarded the NZ Prime Ministers Scholarship to attend the INSEAD Business School in France.

 

Previous employers have been Fonterra Co-operative, Synlait Milk Ltd and Tetra Pak. Neil has helped design, build, commission and manage more than 15 large dairy production lines during his career, and has been lucky enough to work across Oceania, Asia, Europe and now North America. Neil’s current role is looking to expand the current product portfolio of fairlife.

As Senior Vice President of Responsible Computing, John will be leading the effort to bring in our founders and early members for this exciting new Program. John is a senior technology executive whose principal skills lie in marketing, sales, strategic partnering and operations--skills he has consistently leveraged to reposition and grow companies.

He began his career at IBM in sales and moved up through various marketing and product development positions until recruited as VP of Marketing; in addition, his role expanded to the WW VP/GM of Security when IBM acquired SRD, an identity resolution company. He then went on to become a founding member of the OMG as VP Marketing from 1990 to 1995. He was recruited into IBM as their Vice President of Object Technology Strategy as a direct report to Steve Mills, who ultimately became the SVP & GM responsible for building and running IBM Software.

John next moved to Novell as their WW SVP Marketing, reporting to Eric Schmidt their CEO, and was one of the key people responsible for that company’s return to relevance and a much higher valuation in the marketplace into the early 2000’s.

Conrad Leiva is VP of Ecosystem and Workforce Development at CESMII – the Smart Manufacturing Institute (www.cesmii.org/).

In his role, Conrad is accelerating Smart Manufacturing adoption and education programs through a national ecosystem of regional centers, technology partners, and education institutions. A recognized industry authority, he engages manufacturing business leaders, educators and practitioners across all dimensions of industry to develop and share knowledge on both the How and Why to leverage information technology in manufacturing.

Conrad is Chair of the Smart Manufacturing Working Group at MESA International (www.mesa.org), has over 20 years of experience in manufacturing systems development and implementation, and holds an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Ken Snyder, the executive dean and chief administrative officer of the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business, joined the Shingo Institute as the executive director in 2015. Mr. Snyder has served as a member of the Shingo Executive Advisory Board for the past eight years and has intimate knowledge of the Institute and its history.

Mr. Snyder developed an interest in Japanese business practices while living in Japan during the time he was a student. His interest led him to major in Japanese history and then to pursue an MBA for the purpose of working with a Japanese business expanding to the United States. Inspired by the work of Professor Mike Yoshino and Professor William Ouchi, Mr. Snyder wrote his master’s thesis on “Applying Japanese Business Practices in American Companies.”

Mr. Snyder has served as a member of the Shingo Executive Advisory Board since 2009, and as a Shingo examiner since 2010. He was named chairman of the Shingo board and executive director of the Shingo Institute in 2015.

Dr. Nourredine Boubekri is currently a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at The University of North Texas (UNT) and the Founding Director of
DOE sponsored UNT Industrial Assessment Center. He received his Ph.D. in Industrial and Management Systems Engineering and Master and Bachelor of
Science degrees in Manufacturing Engineering. 

His experience also includes hisroles as Department chair /Director of Research and Innovation /Directorof UNT SACSCOC reaffirmation. He directed more than fifty Master and Ph.D. Students andpublished more than 100 technical articles and refereed journal papers in the areasof Lean Product/Process Design and Development Methods, and  Agile ProjectManagement. He has contributed to a large number of international conferences as an invited/Keynote speaker, author. He has collaborated on projects with a large number of companies in the areas of Energy Management, Lean Product/Process Design, and Smart Manufacturing.