
Leaders Empowering Others

Event Details:
Date: Thursday, August 20, 2020
Time: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM (ET)
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Admission
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Students: Free I Ascend Members: Free I Non-Members: $15
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Via Zoom
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Join us for an evening with amazing women that will share their professional journey, what they learned along the way, and the importance and challenge of work/life balance.
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Speakers
Romina (Sarreal) Ford
Manager, Digital Client Experience, Verizon
Romina has been with Verizon since 2000 and is the Program Lead for the Customer Experience Transformation Initiative for Verizon Partner Solutions (VPS). She is currently focused on training external customers - which includes creation of training collateral that covers various mechanisms for learning such as presentations, job aids, videos, and user manuals. She has been instrumental in defining internal processes and procedures for conducting successful training sessions.
While in this role, she was also responsible for Process Transßformation and overseeing activity related to all customer touchpoints surrounding Product Awareness, Setup, Quoting, Ordering, Provisioning, Assurance, Care/Collaboration, and other areas. She leveraged Design Thinking Methodology in order to utilize innovative solutions to drive improvement across all facets of the Customer Experience.
Previously, she was a Senior Manager of Global Sales Operations and maintained particular focus on Sales Processes, Systems and Tools. Romina managed all sales tools development and support. She was responsible for management of Salesforce.com, SharePoint, and Siebel (OVI) for VPS. Romina is also a Certified Salesforce.com Database Administrator.
Prior to joining Verizon, she worked for IBM and AT&T. Her responsibility spanned from reviewing and processing circuit orders to handling network capacity forecasting with digitized maps for large customer projects. Romina earned her BS from Manhattan College with a double major in Pre-Med and Chemical Engineering and a minor in Religious Studies.
Romina just recently completed her tenure at ArtsWorcester, a local non-profit organization and has been serving on their Board of Directors since 2012. During her time volunteering on that Board, she held Vice-President and Co-Chair officer positions. She is also a Donating Artist for Art in The City, which supports the Worcester Family Health Center and has been supporting their mission since 2010.
Romina plays seven musical instruments. She loves creating Asian Brush paintings, playing volleyball, and tennis. She completed her first half marathon in 2016 and completed a virtual half marathon this year.
Xun Chen
Global Head of Biostatistics and Programming, Sanofi
Xun Chen is the Global Head of Biostatistics & Programming at Sanofi, one of the world’s top pharmaceutical companies. Graduated from Columbia University with PhD in biostatistics, Xun has always been passionate about making differences in drug development and bringing more meaningful treatments to patients efficiently. As an institutional leader, she had once successfully headed the establishment and development of a full spectrum, competitive clinical sciences and operation platform in China from 2010 to 2015. In her current role, Xun oversees statistical strategy and implementation of all clinical development programs and submissions across a broad portfolio at Sanofi. She is also an active industry opinion leader in a number of leading biostatistics consortiums.
AMY O’BRIEN
Director of Financial Planning and Analysis, Onapsis Inc.
Amy O'Brien has over 20 years experience working in leadership positions across a variety of industries including Information Security, Healthcare Services, Manufacturing and Distribution, Business Services, and Finance. In her current role at Onapsis Inc, she leads the company's Financial Planning and Analysis team which oversees corporate finance and business strategy for a global high growth organization. Previously she held the position of Vice President of Product Development for HealthDialog, a health services division of Rite Aid Corporation. In this role, she worked crossfuntionally with the parent company to leverage integrated population health management solutions that combine coaching services, engagement tools, telemedicine, shared decision making, and retail based healthcare. She believes in collaboration and is most proud of building well rounded cross functional teams.