Advisory Board

The Six Sigma and Process Excellence IQ advisory board consists of key thinkers and thought leaders in the Lean, Six Sigma and Process Excellence space. These seasoned industry experts guide the topics on the Six Sigma and Process Excellence IQ site in addition to frequently contributing content and media. These industry leaders were selected due to the caliber of their work within their respective areas of expertise.

 

About our Advisors

Julie Brignac

Julie Brignac, whose career began at E. I. du Pont in Wilmington, Delaware, has over 20 years of highly successful commercial and operational experience in globally matrixed organizations. For nearly 10 years, she assumed increasing responsibilities in Supply Chain Operations and Project Management at key manufacturing sites throughout the United States and was a member of the highly prestigious field program for finance professionals.

Over the next 10 years, Brignac’s leadership included roles in the areas of Quality and LeanSigma, Supply Chain Management, Finance and Procurement. She has significant experience in international outsourcing, as well as leading team members located throughout the globe. She has held senior executive positions at Honeywell and Newell Rubbermaid’s Sanford Brands, and was the LeanSigma deployment leader for all businesses of Brambles Limited, a $4.5B company headquartered in Sydney, Australia. Through Brignac’s leadership and expertise in deploying LeanSigma programs, her efforts have resulted in project benefits and savings totaling in excess of $300M. In addition to Brignac’s LeanSigma responsibilities at Sanford Brands and Brambles, she was also the Vice President--Purchasing and Chief Procurement Officer, respectively—for those organizations.

Brignac now is the President and founder of QuantumSix Solutions, Inc., a firm focused on supporting small to midsize companies deploying LeanSigma within their organizations. QuantumSix focuses on all elements of strategic deployment, including executive coaching, change management, training and facilitating at all organizational levels and infrastructure development.

Brignac is also a principal consultant and partner with PMMS Consulting Group North America, a globally renowned procurement consulting firm based in the United Kingdom. PMMS provides various levels of consultancy in procurement, as well as world class training in negotiation, skills development and strategic proposal management.

Brignac holds a degree in English and communications from the University of Virginia, and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Maryland. She is an Associate Adjunct Professor in the Undergraduate School of Supply Chain Management at the University of Maryland, and an Adjunct Professor of Online Learning for the Whitman Business School for Syracuse University. Brignac is a certified Six Sigma Blackbelt, Lean Expert and a Certified Purchasing Manager from the Institute of Supply Management.

Brignac can be reached at: 305-890-9078 and Julie.Brignac@quantumsix.com.

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Lee Campbell

Lee Campbell is Chief of Strategic Planning and Continuous Process Improvement Director for the US Army Military District of Washington. A trained Master Black Belt, he has led numerous Lean Six Sigma projects and now manages a program intimately tied to implementation of strategic directives. Previously, Campbell led Lean Six Sigma implementation for the US Army Corps of Engineers from its inception and developed the Value Stream Analysis Template in use across that 34,000 person organization. Campbell is a graduate of the US Military Academy and possesses graduate degrees in environmental engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, strategic studies from the National War College and an MBA from Georgetown University.

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Liz Feirstein

Liz Feirstein is a Six Sigma Master Black Belt for Allstate Insurance Company in Northbrook, Illinois. Allstate Insurance Company is primarily a home and auto insurance provider with agents located throughout the United States. Feirstein has over 20 years of leadership experience working in both operations and call center environments. She earned her Master Black Belt certification during her career at General Electric and has been a practicing Master Black Belt for over 15 years utilizing the DMAIC, DMADV and LEAN methodologies, primarily in a service environment. In Feirstein's current role at Allstate, she both leads projects and supports other Black Belts across the business including: Technology, Finance, Operations, Call Centers, Accounting and Print Centers. Additionally, in her role as Master Black Belt, Feirstein supports ongoing development and strategy for the Six Sigma COE and provides ongoing enrichment training to the Black Belt community.

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Mark Fendley

Mark Fendley is the Continuous Improvement Manager for BMW Manufacturing in South Carolina. BMW Manufacturing is a subsidiary of BMW AG and the sole global production site for the BMW X5, X6, and X3 vehicles. Fendley has more than 20 years of manufacturing management experience and 17 years of manufacturing and continuous improvement leadership experience in the Japanese and German automotive industry. In his capacity as Continuous Improvement Manager, Fendley is responsible for the Lean Six Sigma, Kaizen and Associate Involvement initiatives at BMW Manufacturing. He leads a team of LSS Master Black Belts, Black Belts and Kaizen Facilitators in an in-house consulting structure that educates and trains the BMW campus in continuous improvement tools and methodologies, and leads LSS projects, Kaizen and Lean transformations. Under his leadership, the continuous improvement training and project support has been expanded to include other BMW divisions, suppliers and dealers.

Mark received his bachelor’s degree in Industrial Management from the Georgia Institute of Technology and is a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt since 2004 and a certified Kaizen Facilitator since 1991.

 

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Diane Francisco

Dr. Diane Francisco joined Covance six years ago in Madison, Wisconsin, where she led the Validation team in the Bioanalytical Chemistry group and was responsible for validating bioanalytical methods and supporting pharmacokinetic (PK) and toxicokinetic (TK) studies. Given her success with this team, she was soon asked to lead the Bioanalytical Operations teams. After completing her Master Black Belt training in 2007, Dr. Francisco accepted a position as Associate Director, Master Black Belt, for Early Development. During her tenure in the Process Excellence group, Dr. Francisco introduced both Lean and Design methodologies, making the process improvement initiative more flexible in solving process problems. Her leadership in driving Process Excellence includes advising more than 100 projects that resulted in savings of more than $8 million for Covance.

Prior to Covance, Dr. Francisco held operational and quality leadership positions at Third Wave Technologies, a medical device company, and at Pharmaceutical Product Development Inc. (PPD), as a leader in their early drug development business and bioanalytical departments. Dr. Francisco holds a doctorate in analytical chemistry from Purdue University and Master Black Belt certification from SSA & Company.

In her current role as Director of Client Solutions at Covance, Dr. Francisco is responsible for partnering across Covance and with their clients to deliver meaningful improvements in Commercial and Operational integration that impact cost, quality and delivery.

Dr. Francisco serves on the advisory board for Six Sigma IQ. She is an active speaker at IQPC summits and judge for the global Process Excellence Awards.

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Rowan Gibson

Rowan Gibson is a global business strategist, a bestselling author and an expert on radical innovation. His last book Rethinking The Future (Nicholas Brealey Publishing) is an international best-seller, published in over 20 languages, which has sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide.

Over the last two decades, Gibson's international clients have included some of the world’s largest and most successful organizations. He teaches them how to seize new growth opportunities, create new markets and even transform industries by recalibrating their whole organizational system around the paradigm of innovation.

Gibson is a popular keynote speaker with an upbeat presentation style. His big-picture insights, compelling observations and fresh business thinking have impressed a wide range of audiences in countless countries. He mixes insight, inspiration and information in a way that always leaves an audience feeling energized.

Gibson's books, articles, interviews and columns have been widely read around the globe. He has been interviewed extensively on television and radio, as well as in the international press. He has also appeared in several business documentaries.

Gibson’s new book Innovation to the Core has been published in March 2008 by Harvard Business School Press. Co-authored with Peter Skarzynski (CEO of Strategos, the consulting firm founded by renowned strategy guru Gary Hamel). The book explains how to build and sustain a company-wide innovation capability.

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Mark Graban

Mark Graban is a Senior Fellow with the Lean Enterprise Institute in Cambridge, MA, where he focuses on education about Lean in healthcare and further promotion of the methodology.

Previously, Mark was a Senior Lean Consultant with ValuMetrix Services, part of Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics and Johnson & Johnson. In that role, Mark worked with hospital clients throughout North America and in the United Kingdom, training employees, executives, and clinicians in Lean concepts and coaching project teams in implementing Lean methods and management systems. He is also a popular speaker and lecturer for healthcare audiences.

Mark earned a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Northwestern University. He later earned dual master's degrees in mechanical engineering and business administration from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and its Leaders for Manufacturing Program.

Before moving into healthcare, Mark implemented Lean in varied manufacturing industries, including automotive, computers, and industrial controls. He is the founder of the LeanBlog website (www.leanblog.org) and has written articles for publications including the Society of Manufacturing Engineers Lean Yearbooks, LABMedicine, and the Society for Health Systems newsletter.

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Megan James

Megan James is primarily responsible for the content and development of both European and North American Lean Six Sigma and Process Excellence Summits. Her role includes primary research, program development, speaker selection and event execution for a senior level business executive and process improvement audience. Having worked on the strategic development of IQPC's large scale Lean Six Sigma events for the last three years and with constant contact with both practitioners and solutions providers, she has experience with a broad range of both industries and topics and is the constant point of contact linking both IQ content and the companies' events.

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Vanessa Lovatt

Vanessa Lovatt is responsible for the ongoing development of content, format and strategic direction of IQPC's Lean, Six Sigma and Process Excellence event portfolio in Europe and most of North America.

Lovatt's core role is to enable the development of current Lean, Six Sigma and Process Excellence practitioners and their programs as well as collaboration with quality solution providers. To provide the ideal platforms for this Lovatt drives the development, consistency, quality control and innovation of the event portfolio.

Having joined IQPC in March 2005, Lovatt has developed from the position of individual event director to managing the full team.

Prior to joining IQPC, Lovatt worked in fashion retail including positions at Whistles, Browns, Matches and Earl Jean, and qualified with a BSc (Hons) in physiology from the University of Bristol.

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JD Rapp

JD Rapp is Vice President of BPM and Management Excellence at Whirlpool Corporation. Primarily a finance professional, he has held a variety of roles at Whirlpool including industrial engineering, operations, and innovation as well as leading Whirlpool's Lean Sigma program. Rapp achieved Master Black Belt certification in 1999. He has served four consecutive years as a judge at IQPC's Six Sigma Summit awards.

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