Steve Engdahl

Thought Leadership Roundtables

Interactive Roundtables: Candid Conversations with Industry Peers

Step away from the stage and into meaningful dialogue during our roundtable sessions. These small-group discussions are designed to foster open exchange, peer-to-peer learning, and practical problem-solving around the topics that matter most to you. Whether you're looking to benchmark strategies, explore new approaches, or gain fresh perspective from fellow supply chain leaders, this is your chance to ask questions, share challenges, and walk away with insights you can immediately apply.

Roundtable #1: Topic TBA

Emilio Frattaruolo, Vice President, Cell & Gene Therapies,, CSafe

Roundtable #2: Topic TBA

Steve Engdahl, VP of Product, Systech

Roundtable #3: Reshaping Pharmaceutical Value Chains with Celonis

Manik Sharma, Head of Supply Chain GTM AI, Celonis

Driving smart, efficient and connected Value chains for the modern enterprise. Leveraging process intelligence, material insights, and Agentic AI to manage and optimize productivity and growth for operations.

Roundtable #4: Enabling the modal shift: Why forward-thinking pharma leaders are turning to next-gen sail freight

Audrey Philippot-Dahan, Head of US, VELA

David Egan, Lead, US Transportation and Customs Operations, Takeda

Jessica Vieira, PhD, Head of Value Chain Sustainability, Takeda

Pharmaceutical companies are setting ambitious targets to reduce their environmental footprint and are exploring ways to shift freight to more sustainable modes of transportation without compromising business needs. In this workshop, learn how an industry-leader like Takeda is using a new sail freight service, offered by VELA—an innovative and intermediary freight service. VELA offers pharmaceutical cold-chain shipments with faster delivery than traditional sea freight and 99% fewer emissions compared to air, by leveraging wind power on the transatlantic route. This workshop will showcase how the broader healthcare ecosystem can collectively embrace innovations to drastically reduce the sector's transportation emissions.

Roundtable #5: Defining and Implementing a Sustainable Pharmaceutical Cold Chain

David P. Walsh is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Intelsius

Roundtable #6: Lane Risk Assessments as Strategic Enabler: Driving Risk Reduction and Cost Optimization

Aditi Gupta, Director, Logistics Design & Innovation, Pfizer

Natalie Niers, Chief Customer Officer, Validaide

Roberto Paradis, Senior Business Development Manager, Validaide

Mark Everitt, Associate Director Logistics Qualification Engineer, AstraZeneca

Many pharma companies are still early in their digital maturity journey, managing lanes as isolated, manual tasks rather than an integrated decision-making tool. This limits their ability to anticipate risks, optimize costs, and prevent avoidable product loss.In this roundtable, we’ll explore how leading manufacturers, like Pfizer and AstraZeneca are moving up the digital maturity curve by embedding LRAs into their broader supply chain strategy. Join us to learn from your peers how digital LRAs can reduce excursions, out-of-stocks, and investigation times — and ultimately unlock new levels of agility, resilience, and performance.

Roundtable #7: Cold Chain Solution Equivalency Best Practices

Frank Butch, Director of Cold Chain Solutions, Veritiv

 As the demand for temperature-sensitive products grows, so does the pressure to ensure compliant, cost-effective, and sustainable cold chain packaging solutions. However, there is no one-size-fits-all approach—and often, organizations are faced with the challenge of comparing or substituting cold chain packaging solutions across global markets, logistics partners, or internal business units. This roundtable will explore the concept of solution equivalency—where different packaging systems are validated to perform to the same thermal and regulatory standards—even when the components or configurations vary.

Roundtable #8: Hosted by Haversack

Moderator TBA