Our leadership
This is our team: a lot of hard-working people reaching new heights in clinical research.
CenExel Clinical Research
Stuart Goldblatt
Chief Executive Officer
Stuart Goldblatt brings a wealth of knowledge and an array of experiences within pharmaceutical research, and he is an accomplished and proven senior executive in life sciences with more than 30 years of experience specifically within pharmaceutical research. He has leadership responsibilities for all aspects of CenExel including the development of strategies, goals, policies, and achievement of financial goals and growth.
Prior to joining CenExel, Goldblatt was President and CEO of Cliantha Research North America. Cliantha Research is a mid-sized, full-service contract research organization (CRO) that provides comprehensive and integrated research offerings in both early and late phase studies. Prior to Cliantha, Goldblatt served as Chief of Staff, Organizational Effectiveness, reporting to the CEO of LabCorp Drug Development (Covance), where he led sales management and operational delivery improvements to exceed customer and corporate expectations via comprehensive and cross-functional strategies.
Before LabCorp/Covance, Goldblatt spent two decades at Quintiles (IQVIA) as Vice President in a variety of senior leadership roles, including Chief of Staff, Global Operations and Implementation Management, Global Integration, Head of Global Resourcing Center of Excellence, Global Strategy and Initiative Management, Head of Global Proposal Management, Head of Global Records and Information Management, and Customer Account Management. Prior to Quintiles, he helped develop and grow a large national Site Management Organization (SMO) serving clinical research.
Steve Killian
Chief Financial Officer
Steve Killian leads and contributes to highly effective healthcare organizations. He is dedicated to being a forward-thinking senior executive and committed to work efforts that allow cultivation of expertise in all aspects of operational and financial management. Steve possesses excellent financial, communication, and problem-solving skills with a team-driven focus. He’s a big picture and results-oriented, visible leader with success in building up executive teams for execution of growth strategies.
Rob Marohn
Chief Information Officer
Rob has worked in the pharmaceutical and clinical research industry for over 25 years in a variety of positions. From 2018 to 2021, he was the Director of Quality Engineering at KitePharma, a Gilead company and a front-runner in cell and gene therapy. He was QE lead on the implementation of the organization’s major quality business applications. In addition, he was the QE lead in the implementation of the organization’s research manufacturing facility and served as point contact for IT system compliance at numerous health authority inspections for Kite’s commercial and clinical divisions.
Prior to this, he was the Chief Information Officer of Worldwide Clinical Trials, a premier global clinical research organization, for eight years where he was responsible for building the company’s information systems platform at all levels. In addition, he has worked in Clarkston Consulting’s Life Science Group as a Senior Consultant for a wide variety of pharmaceutical and life science companies. Before this, Rob was the Vice President of a clinical research division of United Healthcare and Director of IT for a clinical research organization based in Atlanta. Rob has a Master’s of Science in the Management of Technology from Georgia Institute of Technology and a Master’s of Science in Information Systems & Technology from Claremont Graduate University. He has expertise on the matter of data integrity in the pharmaceutical industry and has spoken on the subject at industry conferences including publishing several articles on the topic.
Casey Orvin
Chief Commercial Officer
Casey has a long and exemplary career history in pharmaceutical research services. Most recently, he was serving as the Senior VP of Pharmaceutical Relationships at StudyKik, a full-service patient recruitment and retention technology company. Casey is also serving as the Honorary President of the Society for Clinical Research Sites (SCRS), a global organization representing nearly 10,000 clinical research sites in 47 countries within the pharmaceutical industry.
Casey began his career leading a large pharmaceutical research site network, Research Solutions. In 2007, he was recruited to join Clinical Research Advantage/Radiant as Executive Vice President of Business Development and successfully led a network of over 75 research sites conducting clinical trials for pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and medical devices. Under Casey’s leadership, several crucial partnerships were formed with major pharmaceutical companies which fueled the company’s rapid growth both geographically and within the medical community. Casey facilitated the acquisition of two competitors securing the company’s spot as what was at the time the largest clinical research site network in the US. In 2015, Casey and the executive team at Radiant merged with Synexus, a division of PPD. With Casey’s guidance, Synexus continued to expand to 215 global clinical sites in 4 continents and over 15 countries.
Casey is passionate about representing the site voice within the industry while ensuring every research patient’s journey is a positive one. As a thought leader in the industry, Casey is regularly invited to be a keynote speaker and panelist and is often quoted by the leading publications covering the clinical research landscape. In 2020, he was recognized in PharmaVoice as one of the 100 Most Inspiring People in the industry.
Casey leads the business development efforts for CenExel, now the U.S. leader of independent clinical research sites.
Andrew Birschbach
VP, Corporate Development & Strategic Finance
Andrew is a strategic finance professional with experience spanning Fortune 10 public companies to growth-stage, private-equity-backed businesses. His experience includes mergers and acquisitions, business development, operational financial modeling, budgeting, and analysis. Most recently, he was a manager of finance at Alignment Healthcare, an innovative, information-enabled Medicare Advantage company where he provided detailed operational modeling, forecast scenario analysis, analysis for new market expansion, and M&A opportunity evaluation. Prior to Alignment, he was a mergers and acquisitions Senior Associate at UnitedHealth Group’s Corporate Development & Strategy Team.
Brandy Isaacks
VP, Project Management & Scientific Affairs
Brandy has a lengthy and admirable career history of more than 20 years in clinical research project management and operations. Most recently, she was serving as the lead for all Psychiatry in the Neuroscience Division at Syneos Health. Her background also highlights working with small to mid-size pharma and biotech clients, providing strategic guidance for clinical development planning, holistic team management, and ongoing client and program support. Brandy’s training and career began with conducting structured clinical interviews, clinical ratings, and electrophysiological (ERP) assessments at clinical research sites. Her work developing and sustaining client relationships has led her project teams to positive completion of numerous Phase I – IV clinical trials, resulting in approved products for psychiatry and neurology indications.
By focusing on early engagement, clinical team support, data quality, and project delivery, Brandy has found success in her CRO and client collaborations. She was recognized by the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) as a Luminary for being a role model for women in the healthcare industry and for mentoring and building industry leaders.
Mark Trimble, SPHR
VP, Human Resources & Administration
Mark is a Human Resources Executive with 20+ years of experience in HR operations and management. Throughout his career he has provided leadership and guidance in the conceptualization, implementation, and management of HR strategies, organizations, programs, and policies. Mark has held several corporate HR leadership positions within the HR outsourcing, life sciences, and healthcare industries.
In his most recent role, prior to joining CenExel, Mark held the position of Regional Vice President of HR Operations for Oasis Outsourcing, a global leader in the Professional Employer Organization industry. In this position, Mark drove positive change through day-to-day operational and financial leadership and competitively evolved HR service offerings for clients in the healthcare and manufacturing industries.
As an HR executive with a strong business acumen, Mark has successfully implemented people-based solutions and the HR function to ensure achievement of corporate business goals. As both an HR strategist and hands-on practitioner, Mark’s areas of expertise include culture alignment and change management, employment law and regulatory compliance, compensation planning, team building, business process and policy formation, talent engagement, and HR consulting.
Mark holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from BYU and is also certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR).
Jim Volpe
VP, Operations
Jim is an entrepreneurial, innovative business leader with 20+ years of multifaceted and progressively responsible expertise in driving large-scale, visionary business transformations and integrations within pharmaceutical, financial services, and manufacturing industries. As a global project manager, he offers a blended background in operations and continuous improvement. In addition, he has a demonstrated track record of success in leveraging his MBA and GE leadership training with skills in engineering, Six Sigma, and data analytics to drive strategic cost containment, informed decision making, measurable process improvements, positive organizational change, and operational excellence.
Judy Montero, PsyD
Director, Clinical Assessments
Dr. Montero has a doctorate degree in clinical psychology with concentration in neuropsychology. Prior to entering the pharmaceutical industry in 2002, she worked in a multidisciplinary clinical setting providing psychological services and conducting neuropsychological assessments to heterogeneous populations, including assisting with the diagnosis, development, and implementation of behavioral interventions for children and adults with various disorders.
Judy started in this industry working as a rater and sub-investigator for a large South Florida network of research sites. Over nearly a decade, she participated in numerous clinical trials, developed inter-rater reliability programs and supervised the rater team. This on-site experience was invaluable in her role as a Lead Clinical Scientist with Syneos Health’s Clinical Surveillance & Training group.
During the 10 years working for this large Contract Research Organization, Judy developed rater training and data monitoring programs to ensure quality efficacy outcomes for psychiatric and neurologic studies in multiple indications, including Parkinson’s disease, Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia and mood disorders. Dr. Montero is fully bilingual in English and Spanish with extensive experience administering clinical assessments and conducting training presentations in both languages.
Faye Mitchell
Director, Patient Recruitment
Faye is an experienced customer service and operations leader with over 15 years of experience in pharmaceutical and biotech contact center operations. Innovative and results-driven, Faye’s passion is designing, implementing, and continually enhancing best-in-class contact center programs while being passionate about healthcare and the patient experience.
Prior to joining CenExel, Faye gained extensive experience implementing HCP and patient support initiatives in the medical information, commercial, and clinical divisions within Ashfield Healthcare. Most recently, Faye has successfully standardized and centralized global contact center operations to support clinical trials at a global recruitment company with over 50 therapeutic indications and 160 sites.
As the Corporate Director of Patient Recruitment at CenExel, Faye’s leadership blends industry best practices, subject matter expertise, technological innovation, and a sense of relentless determination to design and enact the ultimate patient recruitment experience.
Faye has a bachelor’s degree in Organizational Studies from Temple University. She is an active Project Management Professional.
Russ Sullivan
Director, Organizational Development & Engagement
As a strategic leader for more than two decades, Russ is passionate about helping businesses develop strong teams. With his degree from Regis University (Denver) in Organizational Development, he is adept in organizational management and has earned a reputation for being able to improve processes. As a tactical leader, he is often brought in to help “connect the dots,” and he works hard to ensure all stakeholders in an organization reach their objectives.
It is his passion to empower others to produce optimal performance results, often due to the privilege of leading others. This focus of developing others is what his passion has been for the last twenty years. It is important to him to help grow and develop leaders through focusing on leadership programs that integrate theory into the practice through the collaboration of teams working on real-life issues impacting the health and performance of their teams and sites.
Russ firmly believes everyone has a skill, gift, or talent that they bring to the table. His goal is to harness those skills and gifts, and build teams that are unstoppable.