Company Leadership

Management Team

The management team at KIKA is a group comprised of business, technology, and healthcare professionals focused on leading the company, assuring the best customer experience, and delivering the highest quality products and services.

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Linda Beneze

Chief Executive Officer

Ms. Beneze has more than 25 years of experience in the clinical healthcare and research community. She last served as Vice President of Sales and Client Services at PHT, the leader in Patient Reported Outcome Solutions. She also had responsibility for Marketing and Production Services at different times in her tenure with PHT. Prior to joining PHT, Ms. Beneze was Executive Director of Channel Management with Phase Forward, where she was responsible for CRO and SMO partnerships and management of the West Coast Sales team. At one point, she was responsible for 35% of the company’s sales.

Prior to working in the EDC space, Ms. Beneze was Director of Sales with Bard Vascular Systems, a division of C.R. Bard, Inc. As a member of the Bard Management Board, she was responsible for all sales and marketing communications for this $70-million division. Ms. Beneze spent 15 years in the medical device and critical care hardware arena at several divisions of C.R. Bard, in senior sales and marketing management positions. Throughout her career, Ms. Beneze has earned numerous Sales and Marketing Achievement awards. Ms. Beneze holds a B.S. in Business Management from the University of Maryland, College Park

Zaher El-Assi

Vice President, Global Sales and Strategic Partnerships

Mr. El-Assi is an entrepreneurial professional with over 12 years experience in various areas of the healthcare, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. At KIKA he is responsible for developing global strategic accounts with customers and partners. Prior to joining KIKA, Mr. El-Assi headed financial planning, strategic sourcing and project management for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Previously he was Director of Information Technology and Product Planning at Predix Pharmaceutical.

As a Senior Manager with Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Mr. El-Assi contributed to the launch of Millennium's flagship compound VELCADE. Mr. El-Assi also established and launched the Longwood Radiation Oncology Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Brigitte Simonin

Senior Director, Finance, H&R and Administration

Ms. Simonin has more than 20 years of experience in the Finance and Audit areas in the medical industry. She joined KIKA in 2003. Previously she was a Finance Director at Tyco. Ms. Simonin also served as Finance Director at several public and privately held companies such as Mallinckrodt & Nellcor Puritan Bennett. Ms. Simonin holds a CPA and an auditor degree from the University of Nancy.

Sheila Gallagher

Manager, Global Professional Services

Ms Gallagher comes to KIKA with over 15 years of Project Management experience. Previously she was a Senior Project Manager at PHT Corporation, where she led cross functional teams in developing and deploying eDiaries for international clinical trials. Before working in the eClinical field, Ms Gallagher worked as Project and Account Manager in the Ethics and Compliance eLearning industry. She specialized in working with global companies to deploy and implement multi-language and multi-cultural curriculums to meet client training requirements.

 Ms Gallagher has a BS degree from the University of Massachusetts and is PMP Certified.

Guido Bianchi

Director Research & Development

Mr. Bianchi joined KIKA in 2007 and has a broad background in software implementation and project management. Prior to KIKA, Mr. Bianchi served for ten years in the supply chain and the information technology services industries. Mr. Bianchi led several enterprise-wide line-of-business system implementations, with diverse experience in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Business Intelligence (BI) and eBusiness solutions.

Mr. Bianchi holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Buenos Aires.

Katarina Gambarov

Director Professional Services Operations

Katerina (Katia) Gambarov has more than 10 years of experience in creating and implementing processes to successfully guide sponsors through clinical trials. Prior to joining KIKA Ms. Gambarov was Senior Manager of EDC Operations at ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where she helped plan and implement the adoption of EDC. She designed, built and maintained clinical trials in-house. Her responsibilities also included creating specifications for new trials and changes to existing trials, managing vendor and consulting relationships, and developing documentation.

Board of Directors