Paula Hemdal has over 20+ years of global pharmaceutical experience (US, Europe and China/Japan) and has worked for various divisions, such as Clinical Development, Quality Assurance, Human Resources and Marketing. She has first-hand leadership experience across all the key areas of Clinical Development, starting with Investigational Site management and monitoring, protocol writing, data management and statistics, and leading departments of international Clinical Research Associates, Project Managers, and Quality Experts. She has developed training programs for CRAs, Project Managers, Medical Scientific Liaisons, and developed corporate-wide training programs and learning strategies.
Paula began her biopharmaceutical career while obtaining her Ph.D. in Psychology Research Design from Adelphi University, in New York. During her doctorate, Paula worked for the New York University Medical Center with a team of renowned Clinical Researchers in the field of Alzheimer’s Disease, Schizophrenia and Depression. She then moved into industry, starting with Rhône-Poulenc (now Sanofi), and then Pfizer in New York City. Wanting to gain more international experience, Paula moved to Belgium for UCB, to help design and implement their first global clinical trial. Paula continued working with UCB in various key roles where she helped develop UCB’s Quality Assurance Competency and Career Ladder, developed the templates for Target Product Profile and Clinical Development Plan and a Decision Point and Milestone Framework, implemented a MSL training program and developed and implemented corporate-wide GxP training programs. Having experienced 3 major mergers in her career, Paula provides first-hand experience in change management and strategy building and developing large-scale re-training programs to ensure staff acquire the competencies needed in an ever-changing biotech environment. Switching career goals and expectations towards “giving back”, Paula is now an enthusiastic and inspiring independent Freelance Training Facilitator.
