Momentum Consulting

Valerie B. Palmieri

Principal/Founder
Momentum Consulting

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VALERIE B. PALMIERI, CEO of MOMENTUM Consulting, is an experienced executive leader of high growth disruptive Public and Private Biotech companies serving as Chairwoman, Board Member, CEO/President, Senior Executive and Consulting Principal with oversight for multiple locations, 1,000 + employees, including sales, marketing, customer retention, operations, research, compliance, quality assurance and finance. She has a specific focus in women’s health and FemTech serving as an advisor and board member to various women’s health and novel disruptive technology organizations.

Prior positions include Executive Chair of Aspira Women’s Health, CEO/President of Aspira Women’s Health, COO of Aspira Women’s Health, CEO/President of Diagnocure, Senior Vice President of Operations at Laboratory Corporation of America and DIANON Systems, Inc.

Ms. Palmieri possesses expertise in both large scale and start-up executive and operational management. Her skills include strategic business planning, commercialization of products, mergers and acquisitions, productivity, developing and maintaining client-focused partnerships, customer retention, supply chain management/logistics, operations, research, compliance, quality assurance and finance.

Ms. Palmieri received her BS degree in Medical Technology with honors from Western Connecticut State University, Mini MBA from Elon University, Certificate in Digital Health and Strategy from Columbia Business School Executive Education, Certificate in Corporate Governance from Stanford Directors College, Certificate in Corporate Governance from The Wharton School – University of Pennsylvania. She currently resides in Monroe, Connecticut with her family.

Laura A. Miller

Executive Coaching, Operational Excellence, Business Transformation, Strategic Guidance, M&A, Sales, Marketing

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A consultant with Momentum, Laura A. Miller has over twenty years of experience in urgent care, diagnostics, and anatomic pathology laboratory industries. She has served in numerous leadership positions for sales, operations, and executive capacities for urgent care, occupational medicine, laboratory service, cancer diagnostics, and capital equipment organizations. C-Suite Executive who positions organizations for growth in revenue, margins, and profitability by driving alignment to vision, mission, and purpose, and creating processes and operations that guarantee repeatable and sustainable results. Competencies include: Strategic Planning, Roadmaps, Multi-site Operations, P&L Management, Contract Negotiations, Healthcare Business Transformation, Organizational Design and Redesign, Sales Excellence, Operations, and Enablement, Customer Experience (CX), DTC, B2C, and B2B, Data Analytics, KPIs, C-Suite, Board and Investor Relations, M&A, Due Diligence and Integration, Building and Transforming Executive Teams.

She leverages a unique approach to leadership founded on a military career and validated through creation of empowered, engaged, and high-performing teams.

Ms. Miller began her sales leadership career at Ventana Medical Systems, Inc. and continued in senior sales leadership capacities at US Labs and DIANON Systems as General Manager and Director of Sales. She later became the General Manager and Senior Vice President of Pathology Solutions with PLUS Diagnostics. She served as the President – Pathology Service Division, Global Sales & Marketing for Laboratory and Urology Divisions for HealthTronics. Additionally, she was the Senior Vice President of Sales and Customer Experience at ASPIRA Laboratories.

Recently, Ms. Miller served as the CEO of SouthStar Urgent Care. Ms. Miller is also a certified Gallup CliftonStrengths Coach and provides executive coaching. Prior to entering diagnostics, Ms. Miller served in the U.S. Army, where she achieved the rank of Captain – Military Intelligence.

Marilyn Owens, PhD, MBA

Operations
Quality Assurance
Regulatory
Scientific Due Diligence

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A consultant with MOMENTUM, Dr. Owens is a senior healthcare executive with extensive management experience leading clinical and surgical pathology reference laboratories, including clinical trial studies. Dr. Owens has a broad scientific background in anatomic and hematopathology, immunology, infectious disease, molecular oncology, and genetics and has held COO and SVP positions at national reference laboratories, including Knight Diagnostic Laboratories at Oregon Health & Science University, Caris Life Sciences, Genzyme Genetics/ IMPATH and Nichols Institute.

Her responsibilities included managing operating budgets up to $50MM, extensive experience in CLIA/CAP laboratory operations in startup, turnaround, and translational growth, business strategy development and implementation, operational efficiencies across multiple locations, management team development and successor planning. Her expertise spans startups, M&A and strategic planning.

Dr. Owens received her Ph.D in Medical Microbiology and Immunology (emphasis Tumor Immunology) at UCLA, her M.B.A.in Management and Strategy at Pepperdine University, and B.S., M.S in Microbiology (emphasis Microbial Genetics) at Long Beach State University. She resides in Wyoming with her family.

Jill S. Steier

Strategic guidance, Mergers and Acquisition Support, Due Diligence, Financial Assessments

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A consultant with MOMENTUM Consulting, Ms. Steier has extensive background in raising capital and advising on Mergers & Acquisition transactions and licensing and strategic partnerships. Ms. Steier has over 20 years of Investment Banking and Capital Markets experience, with a focus on the healthcare industry.

Most recently, Ms. Steier was a Managing Director in the Healthcare Investment Banking group at Morgan Joseph TriArtisan where she focused on the Diagnostics, Genomics and Personalized Medicine sectors. Prior to that, Ms. Steier was with Emerging Growth Equities, a boutique Investment Banking firm located in Philadelphia, PA. Throughout her career, Ms. Steier has worked with both start-up, small-cap and mid-cap companies.

Ms. Steier graduated from Emory University with a BA in Economics and attended The London School of Economics studying International Finance.

Randy Stephens

Operations and Six Sigma

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A consultant with MOMENTUM, Mr. Stephens has over twenty plus years in this field of Histology. Mr. Stephens has been an early adopter of strategies that capitalize on emerging pathology markets. A Six Sigma Green Belt he works at the intersection of business strategy, patient safety, process improvement and employee advocacy. He regularly advises major healthcare institutions on improvement opportunities using Lean/Six sigma. He is a frequent speaker at state and national histotechnology symposia and has two patents pending in informatics pathology.

Mr. Stephens currently resides in Arizona as well as Texas.

Pat Carpenter

Laboratory Operations
Cost Management
Interim Management
Logistics and Supply Chain

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A Consultant with MOMENTUM, Mr. Carpenter has extensive experience in operational aspects of laboratories. With over thirty years of experience in laboratories ranging from toxicology, anatomic, clinical, molecular, IVD, R&D, and veterinary he can combine the business aspects with the science to provide customers lean operations while not sacrificing quality.

Pat Carpenter is board certified by the American Society of Clinical Pathology, was a Responsible Person (RP) by the National Laboratory Certification Program (NLCP), both a FUDT and Clinical Laboratory Inspector for American Society of Clinical Pathologists and a LEAN 6 Sigma trained Green Belt.

He has acquired his vast knowledge in both small laboratories and among the largest labs in the country. He has held Director, GM and VP of Operations roles at Quest, LabCorp, DIANON, Miraca Life Sciences, AML/APL, Plus Diagnostics, Maryland Medical, US Air Force Drug Testing Laboratory, Aspira Women’s Health, and VCA/Antech.

Mr. Carpenter holds a BS in Business and Management from University of Maryland, a MA in Health Services Management from Webster University, and a MS in Biomedical Chemistry from Thomas Jefferson University. He is also a retired Air Force Colonel. He currently resides in New Hampshire with his family.

Bill Standwill

Diagnostics, Medical Device, Precision Medicine
Market Assessments and Strategy
Demand Generation and Brand Awareness
Commercial Diagnostic Development

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Associate Consultant, Mr. Standwill brings over 20 years industry experience in diagnostics and medical device. He held executive leadership positions for Sherlock Bio, Exact Sciences, T2 Bio and Leica Biosystems Danaher. His experience includes global markets, commercial channels, strategy and access levers for geographic expansion and shortened timelines.

Bill is a Danaher trained, tech savvy senior executive with transformative impact success adding immediate value to strategy, sales, marketing, productization and business development to support commercial milestones and corporate growth.

He earned his degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology and currently sits on the Executive Advisory Board for RIT FRAM Applied Critical Thinking.

Carlos Maria Galmarini, MD

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Carlos María Galmarini is Topazium’s founder and CEO since 2019. He earned his Medical Degree from the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina), after which he completed an internship in clinical oncology at Marie Curie Cancer Center (Buenos Aires). He pursued two post-doctoral fellowships in oncology at Los Angeles City of Hope Cancer Center (USA) and at Léon Bérard Cancer Center (Lyon, France). He obtained his PhD in oncology and his qualification to lead research teams (HDR) at Claude Bernard Lyon-1 University (Lyon, France). Carlos María practiced medicine both at the Marie Curie and Carlos G. Durand Hospitals in Buenos Aires for several years. He has also held positions as a medical researcher in oncology at Lyon Rockefeller Medical School and in Lyon-Sud Medical School (France), where he was appointed Associate Professor. In 2008 he joined PharmaMar (Madrid, Spain) as Head of Cell Biology and Pharmacogenomics, where he was in charge of drug screening, biochemistry, molecular biology and pharmacogenomics areas. He has authored over 130 publications across leading international scientific journals. In recent years, he devoted his research to the application of artificial intelligence in healthcare, molecular biology and other related-medical fields, particularly, in the generation of diagnostic assistance tools (dermatological, ophthalmological, radiological and digital pathology areas) and predictive tools (virtual biomarkers and synthetic patients).

Dan Olivier

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Dan is an acknowledged expert in the field of medical device and pharmaceutical system validation and safety risk management with over thirty years experience. He has supported over a hundred medical device and pharmaceutical companies in addressing regulatory issues and defining process improvement activities to enhance quality and productivity.

Dan has been contracted by FDA to provide training for field investigators and to prepare inputs for FDA validation guidance documents. A frequent speaker at professional conferences and author of several seminars he has published over twenty articles on software validation, safety risk management, and design controls to meet FDA and ISO requirements.

Dan's focus is on preparation and review of technical submissions, helping companies respond to compliance actions, and implementing state of the art design control processes.

Kim Dickinson, MD

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KIM DICKINSON, MD, a senior consultant with MOMENTUM, Kim Dickinson, MD is a consultant with MOMENTUM. Kim is a pathologist whose career spans over 30 years in anatomic, clinical, and digital pathology She has distinguished herself as a scientist, clinician, and medical professional, advancing the highest quality in the delivery of patient care and clinical research.

Kim has held roles with Oncocyte as the Vice President of Clinical Operations, Biocare Medical LLC as the Vice President of R&D and Chief Pathologist, and Roche Tissue Diagnostics as the Vice President of Clinical Operations. Her most recent role was Medical Director at Freenome. She has delivered the highest quality results in these roles, leading collaborative partnerships across multi-functional teams. Additionally, she has served as Medical Director of the Clinical Trials Division and Medical Director for Esoteric Testing with the Laboratory Corporation of America.

Supporting this experience, Kim has served as the Medical Director with Quest Diagnostics, Medical Director at Citrus Valley Medical Center, and Staff Pathologist at Pioneer Hospital.

Kim holds her Doctor of Medicine from Hahnemann University (Drexel University), an MBA from the University of California, MPH from UCLA, and her Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from the University of Pittsburgh. She is licensed in the State of California and board certified by the American Board of Pathology, Anatomic & Clinical Pathology. She currently resides in Homer, Alaska with her rescue dog, Siegfried.

Gary Kenney

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Gary Kenney is an associate consultant at MOMENTUM, where he brings extensive experience in revenue cycle management in laboratory settings. Prior to joining the company, he held leadership positions at IMPATH and Genzyme Genetics. Currently, he is a subject matter expert in governmental and commercial billing rules and regulations and has worked with several billing platforms.

Gary's consulting work includes advising US labs, Response Genetics Lab, Performance Labs, AEL, and more. He has experience working with start-ups and performing revenue cycle due diligence for acquisitions, Chargemaster reviews, and system transitions.

Gary holds a master’s degree in healthcare finance from Long Island University, New York. He currently resides in Oklahoma City with his family.

George Pounds

Quality Assurance
Regulatory
Lean/Six Sigma Master Black Belt
ISO 9000
Operations

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George Pounds has over 30 years of experience in the domestic and international clinical/anatomic/clinical trial reference laboratory industries. He has proven expertise in the areas of laboratory operations leadership and quality management systems. He is a trained and experienced CAP and ISO quality system auditor. As a senior executive, he has managed multiple laboratories that include national reference labs, hospital labs, regional reference labs, as well as an FDA cleared molecular oncology lab. As a project leader consultant, he has developed a system for standardizing and consolidating policies, procedures and practices to reduce/eliminate redundancy and errors, while improving patient service. This includes implementing Quality Management Systems within several small and large hospital laboratory systems.

His achievements include a project leader, who successfully achieved ISO 9001 certification for operations and research at a major Quest esoteric laboratory (first in North America). This standard quality management system was then replicated at several other major laboratory facilities, both domestic and international (US, UK and Mexico). As a Lean/Six Sigma Master Black Belt, he led a group of Lean/Six Sigma Black/Green Belts that produced over $12MM of cost savings and reduced defects and errors by an average of 80% over 2 years. He also designed and implemented a laboratory-wide process improvement initiative that resulted in a 75% decrease in reporting errors and reduced report delays by 50% over a 4 year period.

He has been the lead CAP auditor of several hospital-based laboratories that resulted in detailed corrective action plans that resulted in 100% compliance over an 8 month period. He has co-authored several published articles and co-authored a CAP book chapter on Quality Systems. George Pounds has an MBA, BS degree in Microbiology, is a Clinical Laboratory Scientist and a Master Black Belt.

Chris Henry

Laboratory Information Systems
Software & Systems Architecture
Digital Pathology & AI/ML Integration
Technology Assessment
Cloud Platform Architecture

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CHRIS HENRY, Senior Consultant for MOMENTUM, is an experienced technology leader with over twenty years of experience architecting enterprise platforms for healthcare and life sciences organizations. He has held senior technology and IT leadership roles in numerous organizations and has expertise spanning laboratory information systems, AI-powered digital pathology, cloud-native platform development, and cross-functional engineering leadership. His experience includes evaluating laboratory technology infrastructure, assessing platform scalability and technical debt, and providing strategic recommendations for technology modernization and operational improvement.

Prior positions include Senior Director of Platform Technology at Epic Sciences, Director of IT Diagnostics at Biotheranostics (a Hologic Company), Leader of the Laboratory Information Systems Center of Excellence at Clarient (a GE Healthcare Company) and IS Director of Anatomic Pathology at US LABS (a LabCorp Company).

Mr. Henry received his Master of Science degree in Computer Science with Distinction from National University and his Bachelor of Science degree in Software Engineering Technology from Oregon Institute of Technology, and currently resides in San Diego, California.

Mary Ann Smith

Regulatory Strategy
Quality Management Systems
Digital Health & AI/ML Diagnostics
Policy Analysis & Advocacy

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Mary Ann Smith is an associate consultant with MOMENTUM. Mary Ann has held increasing regulatory, quality and clinical roles in global corporations and innovative startups, including Novartis, Nektar Therapeutics, ACD/Bio-Techne, Freenome, and Chronus Health, as well as, consulting engagements with early-stage companies, non-profit device developers, and investors. She is a recognized thought leader, university lecturer, and mentor, with contributions to professional associations, industry panels, and regulatory science forums.

Mary Ann provides direct counsel to clients navigating the most challenging areas of healthcare regulation. Her expertise includes: Global regulatory strategy for FDA and international pathways particularly for complex products and products in advance of regulation; Laboratory Developed Tests (LDTs) and Research Use Only (RUO) product compliance; Quality management systems aligned with 21 CFR § 820, ISO 13485, ISO 15189, and good clinical laboratory practices focused on CAP and CLIA integration; Regulatory Health Authority engagement with successful market authorization submissions, Health Authority meeting preparation and conduct, and responses to inquiries and audit findings; Digital health and AI/ML enabled diagnostics, including Software as a Medical Device (SaMD), Software in a Medical Device (SiMD) and advanced laboratory technologies; Policy analysis and advocacy, integrating regulatory changes into organizational and investment strategies while providing company direct and trade association policy responses and feedback.

She holds a Master of Science in Technology Management from Pepperdine University and a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from Purdue University. She is a Registered Pharmacist. Mary Ann resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Mehrnaz Forough

Flow Cytometry
Quality Assurance
Regulatory Affairs
Laboratory Operations

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Mehrnaz Forough is an associate consultant for Momentum. Her foundational education, combined with certification from ASCP and NCA, has supported a 35+ year career in high-complexity laboratories across clinical, oncology, hospital, reference, and research settings. Proven leader in flow cytometry, quality assurance, regulatory affairs, and laboratory operations. Held senior roles at Labcorp, Quest Diagnostics and Kaiser Permanente. Expert in CAP/CLIA compliance, staff training, and laboratory inspections, with a strong record of excellence in both pediatric and adult care environments. Proven track record in managing high-complexity labs, regulatory audits and R&D programs.

She earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology with a focus in Medical Technology from California State University, Northridge. She completed her Clinical Internship at School of Medical Technology at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, where she received comprehensive, hands-on training in clinical laboratory science.

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Valerie B. Palmieri

Laura A. Miller

Marilyn Owens, PhD, MBA

Jill S. Steier

Randy Stephens

Pat Carpenter

Bill Standwill

Carlos Maria Galmarini, MD

Dan Olivier

Kim Dickinson, MD

Gary Kenney

George Pounds

Chris Henry

Mary Ann Smith

Mehrnaz Forough

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Explore our Capabilities

ABOUT US

OUR HOW

PRESS

OUR CONSULTANTS

Valerie B. Palmieri

Laura A. Miller

Marilyn Owens, PhD, MBA

Jill S. Steier

Randy Stephens

Pat Carpenter

Bill Standwill

Carlos Maria Galmarini, MD

Dan Olivier

Kim Dickinson, MD

Gary Kenney

George Pounds

Chris Henry

Mary Ann Smith

Mehrnaz Forough

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