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Spotlight Series: Greater Boston Region Spotlight
June 29, 2022 @ 9:00 am - 11:00 am
As MassEcon focuses on marketing Massachusetts beyond its borders, we invite you to this Spotlight Series discussion. Join us for:
- High-level snapshot of industry trends in the area
- Interactive Roundtable Discussion: Why Greater Boston works as a business location
Moderator: Paul Bauer, Partner, Bowditch
Paul is an attorney at Bowditch where he represents businesses and individuals in transactional matters with an emphasis on real estate and commercial law, representing developers, mortgage lenders, tenants and property owners in a wide variety of industries in complex development, acquisition, financing, and leasing transactions. He works with developers, investors, and property end users to negotiate and structure real estate-based projects, and has also advised clients on multiple party mixed-use and affordable housing projects. Paul serves as the Chair of the Advisory Board for the Entrepreneurial Innovation Center at Framingham State University where he advises the Center on its program helping entrepreneurs develop their ideas and small businesses. He holds a JD from George Washington University.
Panelists:
Raquel Mura, Head, R&D North America, Sanofi
Raquel Mura is Head of R&D North America, Global R&D Operations at Sanofi. In this role, she provides strategic and operational leadership to deliver an industry-leading environment for R&D teams in North America to maximize the value of the pipeline and bring transformative drugs with pace to patients. Raquel joined Sanofi in 2015 and previously held a variety of roles globally with Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis, Pfizer and Reckitt Benckiser. A passionate advocate for purpose driven and inclusive leadership, she has led strategy and operations teams across different regions in regulatory and innovation functions and drove transformation initiatives including integration of business assets, change management and implementation of best-in-class industry capabilities. She is currently Executive Sponsor of the Sanofi R&D NA D&I Working Group and a member of the HBA Gender Parity Collaborative, an award-winning consortium of healthcare and life-sciences companies dedicated to accelerating gender parity and diversity.
Midori Morikawa, Deputy Chief of Economic Opportunity & Inclusion
As Deputy Chief of Economic Development, Midori focuses on making Boston an appealing and accessible place for working families, entrepreneurs, businesses, and investors to innovate, grow, and thrive in a way that fosters inclusion, broadens opportunity, and shares prosperity, thereby enhancing the quality of life for all Bostonians and the experience for all visitors. Last year, Midori served as the Interim Chief of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion. Prior to that, Midori served for three years as the Director of Business Strategy charged with attracting new businesses, retaining and growing existing businesses, and engaging the Boston business community to strengthen Boston’s workforce for growth as a place to do business in the national and international markets. She also leads strategies to enhance emerging industries, including exploring workforce development opportunities for talent pipeline development and retention in response to business community needs.
Laurie Flynn, Senior Consultant, Beacon Hill Legal
Laurie Flynn is a Senior Consultant within Beacon Hill Legal. She brings more than thirty years of legal placement experience to the firm, and specializes in the placement of attorneys, including partners, associates, in-house counsels, and general counsels. Prior to Beacon Hill, Ms. Flynn led the attorney and paralegal search division of a prestigious national legal recruiting firm and spent 13 years as the Director of Recruiting and Professional Development for one of Boston’s top law firms. She has been a frequent guest speaker at Harvard Law School as well as the annual conference of the National Association for Law Placement, and held leadership roles in both the Association of Boston Legal Recruitment Administrators and Boston Law Firm Group, a professional organization that focused on attracting diversity attorneys to the City of Boston.
Tucker White, Northeast Regional Manager, Insight & Innovation, Avison Young
Tucker White serves as the Northeast Lead for the Innovation & Insight group at Avison Young and has 10 years of commercial real estate experience, most of which has been based in Boston. Prior to joining Avison Young in January, Tucker was a Research Director at Hunneman Real Estate for two years after serving as a Senior Research Analyst back at Avison Young for six years. He specializes in tracking the supply and demand of office, lab, industrial, flex and multifamily space throughout the Northeast, with a focus on the life science sector. Tucker also has experience in forecasting real estate market trends as it relates to lab and biomanufacturing space in the Greater Boston area.
Kyle Arace, Senior Engineering Manager, General Dynamics
Kyle started his career with General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems in 2005 as a software engineer working on Strategic Systems Fleet Ballistic Missile programs. Kyle spent six years in the Pittsfield office before departing the area and starting a new chapter at Bluefin Robotics in Quincy. During his initial years at Bluefin Robotics, Kyle was responsible for technical leadership and software development on the Knifefish Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) program. Within a couple years Kyle ascended to the role of Software Technical Manager. Upon acquisition of Bluefin Robotics by General Dynamics Mission Systems in 2016, he became the Senior Engineering Manager of the Bluefin Robotics Engineering department. In his role, Kyle manages all day-to-day operations of the engineering department as well as hiring, strategic planning and execution of technical roadmaps and aggressive new product developments.
Donald Baldini, Senior Public Affairs Officer and Senior Counsel, Liberty Mutual
Don received his undergraduate degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and his J.D. from Suffolk University Law School in Boston, Massachusetts. Don joined Liberty Mutual after serving as Vice President and Director of Government Affairs at One Beacon Insurance Company. Don began his career at the Massachusetts State House working in the office of the Minority Leader. After law school, he moved to the Division of Insurance where he served as Legislative Counsel, Office of the General Counsel. Thereafter, Don represented the Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) on Beacon Hill in Boston. He also served as Assistant Vice President, State Affairs (Northeast Region) for the American Insurance Association (AIA).
Agenda:
- 8:30 am: Registration
- 9 am: Welcome and Introductions
- 9:10 am: An Economic Overview of Greater Boston: Trends, Advantages, Competition
- 9:45 am: Moderated Panel Discussion: What are the competitive Advantages of the Greater Boston region as a location for businesses
- 10:30 am: Audience Q&A
- 10:55 am: Wrap-up Remarks
- 11:00 am: Event Close