Leadership

LinkedIn: Hilda Cherekdjian

Hilda Cherekdjian has served as the Executive Director of the Society of Decision Professionals (SDP) since its founding in 2011. She works closely with the SDP Board to formulate annual strategic plans and oversees the day-to-day operations of the organization, fostering its growth and expansion. Hilda leads efforts to cultivate relationships with stakeholders and sponsors, supporting the organization's mission.

In her role, Hilda also serves as co-chair of the SDP Annual Conference Production Committee and collaborates closely with SDP chapters worldwide. She directs the educational programs, interest groups, and membership strategies to drive the society’s growth and impact.

Prior to joining SDP, Hilda served as Financial Controller at Global Infotech, a consulting firm specializing in Salesforce Development, and Enterprise IT Integration and held various positions at Roche and Hedge Tracker.

Based in Los Gatos, California, Hilda speaks five languages.

LinkedIn: Jeremy Walker

18 Years at Decision Frameworks
5 Years on the SDP Board of Directors
5 Years leading the Chapters & Outreach Council
2 ½ Years on the Certification Council

Jeremy Walker has been on the Board of Directors of SDP since 2018. He is responsible for the SDP Chapter/Outreach Council and a member of the SDP Certification Council. He was a founding member of the SDP's Houston Chapter. He has been with Decision Frameworks since 2005 where he is Vice President of Business Development, and a Consultant, with a background in business strategy development, petroleum economics, portfolio management systems, and asset acquisition and divestitures. Prior to Decision Frameworks, Mr. Walker was the President of IndigoPool, a Schlumberger company that specialized in integrated acquisition and divestiture solutions and targeted transaction support services to companies and countries engaged in acquisitions, licensing rounds, and divestitures in the petroleum sector. His previous assignments were heading up Schlumberger’s sales and marketing efforts for the Value & Risk products in Europe, Africa and the CIS based out of London. and ten years of numerous sales, marketing, and management roles as a partner in Merak Projects, a petroleum software company. Mr. Walker is a 1986 graduate of the University of Toronto, with a bachelor's degree in International Relations and Economics.

LinkedIn: Rob Arnold

Rob holds degrees in English and Law from Cambridge University and an MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Dartmouth College. He has a Diplôme from the Sorbonne University of Paris.

His work experience began in Greece for an oil company. Following business school, he joined Strategic Decisions Group in California, where he co-developed asset securitization approaches for bank loans, including the “good bank/bad bank” structures that redefined the industry, creating new categories of securities and freeing up billions of dollars of capital for more productive use. After seven years in San Francisco, Rob started SDG’s London office with others. He co-developed a solution to pharma R&D allocation, about which he co-authored an HBR article, and which became the industry gold standard, transforming how pharma thought about value and creating the environment to resource many of today’s best-selling drugs.

Rob served as CEO of SDG for six years, ultimately presiding over its sale to IMS, where he became global VP of strategy consulting, growing the business globally to $120 million and advising IMS’s board on strategy, while working with many pharma CEOs. Following PE’s acquisition of IMS, Rob moved to Singapore, where he jointly founded a life science consulting and services firm that EVERSANA ultimately acquired. After twelve years building out a multi-country Asian footprint for the business, he returned to the US.

Rob has spoken, taught, and published extensively, promoting DQ to clients as diverse as the UK Police, government wealth funds, upstream oil and gas companies, and ecotechnology companies. He has guest lectured at Tuck, INSEAD, LBS, and the
London School of Economics, among others, and keynoted pharma industry global gatherings.

LinkedIn: Mike Benefiel

BSc. Geophysical Engineering, Colorado School of Mines

Extensive global energy industry technical and leadership experience prior to joining Chevron’s DA/DQ practice in 2006. I have been very fortunate to learn from and work with Chevron’s DA/DQ founding fathers (SDP Pioneer Award recipients Brian Putt, Larry Neal & Frank Koch) as well as many other outstanding decision professionals in many parts of the world, both internal and external to Chevron. Since October 2020 I have led Chevron’s DA/DQ community. During this time, I’ve been instrumental in helping improve Chevron’s DA/DQ practice by institutionalizing the iterative, value-focused, cost-disciplined approach to DA/DQ that I co-developed, Minimum Functional Objectives (MFO).

LinkedIn: Trygve Botn

Trygve has experience as a Decision Professional from Chevron and as a consultant. He is a Fellow at SDP, director for the Society of Petroleum Engineers Management Technical Section, and is the Founder and CEO of ThinQ Decisions, an Oslo-based decision consultancy firm. Trygve has held several roles as a Decision Professional Leader, Mentor, Advisor, and Analyst in Norway, the USA, and Kazakhstan. Throughout his career, Trygve has been instrumental in applying and maturing the principles of DQ to investment decisions for oil & gas and mining developments, technology R&D, renewable energies, IT, business development and commercial investments, and corporate strategies. He has led several organizational DQ efforts and worked to enhance methodologies and practices in framing, economics and evaluations, Value of Information, and portfolio evaluations.

As a co-founder and board member of the Norwegian Society of Decision Making, he works wit other SDP and EDPN members to grow the Decision Science and DQ presence in Europe. Trygve was the chair of a committee that organized a successful DQ conference in Europe in 2022.

LinkedIn: Amy Day

As Clarity4Action.org’s Executive Director and Co-Founder, Amy Day coaches and teaches whole-person decision making to young people, and the adults who care about them, through one-on-one coaching, online and in-person group courses, and workshops. Amy holds a certification as a Decision Educator, Counselor, and Advisor through Stanford University Continuing Studies and has 20+ years experience in decision education. Amy successfully co-created a youth decision education program that paired corporate sponsorship and successful courses within businesses; it brought experienced youth decision educators alongside decision professionals to teach youth. As a community builder, Amy brings a breadth of professional experience in K-12 and adult education, nonprofit management, and fundraising through many experiences. It includes collaborations with schools, parents, and youth as a workshop instructor and parent teacher for Edmonds Heights K-12, teaching YMCA at-risk youth, educating local community groups and Youth in Philanthropy, and providing PR, Marketing and Fundraising for the Decision Education Foundation and the American Red Cross. Her vision is that by using clear, repeatable science-based frameworks and teaching, we all can support individuals, families, and groups in moving from the overwhelm of life's continuous choices to the calm found in personal understanding, decision quality, and effective action.

LinkedIn: Lan Ding

GSK, Portfolio Finance Lead

As a Lead Practitioner at the Society of Decision Professionals (SDP), Lan Ding brings extensive expertise in strategic decision analysis and portfolio optimization to the pharmaceutical industry. Her collaborative approach and facilitation skills have significantly influenced strategic drug development directions. Lan has spearheaded initiatives and developed innovative frameworks to enhance decision governance processes. These efforts enabled her to implement and champion Decision Quality (DQ) principles across a broad range of contexts, empowering organizations to make more informed and effective decisions.

Lan holds a degree of Management Science from Lancaster University (UK) and an Executive MBA from London Business School. Lan never stops learning, and always enjoys sharing knowledge and coaching others in building decision-making capabilities. Lan has served SDP Board London Chapter since 2023.

LinkedIn: Wayne Fisher

Wayne Fisher, PhD, founded Rockdale Innovation after spending 27 years as an R&D manager at Procter & Gamble. While at P&G, Wayne created a series of popular innovation workshops for all phases of new product development. He has trained thousands of managers, providing a common language and framework for innovation, fostering collaboration across P&G’s diverse business units. He served as a full-time innovation consultant and Creative Problem Solving facilitator at The GYM, an IDEO-inspired design studio that remains a key enabler of P&G’s innovation capability.

Wayne has been active in the Product Development and Management Association for over 25 years. He currently serves on PDMA's Board of Directors, responsible for Professional Development and Certification. He also chairs the Governance Committee and is a long-time member of their Outstanding Corporate Innovator award selection committee.

Wayne is a sought after trainer, speaker, and writer on the topic of innovation best practices, including two chapters for the upcoming PDMA handbook, "A Practical Guide to Facilitating a Design Thinking Workshop” and "Organizational Design for Innovation."

LinkedIn: Troy Helm

Troy Helm is a commercial property owner/manager in Seattle. He previously worked as a Principal Program Manager at Amazon Prime Video, and as a senior management consultant at Strategic Decisions Group, where his client projects included manufacturing and R&D portfolio strategy, private equity investment, and new market entry in a variety of industries. 

LinkedIn: David Matheson

With decades of portfolio and innovation management experience, David is a leader in helping executives achieve better growth results. He is the President and CEO of SmartOrg – a company he cofounded in 2000 that provides software and services to support decision making and manage uncertainty. His qualifications include a Ph.D. in organizational decision making from Stanford University, as well as being a Fellow with the Society of Decision Professionals (SDP), where he recently served as president. He is also an educator, startup advisor, public speaker and author of “The Smart Organization” from Harvard Business School Press. When off from work, David gravitates towards his passion for cycling and dark chocolate. 

LinkedIn: Peter Ray

Peter is a life sciences executive with extensive experience building internal capabilities to improve both the speed and quality of decisions. He is currently VP/Head of Portfolio Analytics at Novartis following over 15 years in senior positions at BMS, Celgene, and Alnylam. His team also provided business planning and strategic support to the Program Teams responsible for bringing Alnylam’s new therapeutics to market.

Prior to joining Alnylam, Peter worked at Celgene Corp. as Executive Director, Corporate Strategy, and at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. as VP, R&D Strategic & Operational Portfolio Management, where he built an industry-leading capability in support of R&D budget planning, portfolio prioritization, and asset strategy. He crafted the vision for and led a 40+ staff function that tightly integrated development strategy with operational requirements, improving the speed and quality of portfolio decision making. He has also worked for Strategic Decisions Group on energy and life sciences projects and Mitsubishi Corporation.

Peter received his MBA from Stanford University and BA in Government/East Asian Studies from Harvard University. He is a Fellow of the Society of Decision Professionals.