Umay Saplakoglu
Chief Digital Officer-Enterprise, Cytiva
Umay is a Global Scientific & Technology leader with 20 + years across complex scientific products, services, and technologies throughout North America, Europe, Near East and Far East. Born in Ankara, Turkey, she graduated from Middle East Technical University in 1989 with a B.S. in Biology. She received her MS (1991) and PhD (1996) from the same university. Upon moving to the United States with her family, she pursued postdoctoral studies at the Center of Advanced Biology and Medicine, UMDNJ. There, she worked as a research assistant for two years, studying expression (mammalian, microbial, insect) and purification of two developmentally important proteins.
Umay joined GE Healthcare in 2002 as a scientific support specialist, supporting chromatography resins and downstream processing. After five years of working with the scientific support team, she moved to the Fast Trak team as a senior scientist, mainly responsible for the US Fast Trak training program. Soon after, Umay took over the role of US Fast Trak Leader and in 2013 became the Global Fast Trak Leader. In 2017 Umay’s role is expanded to be the General Manager for Fast Trak and with that she oversees process development, training and phase I and II clinical manufacturing offerings that span across the globe. In her recent role, Chief Digital Officer-Enterprise-she is leading the digital solutions team in Cytiva and focused on digital applications that will be driving speed and efficiencies for drug development & manufacturing.
