Leading Our Way

Antoinette Gawin is President and Chief Executive Officer of Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies.

Antoinette focuses on how the company will continue to evolve with healthcare’s rapid changes to meet more patients' needs globally. She believes medical device manufacturers must change and go beyond equipment to think about services, data management and new geographies where people do not yet have access to the technologies that can advance their health and lives. Antoinette is ensuring that Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies continues to focus on service and helping our customers solve problems — enabling them to better serve patients.

She has nearly 30 years of experience directing diverse global teams and transformational change. Building from a foundation in finance, operations and customer service, Antoinette has led joint ventures and acquisitions, as well as all aspects of marketing, strategic planning and commercial operations for divisions of companies in the healthcare, information technology and energy sectors.

Antoinette joined the company in 2016 and previously served as Executive Vice President, Global Commercial. She was responsible for leading the company’s global sales, services, marketing and commercial teams.

In her past leadership roles at Baxter Healthcare, she oversaw global market access and commercial excellence, strategy and commercial operations. For more than 20 years prior, Antoinette worked at GE Corporate and a number of subsidiaries, including GE Healthcare Technologies, GE Industrial and Power Systems and GE Information Services.

She is a member of the AdvaMed Board of Directors and serves as the chair of the AdvaMed Ethics and Compliance Committee.

Antoinette is involved in many civic organizations, including American Friends of Watershed Trust Organization, a nonprofit focused on sustainable access to clean water in India. She lives with her family in Colorado, where they enjoy the outdoors and the performing arts.

As Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President, Rusty Spinney has worldwide responsibility for all finance functions at Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies. Rusty oversees accounting, tax, treasury, finance, and planning and analysis.

Rusty also serves as a corporate liaison with Terumo Corporation, aligning budgeting, forecasting, month-end and quarter-end reporting processes, strategic plan financials and all other financial matters, including meeting requirements for Japan's equivalent of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Rusty's expertise spans corporate finance, governance and policy, capital markets, international business and Sarbanes-Oxley Act implementation, as well as mergers, acquisitions and business integration.

Prior to his current role, Rusty held the position of Vice President of Finance and Corporate Controller, in which he was responsible for global financial reporting, technical accounting and financial controls across all world regions. Prior to joining Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies, he held leadership and financial management positions at Quiznos Inc. and Molson Coors, and he served as the European controller for Bass Brewing operations, based in England. He also provided business and advisory services for PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Rusty earned his bachelor's degree in business finance from Colorado State University.

As head of the Therapeutic Systems and Cell Therapy Technologies business units, Veerle leads cross-functional teams transforming business models and solutions to meet the changing needs of our global customers and patients. This includes translating strategy into practical approaches to reach more patients with our products and capturing real-time insights for a diverse and comprehensive portfolio.

To bring the right therapies at the right time in the patient’s treatment journey, Veerle’s focus is leveraging unique synergies and strengths across the portfolio and services to help increase patient access to care. She and her teams are shaping the cell therapy ecosystem to better facilitate the journey of life-saving cells from patient and donor cell collections through cell processing and manufacturing, a holistic approach to help make innovative therapies accessible to more patients. At the same time, they will continue to enhance the therapeutic potential and future development of the company’s industry-leading Spectra Optia^® Apheresis System.

Veerle’s interest in healthcare comes from her passion to make a meaningful contribution to society. She believes that working with a diverse, engaged team behind clearly defined goals drives results that enable more patients to get access to healthcare and better treatment options.

She has worked in healthcare for more than 20 years, across the pharmaceutical and medical device sectors in a variety of commercial and marketing leadership roles. With this experience and perspective, she inspires and mobilizes people and teams around a clear vision and strategy.

Veerle previously served as Vice President, Commercial, EMEA. She was also the Commercialization Director for EMEA Therapeutics Systems, where she successfully repositioned the business across Europe as a partner to provide clinical solutions and disease therapies. She joined the company in 2010 as a sales Manager.

Before joining Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies, she worked at Pfizer in various business units, most recently as the Business Unit Director, Rheumatology and Dermatology.

She graduated with distinction from the University of Leuven. Her engineering degree focused on a specialization for chemical and agriculture industries, including industrial biology and microbiology, as well as cell and gene technology.

Janet Johnson serves as Vice President of Global Regulatory Affairs and Labeling for Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies.

Janet has over 25 years’ experience in leading regulatory teams for medical device and in vitro diagnostics Fortune 200 companies. This includes building collaborative teams that deliver new product approvals and improve compliance, as well as establishing and executing global regulatory strategies to contribute to business growth globally. Global Regulatory Affairs oversees relationships with agencies in the 130 countries where the company has customers.

Janet’s experience includes leading discussions with regulators, receiving multiple FDA premarket approvals and 510(k) clearances, navigating EU approvals and international product approvals, leading acquisitions and divestitures, and developing teams for future growth.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering from Western New England University in Springfield, Massachusetts. Janet was nominated for and completed the Northwestern Kellogg Executive Education Women’s Senior Leadership Program. She is certified in regulatory affairs by the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society.

Janet enjoys reading, traveling, and making crafts. She and her family are based in Colorado.

Bon Lopez serves as Senior Vice President, Human Resources for Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies.

Bon has more than 25 years of international business experience in the consumer-packaged goods, consumer healthcare and diagnostics/medical devices industries across the Americas, Europe and Asia in organizations such as Unilever, Novartis and Ortho Clinical Diagnostics. He has held multiple human resources leadership positions and is an expert in talent, organizational and leadership development.

Bon earned his bachelor’s degree in commerce at De La Salle University, Philippines. He has completed several executive education programs in human resources, business and strategy at the business schools of Stanford University, Babson College and Dartmouth College. For two decades, Bon has partnered with leaders as a certified executive coach. He enjoys traveling with his family and exploring new countries and cultures. In his spare time, he plays basketball and competitive badminton as well as mentoring young leaders across the world.

Chetan Makam serves as General Manager, Global Blood Solutions, for Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies, as well as Managing Director and Board Chair for our India subsidiary, Terumo Penpol Private Ltd.

He leads our vision to create comprehensive solutions that transcend the walls of traditional blood centers. Our customers and partners operate in new, dynamic ways. They must meet donors where they are and constantly develop new ways to provide blood products that improve patient care along the donor-to-patient therapeutic continuum.

Increasingly, this path includes complex and virtual networks. These extend far beyond a physical place and require equally dynamic partners and suppliers who can serve these connected networks with total value propositions.

With this reality in mind, Chetan champions our winning aspiration to elevate the standard of care by driving disruptive innovation across the entire blood transfusion value chain and position Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies as the undisputed market leader in global blood collection, processing, transfusion, and services.

He joined us in 2018 as Vice President, Global Services, and successfully built our Global Services business with teams that encompass all customer-facing functions after sale in 130 different countries. His articulation of the “Services Ecosystem” and development of the “Beyond Equipment” paradigm are key strategies for the corporation.

Having worked in various parts of the world, Chetan brings significant experience in medical devices, healthcare, and other industries, as well as a unique perspective and understanding of various cultures and people.

He earned an MBA (cum laude) from Babson College, a master’s degree in plastics engineering from the University of Massachusetts, and a bachelor’s degree (gold medalist) in polymer engineering from the University of Poona, India, and is a certified LEAN Six Sigma Master Blackbelt.

Chetan is an avid reader and an amateur numismatist. He is based in Colorado.

Varaprasad Manne serves as the Vice President of Global Quality for Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies and is a member of its executive leadership team. Manne, as he is known, leads and maintains the company’s quality mindset and aligns global teams around design, delivery, and field support, demonstrating its ongoing commitment to quality.

He joined the company in 2019 and was previously responsible for Lakewood Manufacturing Operations at Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies’ global headquarters in Colorado. He led critical manufacturing projects throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing flexibility to the company’s operations that enabled a shift to serve the need for convalescent plasma collection. He also led the build-out of a new factory in Littleton, Colorado, which was inaugurated in 2022 to support the company’s new Plasma Innovation business and its centerpiece, the Rika Plasma Collection System.

Manne brings over 25 years of experience in the medical device, pharmaceutical, and contract manufacturing services industries. He is an enterprise thinker and brings well-rounded experience across operations, corporate strategy, and business transformation. Manne firmly believes in a continuous improvement mindset to help drive a culture of growth and accountability. He is a certified LEAN Six Sigma Master Blackbelt.

Manne has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Mysore, a master’s degree in industrial engineering from Wichita State University, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Manne serves on the board of directors for the Colorado Chamber of Commerce. He enjoys movies, travel, cooking, and spending time with his family. Manne is based in Colorado.

Cindy Ng serves as Senior Vice President, Global Commercial for Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies.

As a member of the leadership team, Cindy is responsible for front-line interactions with the company’s customers globally. This includes sales, services, clinical support, distributor management, and regional and local marketing to deliver high-impact customer experiences and a world-class presence at the local level.

Cindy is a hands-on sales and marketing practitioner with more than 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and medical device industry. Her commercial experience includes both direct and distributor sales and marketing roles with Roche, 3M and Sanofi. She transitioned to medical devices with Advanced Medical Optics (part of Abbott) and Pall Corporation. After Danaher Corp.’s acquisition of Pall Corp., she took on a new challenge to turn around its biopharmaceuticals business in China.

Chris Williams serves as Senior Vice President, Global Manufacturing for Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies.

He leads the manufacturing, supply chain, logistics and procurement teams.

He developed deep manufacturing experience through progressively responsible roles at Baxter, including rebuilding facilities and launching countless engineering and continuous improvement programs. He led Baxter’s European manufacturing operations, delivering dramatic cost, quality and customer service improvements.

Chris’s experience building lean, customer-focused manufacturing organizations enabled him then to transform the manufacturing infrastructure for Salter Labs and Santa Cruz Nutritionals before serving as vice president of manufacturing operations at PharMEDium Services. His foundation of process improvement and ability to build cultural bridges are skills he is using to enable teams to further Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies’ continued growth.

Chris holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Mississippi State University. He is an avid tennis player and loves to travel in his free time.