Scientist Snapshot | Mathew Minardi, EVP of Global Project Management

As Executive Vice President of Global Project Management, Mathew Minardi oversees the execution of all projects across the Sterling network, ensuring the implementation of best practices and standardisation of processes across our sites.

Can you briefly describe your background and current role at Sterling?

During my undergraduate studies at Clemson University, I worked on cannabinoid research for Dr. John Huffman. Then, while I was pursuing my PhD at Arizona State University, I performed research involving oncology molecules and natural products chemistry with Professor George Pettit. I developed a strong interest in the pharmaceutical industry, and began working in the CDMO space as a process chemist just after receiving my PhD. This role provided me a wide range of experience, from technology transfers of commercial products and energetic chemistry to large-scale chromatography, impurity analysis and more.

I then joined Noramco, a Johnson & Johnson company, starting off as a process chemist. This position gave me a wealth of experience in developing processes at a plant scale and bringing them to a commercial scale. I went on to work in a variety of roles within that organisation over the years, with responsibilities ranging from process optimisation to regulatory affairs, technical services, internal and external manufacturing, project management, and sales. During my time there, I was able to see projects through from inception to commercialisation and develop a robust understanding of requirements along the way.

After that, I served as VP of Technical Services for Accord Healthcare, where I handled technology transfers for finished dosage forms, M&A evaluation, supplier relationships, and business development. Collectively, my experiences over the years have given me a unique perspective, as I’ve been on both sides of the CDMO fence. This enables me to really understand the customer’s perspective and expectations as well as the CDMO’s vantage point, which has proven to be advantageous during my career at Sterling.

I joined Sterling as Executive Vice President and Site Head for the North Carolina facility after Sterling acquired the site in 2019, and then stepped into the role of Executive Vice President of Global Project Management in November of 2024.

What does your role as Executive Vice President of Global Project Management involve?

My role involves coordinating and aligning all projects executed across the Sterling network, ensuring we leverage best practices and standardise processes across our sites.

My priority is to build upon our One Sterling approach to ensure a consistent customer experience at each Sterling facility. This includes everything from harmonising our project kick-off and close-out meetings, to streamlining communication and ensuring that seamless internal technology transfers from one site to another continues. This prevents the need to ask customers repetitive questions.

How do you and your team support our customers?

The project management team plays a critical role in supporting our customers. Our project managers serve as the customer’s point of contact for all project related matters, acting as their voice and advocate. They drive projects internally, whether in development, analysis or manufacturing, to meet timelines, budgets and customer needs.

Day to day, I collaborate with the project managers to understand and address any challenges in customer projects. This involves ensuring a prompt and efficient response, and working with the team to develop scientific solutions to problems. Our goal is to present our customers with the best possible path forward and deliver exceptional service, even when challenges arise.

As EVP of Global Project Management, I am the point of escalation. My experience in both CDMO and external manufacturing roles allows me to understand the challenges and pressures that both sides face, making me a more effective and empathetic partner. Our aim is to always do what is best for our customers and always act on our values of care, willingness, transparency and reliability. This is key to delivering a consistent customer experience at each of our sites.

Recognising that our customers have different needs and adapting to those requirements is also essential. We maintain flexibility and willingness to adapt our style, avoiding a one size fits all approach, as we understand that customers have different needs, especially at the varying stages in their project’s lifecycle.

This is why we developed our Extended Bench™ model, which our project managers are central to. This sees them coordinating activities at the various sites to leverage expertise and the specialty technology and innovation they may have to offer. Our project managers work to integrate those experts and technologies into projects at the right time, delivering maximum value to our customers.

I think all of this contributes to the fact that Sterling is more than a CDMO, but a partnership development and manufacturing organisation (PDMO^®). We go beyond the contract and aim for our relationship to be more than a simple transaction. We endeavour to become a true extension of our customer’s team, to ensure they feel confident in our advocacy for their projects.