Who We Are

Margaret Keegan joined RQM+ in March 2022 with three decades of experience with executive roles at the largest life sciences service providers in the world, including PPD, IQVIA and, most recently, PRA Health Sciences where she was chief operating officer.

Margaret recently served as the chair of CDISC, the global authority defining clinical data and interoperability standards for life sciences and healthcare, and continues to serve on its board.

Prior to RQM+, she served as chief operating officer of PRA Health Sciences (now ICON), one of the world’s largest public contract research organizations and pioneer of digital models in research. Prior to PRA Health Sciences, Margaret served as president of clinical development for IQVIA, the world’s largest healthcare data science company, where she was accountable for the delivery and growth of the clinical development business. At IQVIA, she also served as president of data safety, regulatory, biostatistics and data management.

She is a mathematician and holds a bachelor’s degree in pure and applied mathematics from the University of Strathclyde and is also a chartered statistician.

Steve Cottrell is the Chief Commercial Officer of RQM+ and is responsible for client service delivery, growth, and overall performance of the company. He leads an experienced team of industry professionals who formulate and deliver consulting services dedicated to the life sciences industry. Steve’s experience encompasses leading a wide array of business services within the life sciences sector, including business process outsourcing, strategic sourcing, and clinical trial offerings.

Serving as the President of Maetrics, which was rebranded to RQM+ in 2020, Steve is a business executive with more than 25 years of experience in the life sciences industry. His career has been dedicated to supporting services in the medical device, pharmaceutical, and biotech market segments. He has a proven ability to evaluate client challenges and bring together unique solutions to meet the current and future needs of clients.

Prior to joining RQM+, Steve was the Global Vice President of Business Development for DOCS, a division of the global Clinical Research Organization ICON plc. Prior to that, he served as Executive Vice President of Global Business Development at i3 Research, a division of United Health Group.

Steve has a B.A. in Economics from Boston University.

Lori Smith-Sakalousky joined in 2012 providing technical expertise to RQM+ clients while focusing internally on employee leadership and development and the strategic growth of the Consulting Services infrastructure. Combining her strong technical skills with empowerment and compassion, Lori leads by example and has routinely demonstrated an ability to bring out the very best in her teams.

Under her leadership, Lori’s team has been consistently given, on average, 9+ on a scale of 10 for client satisfaction with a 90% repeat customer rate. As Chief Operating Officer, her entrepreneurial spirit has guided her to create the RQM+ operational model with a focus on people, process and tools. She has focused on operational excellence while ensuring the global scalability of the Consulting Services infrastructure.

Lori is responsible for developing and monitoring the consulting services team’s strategic goals, current objectives and overall operating budget. Her team consists of technically skilled consultants providing industry leading regulatory and quality consulting and engineering services along with program management expertise. The design and delivery team rounds out the consulting services team and is responsible for proposal development that focuses on successful delivery of services. Lori’s outstanding leadership and her ability to focus and direct teams towards accomplishing specific and measurable goals has been one of the backbones to the success of RQM+.

Lori has held various leadership positions within multiple industries over the past 18 years, including medical devices. Prior to joining RQM+, Lori was with MEDRAD and while there, led her team to Industry Week’s Best Plants and AME Manufacturing Excellence Awards.

Lori earned a B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Psychology from Clarion University. She also earned an MBA from Chatham University, an Executive Leadership Program certificate from Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business and is a Six Sigma Green Belt. She has served as guest speaker at Saint Vincent College via the Kennametal Center of Operational Excellence.

Amie Smirthwaite joined RQM+ in March of 2020. A clinical and regulatory affairs expert, Amie has over 25 years of postdoctoral experience in medical devices, spanning new product development, quality and regulatory systems, and clinical data evaluation. She is leading the RQM+ clinical team, following her role as former Global Head of Clinical Compliance at BSI. Amie developed BSI’s clinical compliance team and led clinical aspects of successful MDR designation.

Joining RQM+ in 2015, Ronnie Mahofski now leads the company through the integration of mergers and acquisitions as the Head of  M&A.

Along with focusing on key strategic initiatives that support the growth of RQM+, Ronnie also provides strategic leadership and tactical execution across all elements of regulatory and quality for medical device and IVD companies.

As Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Alaric Jackson reinforces the alignment of the RQM+ company goals and strategy to ensure customer expectations are exceeded, while implementing best in class technology for our employees. Previously, he served as GSK’s vice president and head of technology for global medical, regulatory, quality and safety.

Alaric brings more than 20 years of experience in technology leadership roles within the pharmaceutical industry, where he was responsible for automating and streamlining regulatory IT solutions to enhance productivity and quality. He led the development and deployment of enterprise regulatory and drug safety software-as-a-service platforms and capabilities.

As Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Daniel Lace leads the RQM+ Reimbursement Division.

Dan frequently serves as a national speaker and educator on managed care programs and technologies, consumer-driven healthcare, emerging medical technologies and trends, healthcare quality improvement, evidence-based medicine and healthcare reform.

Dan has authored numerous articles and has served on the board of directors, medical advisory boards, editorial boards and expert panels for multiple healthcare entities. He has more than 25 years of leadership experience as a healthcare executive across a wide range of managed care, pharmaceutical, device, diagnostic and consulting businesses. He has served as CMO and has held senior leadership positions in global pharmaceutical and medical device companies, as well as national managed care organizations.

As Chief Operating Officer of Trial Services, David leads the RQM+ Clinical Trials division. David has more than 20 years of leadership experience with trial operations, consulting and device research across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. He previously served in strategic leadership positions at global MedTech CROs. 

Steven Pilewski serves as the chief operating officer for the RQM+ lab services business unit. With more than 30 years of MedTech and pharma expertise, Steve most recently served as vice president of PPD Laboratories’ Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) lab, which is a division of Thermo Fisher Scientific.

When he began his career at PPD 24 years ago, the GMP lab was a small business with only 50 employees. During his tenure as a member of the executive leadership team, Steve continued to drive the business unit’s global organic growth strategy, transforming it into a leading global analytical services enterprise with more than 3,000 people.