Movers and Shakers: Lisa Olson, Regulatory and Clinical Research Institute

A look at the people behind the numbers in area business:

Title: President

Age: 41

Lisa Olson is leading efforts to help medical device companies get to market faster as the newly named president of Regulatory and Clinical Research Institute Inc., a St. Louis Park-based strategic consulting and contract research services firm.

RCRI's strategic consulting support will enable device companies to focus on products and development, which will speed their time to market, Olson said.

"RCRI already has had great success in working across therapeutic areas and with companies from two-person start-ups to Fortune 500 companies," Olson said. "But we are interested in growth and being able to provide more strategic support to the industry."

This approach also will support RCRI's growth plans, Olson said, by building on its work with more than 450 clients of all sizes since the company was founded 16 years ago.

"RCRI's approach is more specialized and more niche in that we're looking to be a strategic partner that can actually do things," Olson said, compared to other contract research organizations that may execute quickly and inexpensively but only at the client's instructions.

Olson succeeded former RCRI President Mandy Klosterman, who retired. Olson most recently was vice president of marketing and technical services at WuXi AppTec in St. Paul. She has a degree in microbiology from the University of Minnesota and an MBA from the University of St. Thomas.

Q: What appealed to you about the opportunity at RCRI?

A: I had been with my previous company for almost 19 years in a variety of technical, operational and business roles. I was looking to join a new company as a senior leader and help them through their transformation, getting to the next stage and impacting the medical device industry in a new way.

Q: How would you characterize recent activity in the Twin Cities medical device community?

Q: How is health care reform affecting that activity?

A: I'm hopeful that it's going to make people make better business decisions, instead of just decisions based on the fact that something might be an interesting new technology that might not be economically very useful.