Rick van der Vegte

Rick van der Vegte is a Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting, based in New York. Mr. Van der Vegte serves as the leader for the Life Sciences Core Operations practice. Mr. Van der Vegte solves highly complex operational challenges across the people, process and technology domains, while bringing deep international experience. He has been an active member of C-level advisory teams during major events for organizations, including new product launches, restructuring and bankruptcy, governmental regulatory intervention and mergers, integrations and carve-outs.

Mr. Van der Vegte has experience in managerial finance and has worked in many manufacturing and distribution environments to create nimble and cost-focused operations. He is deeply experienced in operational assessments from planning, manufacturing to quality and distribution operations. His pragmatic approach has brought him to the front-line of many global operations which gives him strong credibility as a strategic advisor. He possesses engineering-level knowledge and the ability to translate that to leadership decision-making.

Mr. Van der Vegte worked in many of the operational nuances that make life sciences operations unique, such as Good x Practice (“GxP”) compliance, cold chain management, vaccine manufacturing operations, solid dose manufacturing, personalized medicine including CAR-T and gene therapy, contract development and manufacturing organization (“CDMO”) management, generics and beyond.

Prior to working for U.S.-based consulting companies and health solutions organizations, Mr. Van der Vegte spent close to 10 years of his career working with operations based in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Mr. Van der Vegte has worked in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as in South America. Given this diverse global experience, he has frequently been asked to help establish and improve global supply chain operations.

Mr. Van der Vegte holds an M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering, specializing in Supply Chain and Operations Management and a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Mr. Van der Vegte is APICS CPIM certified and holds a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification.