Keli Rodriguez
Associate Director - Facilities & Lab Operations EpiCypher
Keli Rodriguez is a strategic operations and program management leader with over a decade of experience driving scale and operational transformation within high-growth biotech environments. She specialises in bridging the gap between scientific teams and business strategy, translating complex R&D needs into scalable, efficient, and cost-effective operational solutions.
Throughout her career, Keli has led multi-site infrastructure and operations, supported rapid organisational growth, and implemented enterprise systems that enhance visibility, efficiency, and decision-making. Her experience spans lab expansions, financial forecasting, cross-functional workflow optimisation, and managing capital investments ranging from $1M to $5M+.
Passionate about building structure within fast-paced environments, Keli focuses on creating the systems, processes, and alignment needed to enable both scientific innovation and commercial success. Her core expertise includes strategic operations, program and portfolio management, operational excellence, cross-functional leadership, systems implementation (ELN, LIMS, and project management tools), and capital planning.
Seminars
- Protecting scientific output and timeline delivery by clearly defining operational ownership and preventing scientists from absorbing administrative, maintenance, and coordination tasks that dilute research focus
- Reducing hidden labor costs and burnout risk by redesigning role boundaries and support models that allow lean teams to operate sustainably without relying on informal overtime or goodwill
- Improving operational efficiency and accountability by aligning responsibilities to skills and value creation, ensuring work is performed by the right function at the right cost
What would your organization achieve if every function supporting the lab, operations, facilities, EHS, asset management, procurement, digital, truly operated as one cohesive system? How much friction could be removed if roles, responsibilities, and decision rights were crystal clear?
- Visualize how lab ops, facilities, EHS, asset management, procurement, and digital teams rely on each other
- Identify where handoffs fail, communication lags, or ownership is unclear, and quantify the operational impact
- Develop a draft Operating Charter outlining roles, responsibilities, decision rights, communication rhythms, and shared KPIs
