Leadership

LinkedIn: Hilda Cherekdjian

Hilda Cherekdjian has served as the Executive Director of the Society of Decision Professionals (SDP) since its founding in 2011. She works closely with the SDP Board to formulate annual strategic plans and oversees the day-to-day operations of the organization, fostering its growth and expansion. Hilda leads efforts to cultivate relationships with stakeholders and sponsors, supporting the organization's mission.

In her role, Hilda also serves as co-chair of the SDP Annual Conference Production Committee and collaborates closely with SDP chapters worldwide. She directs the educational programs, interest groups, and membership strategies to drive the society’s growth and impact.

Prior to joining SDP, Hilda served as Financial Controller at Global Infotech, a consulting firm specializing in Salesforce Development, and Enterprise IT Integration and held various positions at Roche and Hedge Tracker.

Based in Los Gatos, California, Hilda speaks five languages.

LinkedIn: Lindsay Oyola

Senior Strategy Consultant, Shell

B.S and M.S in Mineral and Energy Economics from the Colorado School of Mines. Lindsay Oyola has been working in the Energy and Mining industry for over 15 years, with a background in economics and experience across the value chain Lindsay brings unique experience across companies and industries. Currently she consults across Shell where she guides teams to think about large uncertainties and strategic questions to drive quality decisions for Shell’s strategy.

Her career has spanned across three large companies in the areas of downstream refining and trading, mining, exploration and production of hydrocarbons, and most recently focused on Shells contribution to the Energy Transition. She has focused her career on driving quality business decisions through strategy development, decision analysis and sound economics. Lindsay has a passion for asking questions, driving alignment, leading courses and teaching others, and learning about new fields.

Within SDP, Lindsay has served as a board member for the past 2 years and has served on the chapter committee over the last year. In 2023 She will chair the SDP awards committee and has led session development in the past 2 of 3 SDP Annual conferences, as well as the past Houston Energy Summit.

LinkedIn: Rob Arnold

Rob holds degrees in English and Law from Cambridge University and an MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Dartmouth College. He has a Diplôme from the Sorbonne University of Paris.

His work experience began in Greece for an oil company. Following business school, he joined Strategic Decisions Group in California, where he co-developed asset securitization approaches for bank loans, including the “good bank/bad bank” structures that redefined the industry, creating new categories of securities and freeing up billions of dollars of capital for more productive use. After seven years in San Francisco, Rob started SDG’s London office with others. He co-developed a solution to pharma R&D allocation, about which he co-authored an HBR article, and which became the industry gold standard, transforming how pharma thought about value and creating the environment to resource many of today’s best-selling drugs.

Rob served as CEO of SDG for six years, ultimately presiding over its sale to IMS, where he became global VP of strategy consulting, growing the business globally to $120 million and advising IMS’s board on strategy, while working with many pharma CEOs. Following PE’s acquisition of IMS, Rob moved to Singapore, where he jointly founded a life science consulting and services firm that EVERSANA ultimately acquired. After twelve years building out a multi-country Asian footprint for the business, he returned to the US.

Rob has spoken, taught, and published extensively, promoting DQ to clients as diverse as the UK Police, government wealth funds, upstream oil and gas companies, and ecotechnology companies. He has guest lectured at Tuck, INSEAD, LBS, and the
London School of Economics, among others, and keynoted pharma industry global gatherings.

LinkedIn: Mike Benefiel

BSc. Geophysical Engineering, Colorado School of Mines

Extensive global energy industry technical and leadership experience prior to joining Chevron’s DA/DQ practice in 2006. I have been very fortunate to learn from and work with Chevron’s DA/DQ founding fathers (SDP Pioneer Award recipients Brian Putt, Larry Neal & Frank Koch) as well as many other outstanding decision professionals in many parts of the world, both internal and external to Chevron. Since October 2020 I have led Chevron’s DA/DQ community. During this time, I’ve been instrumental in helping improve Chevron’s DA/DQ practice by institutionalizing the iterative, value-focused, cost-disciplined approach to DA/DQ that I co-developed, Minimum Functional Objectives (MFO).

LinkedIn: Amy Day

As Clarity4Action.org’s Executive Director and Co-Founder, Amy Day coaches and teaches whole-person decision making to young people, and the adults who care about them, through one-on-one coaching, online and in-person group courses, and workshops. Amy holds a certification as a Decision Educator, Counselor, and Advisor through Stanford University Continuing Studies and has 20+ years experience in decision education. Amy successfully co-created a youth decision education program that paired corporate sponsorship and successful courses within businesses; it brought experienced youth decision educators alongside decision professionals to teach youth. As a community builder, Amy brings a breadth of professional experience in K-12 and adult education, nonprofit management, and fundraising through many experiences. It includes collaborations with schools, parents, and youth as a workshop instructor and parent teacher for Edmonds Heights K-12, teaching YMCA at-risk youth, educating local community groups and Youth in Philanthropy, and providing PR, Marketing and Fundraising for the Decision Education Foundation and the American Red Cross. Her vision is that by using clear, repeatable science-based frameworks and teaching, we all can support individuals, families, and groups in moving from the overwhelm of life's continuous choices to the calm found in personal understanding, decision quality, and effective action.

LinkedIn: Lan Ding

GSK, Portfolio Finance Lead

As a Lead Practitioner at the Society of Decision Professionals (SDP), Lan Ding brings extensive expertise in strategic decision analysis and portfolio optimization to the pharmaceutical industry. Her collaborative approach and facilitation skills have significantly influenced strategic drug development directions. Lan has spearheaded initiatives and developed innovative frameworks to enhance decision governance processes. These efforts enabled her to implement and champion Decision Quality (DQ) principles across a broad range of contexts, empowering organizations to make more informed and effective decisions.

Lan holds a degree of Management Science from Lancaster University (UK) and an Executive MBA from London Business School. Lan never stops learning, and always enjoys sharing knowledge and coaching others in building decision-making capabilities. Lan has served SDP Board London Chapter since 2023.

LinkedIn: David Matheson

With decades of portfolio and innovation management experience, David is a leader in helping executives achieve better growth results. He is the President and CEO of SmartOrg – a company he cofounded in 2000 that provides software and services to support decision making and manage uncertainty. His qualifications include a Ph.D. in organizational decision making from Stanford University, as well as being a Fellow with the Society of Decision Professionals (SDP), where he recently served as president. He is also an educator, startup advisor, public speaker and author of “The Smart Organization” from Harvard Business School Press. When off from work, David gravitates towards his passion for cycling and dark chocolate. 

LinkedIn: Paul Rennie

Paul Rennie is a senior consultant and decision professional with more than 30 years of international experience improving strategic, capital investment and operational decision-making across complex energy portfolios. He holds qualifications in mechanical and process engineering and project management, a degree in applied economics, and an MBA from Henley Business School.

Over 20 years in global excellence roles at Shell, Paul helped shape and deliver major projects and portfolios in oil and gas, LNG, hydrogen, low-carbon energy, digital and infrastructure investments across more than 30 countries. His work centered on applying and advancing Decision Quality, portfolio framing, benchmarking, project value improvement and organisational 'learning from experience'.

Paul helped expand Shell’s global community of practice for decision professionals to more than 700 members in under two years, while guiding and training hundreds of employees and partner organisations in decision framing, analysis and Decision Quality methods. Based in the United Kingdom and actively engaged across Europe, he is committed to helping organisations align diverse teams, strengthen governance and build continuous learning to improve outcomes at country, business and project levels.

LinkedIn: Sandy Wrobel

Sandy Wrobel brings 40 years of experience at the intersection of strategy, decision quality, and life sciences innovation. For nearly three decades, she advised organizations on R&D asset and portfolio strategy, portfolio management, and governance—helping teams make better, clearer decisions under uncertainty. Her work has spanned many industries, but primarily biopharma and global health, with decision sciences as the methodological foundation and decision quality as the practical guide.

Sandy also spent a decade operating “on the inside,” serving as CFO of a biotech company and COO/CFO for several digital health start-ups. That combination of advisory and operating experience gives her a pragmatic view of how decision processes work in real organizations: where they create clarity, where they slow things down, and how they can better support accountable action.

She holds a BSc in Chemical and Petroleum Refining Engineering from Colorado School of Mines and an MBA from Stanford University. Sandy is an SDP Fellow and, in 2025, received SDP’s inaugural Inspirational Achievement Award.