Human-centered digital transformation

Technology changes work only when people believe in it.

I'm Brian Gettelfinger. I turn complex technical possibilities into clear, human-centered change that people believe in and can execute, and I build the teams that keep it going after the first big win.

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How I work

A connector between business need, people reality, and technology.

I'm most useful where behavior change matters as much as the technology, and where messy problems need to become concrete roadmaps.

Translate

I help non-technical stakeholders understand, in their own words, why a change matters. Once people can say it themselves, adoption stops being a push.

Build belief

I work with executives and hands-on contributors in the same conversation, and I'm direct about the hard parts of change. Belief comes from honesty, not cheerleading.

Build teams

I build cohesive, high-performing teams around real strengths and shared ownership, so results hold up after the launch energy fades.

Selected outcomes

What the work has produced.

3

Global teams created and built, the largest at 25 people with 20 direct reports. Each was considered fast, agile, and exceptional at delivering results.

50%

Shorter market-expansion timelines in a regulated health category.

95%

Less compliance documentation effort for external inspections, through automation.

2×

Manufacturing capacity on new platforms, using physics-informed machine learning.

10×

More viable new technologies in the first year of adoption, by making no-go decisions earlier with integrated data and ML.

300+

Researchers trained worldwide through modeling curricula I designed and launched.

Outcomes are described in general terms. Details are shared in conversation where appropriate.

Case stories

Two stories about earning belief.

The human layer in technical change

Getting to “no” in two months instead of two years

Situation

New formula technologies took about two years to reach a costly discovery: the idea wasn't viable after all, because of a safety, regulatory, or manufacturing constraint. The delay slowed launches and tied up capacity on candidates that were never going to make it.

Resistance

The fix was an integrated data and ML strategy that surfaces no-go signals early. Teams were hesitant to work differently because they believed it added risk to our competitive position.

What I did

I talked with stakeholders in their own language until I understood what they feared. Then I delivered small, concrete models that showed the behavior change we would enable and the new role they would play, with far better information than they had before. That direct involvement turned the skeptics into the biggest drivers of the change.

Result

Every new technology candidate got a holistic “right to succeed” assessment in about two months instead of about two years. In the first year of adoption, that freed capacity for a 10× increase in viable new technologies.

Belief over mandate

From scattered tactical work to one team that fed itself

Situation

Our digital efforts were a dispersed set of tactical tasks supporting more established functions. I brought about twenty of the experts together into a single team.

Resistance

At first, the team members themselves were the biggest skeptics.

What I did

I took the time, one person at a time, to learn what worked for each member, what didn't, and where they needed my help. That showed me their strengths were complementary, and that together they could genuinely transform our business.

Result

The team created a virtuous cycle. Data entry and work process experts translated the realities of the work into a cohesive strategy for an innovation data platform. The platform inspired new AI/ML ways to get insight from the data. Those tools then drove work process change, including new, higher-quality, interconnected data entry. This change in operating model enabled the business's growth over the following three years.

Experience

From modeling and simulation to leading digital transformation.

Seventeen years at a global consumer products company, from bench-level modeling to leading a digital function, plus eight years as a startup co-founder.

2023 – Present

Director, Work Process Transformation

Health Care R&D · Global consumer products company

Redesigning the R&D digital operating model across data stewardship, data engineering, and AI/ML applications for new product development.

  • Built a team of 20 digital innovation experts in 12 months.
  • Cut market-expansion timelines by 50% by automating regulatory documentation.
  • Passed external audits through fully automated end-to-end reporting.
  • Doubled manufacturing capacity on new platforms with physics-informed AI/ML.
2020 – 2023

Director, Holistic Product Modeling

Corporate R&D

Defined and delivered integrated material, formulation, and process analytics across global R&D, using machine learning to evaluate performance, cost, and regulatory fit.

  • Increased viable new technologies 10× in the first year by moving no-go decisions from about two years to about two months.
  • Shortened formulation development time by 80% with the organization's first full-scale materials informatics use case.
2018 – 2020

Section Head, Computational Chemistry

Corporate R&D

Set the global research agenda for molecular modeling and rebalanced the team between upstream research and downstream application.

  • Tripled the practitioner base by chartering a new training program across three global categories.
2017 – 2018

Group Head, Product & Consumer Modeling

Corporate R&D

Led consumer and product modeling for global R&D, including safety evaluation protocols and Bayesian market-share prediction.

  • Shortened a device's time-to-market by 12 months with a fully virtual safety evaluation protocol.
  • Trained more than 300 researchers worldwide through a consumer-modeling curriculum.
2013 – 2017

Senior Scientist, Product Research

Family Care R&D

Led product research close to consumers, with new ingredient and packaging capabilities for the North American market and Bayesian consumer segmentation and purchase-driver models.

  • Cut prototype release time from two months to one day through end-to-end virtualization.
2009 – 2013

Senior Scientist, Process Systems Modeling

Corporate R&D

Applied optimization under uncertainty and built digital twins of global production lines. Promoted in place in 2012.

  • Trained more than 100 scientists and engineers through a global process-modeling curriculum.
2015 – 2023

Co-founder & Chief Operating Officer

Blox Beverages · West Chester, OH

Took a consumer product from invention and first prototype to market launch. Led formulation, packaging, product-market fit testing, operations, capitalization, and national expansion strategy. The venture taught me scaling discipline and what it costs to raise capital before product-market fit.

Ideas

What I write and speak about.

Pillar one

Belief over mandate

High-performing teams come from real strengths and genuine enrollment, not imported playbooks.

Pillar two

The honesty gap in decision-making

The execution trap, dissent without fear, and work that drives decisions instead of justifying ones already made.

Pillar three

The human layer in technical change

Why change succeeds or fails on trust and feedback loops, especially in mid-size organizations and nonprofits facing technology disruption.

Featured note · Honesty gap

Most technical work isn't valuable because it's rigorous. It's valuable because it drives a decision.

I spent years producing excellent analysis before I asked the harder question: was this helping someone decide, or helping them justify a decision they'd already made?

Those are not the same activity. One moves an organization forward. The other just makes the organization feel better about where it already was.

If you lead technical or analytical work, ask your team which one you're actually doing. The difference compounds over years, not days.

Education and recognition

Technical depth and business training in one person.

MBAIndiana University, Bloomington
Ph.D., Chemical EngineeringUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison
B.Ch.E., Chemical EngineeringUniversity of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Early Career Award, 2023University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Engineering

Contact

Let's talk.

I welcome conversations about senior transformation and product leadership roles, and about advisory or fractional engagements. Engagements are scoped to respect existing professional obligations and confidentiality.

  • Digital and AI/ML adoption strategy for technical organizations
  • Operating-model and work-process redesign
  • Change design for teams that need buy-in, not compliance
  • Building and coaching high-performing digital teams
Email
btgettel@gmail.com
LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/brian-gettelfinger
Location
Greater Cincinnati, Ohio