CRA is proud to announce the promotions of 11 new vice presidents. The promotions reinforce the depth of expertise across the firm’s global Antitrust & Competition, Energy and Life Sciences practices, as well as its IT department.
“The achievements of our newly promoted Vice Presidents reflect the great year that CRA had in 2025 and reinforce my optimism in our future,” said CRA President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Maleh. “These 11 individuals exemplify the combination of expertise and experience that our clients and teams rely on when facing complex business challenges. I am grateful for their many contributions to the firm and congratulate them on this achievement.”
The newly promoted Vice Presidents are:
Kira Gordon, Boston: Ms. Gordon specializes in life sciences strategy consulting with expertise in pricing and market access strategy, opportunity assessment, and diligence support. She has experience with both drug development and medical devices across a broad range of therapy areas, with a particular emphasis on medical-surgical devices, hospital drugs, metabolic syndrome, and outpatient specialty therapeutics in categories including oncology, neurology-psychology, autoimmune, and rare disease.
Dr. Adriana de la Huerta, Washington, DC: Dr. de la Huerta has deep expertise in economic analysis for mergers, conduct matters, and antitrust litigation across a wide range of industries, including consumer products, building materials, chemical products, distribution services, entertainment, retail, and real estate. She has led numerous high-stakes client engagements, working with both private parties and US antitrust agencies, and has extensive experience supporting testifying experts through all phases of litigation.
Dr. Matthew Johnson, Oakland: Dr. Johnson has over 20 years of experience developing empirical methods and leading expert teams in merger litigations and other cases across the antitrust spectrum. Working with and in front of regulators, he has applied critical analyses of competition to industries such as energy, retail, social media, semiconductors, autos, and mobile devices.
Dean Koujak, New York: Mr. Koujak is a recognized expert in the electric utility industry with experience across the full utility value chain. His expertise in power procurement, integrated planning and resource selection decisions that balance system needs, market conditions, and regulatory requirements are critical in addressing data center driven load growth. Leveraging this same foundation, Dean leads utility M&A advisory with a fundamental understanding of utility business drivers.
Elina Koustoumpardi, Brussels: Ms. Koustoumpardi has over 15 years of experience applying economic theory to European competition cases. She has deep expertise addressing competition issues in the pharmaceutical industry, and also regularly supports clients in global M&A, antitrust litigation, and damage estimation across many sectors.
Abhishek Kumar, London: Mr. Kumar is an expert in developing commercial strategies for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device sectors across diverse global markets. He possesses deep expertise in pricing and market access strategy, with a particular focus on vaccine markets. He has presented research on vaccine trends and public health policy at major industry conferences amid an increasingly complex landscape.
Dr. Sam Marden, London: Dr. Marden is a specialist in designing and leading econometric and big data analyses needed for today’s investigations before competition authorities and in complex litigation. He has particularly deep experience addressing competition issues in two-sided markets, technology competition, and damages estimation.
Michael Muehlbradt, London: Mr. Muehlbradt specializes in complex merger control matters, including large global multi-jurisdictional mergers, in-depth investigations before the European Commission, and filings before national competition authorities in Europe and worldwide. His experience across a range of industries positions him at the center of some of the largest merger cases in recent years.
Christoph von Muellern, Brussels: Mr. von Muellern has over a decade of experience advising clients on competition matters before the European Commission and national competition authorities. He specializes in guiding clients through complex national and multi-jurisdictional merger cases across a wide range of industries. He brings strong economic expertise in abuse of dominance cases, tech regulation like the DMA, and cartel litigation.
Dr. Bhavesh Patel, Cambridge: Dr. Patel leads global engagements related to pricing and market access, interfacing with commercial strategy in evolving market and competitive environments. He helps clients assess and maximize asset and portfolio value, while optimizing evidence generation, from an early stage to launch and beyond. He leads the internal initiative on rare diseases and has expertise in oncology, cardiometabolic diseases, neurology, and immunology.
Kim Welch, Boston: Ms. Welch leads the Enterprise Application Services function within CRA’s IT department. With more than 25 years of experience in technology leadership, Kim is known for seamlessly bridging business strategy and technology execution to deliver measurable value. She has led major system modernizations, strengthened governance and control frameworks, and driven enterprise-wide initiatives across CRA, elevating stakeholder trust across the organization.
