Annie Carter, MBA, CRA
Founder & Principal Consultant
Ascend Research Consulting, LLC
Annie Carter is a senior healthcare and clinical research executive with nearly 30 years of experience scaling research administration and clinical trial operations across large, multi-site networks. She has built sponsor-ready, inspection-resilient research enterprises supporting thousands of industry-sponsored and investigator-initiated Phase I–IV clinical trials, along with complex federally funded research portfolios. Her leadership spans enterprise research governance, FDA and OHRP compliance, federal grant management, centralized and decentralized service models, and technology-enabled operations. Annie has driven network-wide standardization, accelerated study start-up, improved feasibility accuracy, and strengthened financial performance while maintaining continuous audit and inspection readiness. She has held full P&L responsibility, led large matrixed organizations, and served as the executive point of accountability for sponsors, CROs, investigators, and regulators. As a speaker, Annie brings an operator's perspective to FDA inspection readiness, translating regulatory expectations into scalable systems, disciplined execution, and resilient research operations.