Governance and operations for research and mission-driven organisations
I work with research organisations, nonprofits, and academic institutions navigating complexity — bringing clarity to programmes, processes, and the underlying systems.
Currently open to consulting projects and governance/ operations leadership roles in international and mission-driven organisations.
What I do
Complex organisations run on clear processes, accurate records, and people who understand how structure and governance actually work in practice.
I bring operational rigour, governance experience, and the ability to translate policy into practice to organisations that need it without the overhead of a permanent hire.
Process design, documentation, and workflow management
Operational leadership for programmes, committees, and working groups
Governance consulting and policy implementation
Coordination of funding, selection, and assessment processes
Stakeholder engagement across institutional hierarchies
Continuity and oversight across organisational cycles
Recent work
2026: Two independent consulting contracts with the Fellowships Programme at EMBO (Heidelberg, DE), supporting programme operations including application processing and records management in preparation for an audit cycle.
How I work
My approach is structured, calm, and pragmatic, with a focus on making systems workable rather than perfect, both for the people working within those systems and the organisations that utilise them.
That approach is shaped from having worked in different types of organisations and institutional contexts. Working across local, international, and intergovernmental contexts has given me a practical understanding of how formal structures and informal practices interact. I am dedicated to being responsible for sensitive information, maintaining accurate records, and ensuring follow-through over time. I also have experience being part of remote and geographically distributed teams that communicate across time zones.
When I joined EMBO Press as a Data Integrity Analyst, I discovered that the journals had no consistent framework for handling corrections. Sixteen editors were approaching the correction process differently which resulted in correcting cases based on individual judgement rather than shared criteria.
The inconsistency created risk for the journals and unfair outcomes for authors. I created a workflow to integrate checks and balances that brought consistency into the process.
Identify the gap, analyse the evidence, design a workable solution, and implement it.
When a specific case arose that couldn't be handled within the existing correct/retract framework, we had the basis to formalise something that had been discussed in the field: a "retract and replace" category, applicable where replicate data generated at the time of the original experimentation confirmed that published conclusions remained valid despite figure manipulation. My contribution was the case analysis that helped establish the criteria, working with editorial leadership and the publishing and production teams to formalise workflows and process checkpoints. The resulting framework was formally introduced with publication in The EMBO Journal.
That process is emblematic of how I approach most problems: identifying the gap, analysing the evidence, designing a workable solution, and implementing it.
About me
My name is Erica Wilfong, and I have over ten years of experience in governance and operations roles within international scientific and academic institutions, including EMBO and Springer Nature. I bring structural rigour, policy experience, and the ability to make complex organisations work more clearly and consistently.
I’m based in Germany and work remotely with organisations in Europe and beyond.
Contact
If you're looking for governance or operations expertise on a consulting or project basis, let's talk.