Leadership
Mani Mohindru, PhD
President & Chief Executive Officer
Mani Mohindru has served as President and Chief Executive Officer since April 2026 and has been a director since 2021. She is a co-founder and Board Chair of Roshon Therapeutics, Inc., an early-stage, private biotech company developing antibodies for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases. Previously, Dr. Mohindru was CEO and Board Director of Novasenta, an oncology-focused biotech company. Dr. Mohindru previously worked in executive roles at several additional biotechnology companies, having served as Chief Executive Officer of CereXis, Inc., Chief Financial Officer and Chief Strategy Officer of Cara Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: CARA), and Chief Strategy Officer at Curis, Inc (Nasdaq: CRIS). Prior to her leadership roles in the biotechnology industry, Dr. Mohindru spent several years as an equity research analyst covering the biotechnology sector at UBS, Credit Suisse and ThinkEquity.
In addition to her position at Cardiff Oncology, Dr. Mohindru serves as a member of the Board of Directors at CytomX Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTMX), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. She was previously a member of the Board of Directors of SAB Biotherapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company.
Dr. Mohindru received her Ph.D. in Neurosciences from Northwestern University and her master’s in biotechnology and B.S. in Human Biology (Hons) from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.
Ajay Aggarwal, MD, MBA
Chief Operating Officer
Ajay Aggarwal joined Cardiff in April 2026 as Chief Operating Officer. Dr. Aggarwal is a board-certified Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine physician with more than 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, spanning respiratory, immunology and oncology drug development. Most recently, he served as Senior Vice President and Head of Clinical Development at Aclaris Therapeutics, where he led clinical strategy and execution across multiple programs.
Prior to Aclaris, Dr. Aggarwal served as Chief Medical Officer of CereXis, Inc., a company advancing therapies for rare neurology and oncology indications. He has also held clinical leadership roles at Insmed, Inc. and AstraZeneca PLC, where he successfully advanced several compounds from preclinical stages into late-stage clinical development.
Earlier in his career, he held academic leadership roles, including Chief of Medicine at a VA Hospital, and has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications. He is a Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians.
Dr. Aggarwal received his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and his medical degree from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.
Brigitte Lindsay
Chief Accounting Officer
Brigitte Lindsay has served as Chief Accounting Officer since January 2026. She has been with the Company for more than 14 years and was most recently the Senior Vice President of Finance. Ms. Lindsay brings extensive biotech experience to the company having previously served as Controller for AviaraDx both before and after acquisition by bioMérieux. Prior to AviaraDx, she was Manager of Financial Reporting and Analysis at publicly traded Carl Zeiss Meditec which is majority owned by the global bioscience optics leader Carl Zeiss AG. Ms. Lindsay has held progressively increasing finance and accounting positions at other leading companies including Philips-Respironics. She adds a global finance perspective having worked for multinational corporations and in both the US and Germany.
Ms. Lindsay received her Diplom Betriebswirt from the Verwaltungs und Wirtsschafts Akademie in Munich, Germany.
Josh Muntner
Chief Financial Officer
Josh Muntner joined Cardiff in April 2026 as Chief Financial Officer, bringing deep expertise in capital markets strategy, financial operations and supporting clinical-stage organizations through key inflection points. Mr. Muntner is a seasoned biopharma finance executive with more than 25 years of experience spanning investment banking and corporate leadership roles, including as CFO of both private and publicly traded biotechnology companies. Previously, Mr. Muntner served as Chief Financial Officer of Imvax, Inc., where he led all finance functions, including raising $86 million in a convertible financing. Prior to that, he served as Chief Financial Officer of Mesoblast Ltd., a Nasdaq- and ASX-listed biotechnology company, where he completed multiple cross-border equity and debt financings totaling approximately $300 million and helped expand the company’s U.S. investor base. Earlier in his career, Mr. Muntner held senior roles in investment banking, completing more than 90 transactions and raising over $9 billion in equity and debt financing for life sciences companies. Mr. Muntner serves as a member of the Board Directors at Devonian Health Group Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing immunomodulatory treatments for inflammatory diseases.
Mr. Muntner holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University.
Roger Sidhu, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Sidhu is an accomplished and seasoned drug developer who joins Cardiff Oncology with over 20 years of oncology leadership and clinical experience. Dr. Sidhu has advanced therapeutics across multiple modalities, and from Phase 1 to Phase 3 clinical development and through commercial launch. Dr. Sidhu was most recently Acting CEO and Chief Medical Officer at Treadwell Therapeutics, a privately held biotechnology company where he was responsible for advancing a portfolio of small molecules for the treatment of solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. Prior to that role, Dr. Sidhu has held the role of VP of Clinical Development at Kite, a Gilead Company, Chief Medical Officer at Cell Design Labs, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Roivant Sciences, and Chief Medical Officer at Eterna Therapeutics (now Ernexa).
Dr. Sidhu spent nearly 10 years at Amgen in roles of increasing responsibility in the Hematology/Oncology therapeutic area where he advanced multiple therapeutic candidates. In metastatic colorectal cancer, he led multiple phase 3 clinical trials of panitumumab (Vectibix®) in monotherapy and in combination with chemotherapy leading to approvals in the U.S. and globally. Dr. Sidhu was also a leader in advancing the science of RAS biology and therapeutics in metastatic colorectal cancer, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Dr. Sidhu is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in both internal medicine and medical oncology. He earned his medical degree from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada and his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta.
Tod Smeal, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Smeal has served as Chief Scientific Officer since January 2022. Previously he was CSO at Hexagon Bio (2020-2021), CSO of Cancer Biology at Eli Lilly and Company (2015-2020), Director at the Oncology Research Unit of Pfizer (2003-2015), and Senior Group Leader at the SUGEN site of Pharmacia and Upjohn and SUGEN (1998-2003). When Pfizer closed the SUGEN site in 2003, Dr. Smeal continued his oncology research efforts on targeted therapies and their resistance mechanisms with Pfizer at their San Diego oncology research site. Subsequently in 2015, Dr. Smeal joined Eli Lilly where he led their oncology research efforts at Lilly Research Labs in Indianapolis. During his over 20 years in industry working on targeted therapies, Dr. Smeal has played key leadership roles in delivering about 20 FHD/NMEs and several FDA approved or soon to be approved drugs (e.g., Lorbrena, Xalkori, Vizimpro and Nirogacestat). Dr. Smeal’s work in developing cancer therapies has been focused on intracellular signaling, kinases, drug pharmacology, and targeted therapies and their resistance mechanisms. He has over 45 publications which includes high impact publications in Cell, Nature, New England Journal of Medicine, Cancer Cell and Cancer Discovery.
From 1994 to 1998, Dr. Smeal was a post-doctoral fellow of the American Cancer Society and a senior post-doctoral fellow of the MIT-Merck fellowship program. Dr. Smeal holds a B.S. in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of California, San Diego.