Leadership
Mani Mohindru, PhD
President & Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Mohindru has served as our Interim Chief Executive Officer since January 2026, President and Chief Executive Officer since late March 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 Inc., 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.
Leila Alland, MD
Interim Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Alland has served as our Interim Chief Medical Officer since October 2026. She is a seasoned pharmaceutical and biotechnology executive, bringing extensive clinical development expertise and a track record of advancing innovative cancer therapies.
Previously, Dr. Alland served as Chief Medical Officer of several clinical-stage biotechnology companies, including PMV Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: PMVP), a precision oncology company focused on p53; Affimed N.V. (Nasdaq: AFMD), an immuno-oncology company; and Tarveda Therapeutics, Inc., a targeted drug conjugate company. Earlier in her career, Dr. Alland held leadership roles at AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis and Schering-Plough, where she contributed to the development and approval of Tagrisso®, Opdivo®, Tasigna® and Caelyx®.
In addition to her position at Cardiff Oncology, Dr. Alland serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Abeona Therapeutics Inc. (Nasdaq: ABEO), a commercial-stage cell and gene therapy company. Dr. Alland received her M.D. from New York University and her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, and completed training in Pediatrics at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and in Hematology/Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She served on the faculty of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she cared for children with cancer, and received multiple grants and awards for her research on oncoproteins and epigenetics.
Brigitte Lindsay
Chief Accounting Officer
Brigitte Lindsay has served as Chief Accounting Officer since January 2026 and has been with the Company since 2012. Prior to her appointment as Chief Accounting Officer, she served as Senior Vice President of Finance, supporting the Company through key phases of growth, public company operations, and capital formation. In her current role, Ms. Lindsay oversees corporate accounting and financial reporting and works closely with management and the Board of Directors to support strong governance, financial discipline, and transparency.
Ms. Lindsay brings extensive experience in biotechnology and medical technology, having previously served as Controller of AviaraDx before and after its acquisition by bioMérieux, and in finance leadership roles at Carl Zeiss Meditec and Philips-Respironics. Her background across multinational and growth-stage organizations, including professional experience in the United States and Germany, supports the Company’s financial infrastructure as it advances innovative oncology programs and executes its long-term strategy.
Ms. Lindsay holds a Diplom-Betriebswirt degree from the Verwaltungs- und Wirtschaftsakademie, Munich.
Joshua Muntner
Chief Financial Officer
Joshua 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 of 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.
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.