Faculty

Katie Anderson

Faculty

Katie Anderson is the founder of KBJ Anderson Consulting, an independent consulting practice focused on helping individuals and organizations lead with intention by connecting their purpose, processes, and practices to deliver higher levels of performance.

Katie has over 20 years of experience in supporting change and improvement in organizations across a range of industries, including healthcare, government, manufacturing, biotech, and academia. Katie previously held senior lean leadership roles at Stanford Children’s Healthcare and Sutter Health, and as a healthcare senior consultant at PwC Australia.

Katie is an internationally recognized speaker, consultant, and coach, and has lived around the world – including the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Australia, and Japan. She regularly leads executive Japan Study Trips (www.kbjanderson.com/japantrips) for lean practitioners wanting to take their understanding of operational excellence to the next level by discovering how Japanese organizations create cultures of respect and continuous improvement.

In addition to teaching for Catalysis, Katie is a faculty member of the Lean Enterprise Institute and leads the Association for Manufacturing Excellence’s Consortia program in the San Francisco Bay Area.  

Katie holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Human Biology with honors from Stanford University and a Masters of Philosophy in Public Health (MPhil) from the University of Sydney, and was a Fulbright Scholar in Australia.

For more information and leadership resources, visit: www.kbjanderson.com or email Katie: katie@kbjanderson.com.

Caroline Attard

Faculty

Caroline is currently a senior leader in the National Health Service in the UK and is passionate about improvement work and the power of continuous improvement in delivering and sustaining change within organizations.

She has been a mental health nurse for over 23 years. Caroline’s career started in Malta, her native country, but she transferred to the UK over 20 years ago. Her professional portfolio includes community mental health, crisis work, and in-patient nursing. Caroline has held senior clinical roles in various organizations focusing on advanced clinical practice and has been a lecturer in mental health nursing and psychosocial interventions at various Universities in the UK at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. More recently she has held a senior National position as part of a clinical fellowship in mental health.

Caroline’s area of expertise is improvement work, and she has an expansive portfolio of quality improvement projects and transformation in all areas of health care using quality improvement methodology. She believes in the importance of the customer voice and has successfully coproduced with service users and care-givers the development and improvement of pathways and services for service users and care-givers.

She has worked as the Head of Quality Improvement within a healthcare trust and led a complete organization lean transformation. This involved developing and delivering a whole program for the implementation of the management system across all areas of health care. As a result, Caroline holds extensive experience in the development, adaptation, and implementation of management systems.

Caroline is co-author and editor of the Oxford Textbook of Inpatient Psychiatry and has several published works in books and journals.  

Mark Graban

Faculty

Mark Graban is the author of the Shingo-Award-winning book “Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Engagement.” Mark is also co-author, with Joe Swartz, of “Healthcare Kaizen: Engaging Front-Line Staff in Sustainable Continuous Improvements” (also a Shingo recipient) and “The Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen.” In 2018, he released “Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More” and his newest book, released in June 2023 is “The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation.”

He serves as a consultant to healthcare organizations through his company, Constancy, Inc. and is also a senior advisor to the technology company KaiNexus. Mark has a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an M.B.A. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Leaders for Global Operations Program. Mark and his wife live in Texas.

Margie Hagene

Faculty

Margie is an organizational effectiveness and Lean Thinking / Continuous Improvement teacher and coach.   For over thirty years, she has helped executives and senior leaders recognize their changing roles and responsibilities in complex systems.   By providing frameworks for thinking and learning, and evidence-based structures for practice, she supports leaders in identifying and developing appropriate behaviors and skills for leading and creating an organization filled with competent, confident problem solvers.  

For eighteen years, Margie worked as a global internal consultant for Ford Motor Company at all levels within the organization – from team leaders to the COO – in Product Development, Design and Manufacturing. 

Since 2005, Margie has worked in a variety of leading service and manufacturing industries, including healthcare, PreK-12 education, distribution, food service, and transportation/mobility.  Her work has included university programs in areas of leadership development, Lean Thinking, and organizational learning.  Margie’s ongoing community work focuses on issues of hunger relief and land conservation.

Clients invariably learn to appreciate Margie’s ability to quickly assess leadership qualities, identify issues of misalignment among management, and recognize disconnects between agreed to policies and principles and actual daily behaviors.  She embodies the belief that intentional, balanced focus on both the social and technical components in complex systems is essential for long-term effectiveness of any improvement efforts.

Margie holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Education from Butler University, Indiana (USA), and a Master of Science Degree in Education from Indiana University (USA).

Tom Hartman

Faculty

Thomas Hartman is an executive coach at Catalysis. His responsibilities include helping coach healthcare leaders and payers to radically improve healthcare quality and outcomes for patients and families, while reducing healthcare costs. Prior to joining Catalysis, Tom spent 19 years as a senior executive with Autoliv, the world’s largest producer of automotive safety products. He brings 29 years of experience on the lean journey, leading and mentoring organizations through the implementation and deployment of the Autoliv Production System — based on the Toyota System and culture — including three years working directly with a TPS Sensei (1998-2000). From 1997 through 2004, Tom was President of Autoliv’s global Airbag Inflator Division with annual sales of $850 million. Tom also served as senior director of Autoliv Lean Consulting, a venture he co-founded in 2007, resulting in the Autoliv Culture of Continuous Improvement being shared with over 100 companies. From 2006 through 2011, Tom mentored local management in the establishment of Autoliv’s AME and Shingo-Prize winning lean culture in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. Since 2005, Tom has served as a member of the Shingo Prize Board of Governors and in 2007 was inducted into the Shingo Academy in 2010 and the AME Hall of Fame in 2013. Tom has served on advisory boards for Economic Development, Healthcare, and Manufacturing organizations.

Jeff Hunter

Faculty

Jeff Hunter has extensive experience in healthcare leadership, strategy formulation and strategy deployment. His peers respect his ability to analyze and synthesize complex information and ideas; communicate them in clear, understandable, and actionable terms; and facilitate strategic thinking among leadership teams with engaging, visual methods.

Jeff has a special interest in facilitating strategic thinking for professional organizations such as healthcare, higher education, and service organizations, as well as not-for-profit community agencies. His coaching and facilitation enables others to manage vision and purpose with strategic agility.

Jeff is on the faculty of Catalysis and the Donald J. Schneider School of Business and Economics at St. Norbert College. He is also a Strategic Planning Fellow for Sg2, a leading provider of health care intelligence, analytics, and consulting.

From 1991 until his retirement in 2015 he was the Senior Vice President, Strategy and Marketing for ThedaCare, a community-sponsored system of hospitals, physicians, behavioral health services, and home care based in Appleton, Wisconsin. He was primarily responsible for strategic planning, marketing, government relations, philanthropy, and e-health.

Prior to joining ThedaCare in 1991, Mr. Hunter managed the consulting practice for Brim Healthcare in Portland, Oregon.  He began his career in healthcare with Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center in Denver, Colorado.  Mr. Hunter received his B.S. in Economics from the University of Detroit and his M.A. in Health Services Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Mr. Hunter is actively involved in his community, is a member of the Board of Visitors of the Donald J. Schneider School of Business and Economics at St. Norbert College, and Past President of the Board of Directors of the Boys and Girls Club of the Fox Valley.

Paul Kempinski

Faculty

Paul Kempinski, MS, FACHE, CEC is the recently retired Chief Executive Officer of Children’s Mercy Kansas City, one of the nation’s largest, independent, academic children’s health systems. He was also the inaugural Alice Berry, DDS and Katharine Berry, MD, Endowed Chair in Executive Leadership at Children’s Mercy. 

Kempinski was appointed President and CEO at Children’s Mercy in 2018. Under his leadership, Children’s Mercy opened the Children’s Mercy Research Institute, launched a bold strategy to address the pediatric mental health crisis, activated growth strategies throughout Kansas and Missouri, achieved national rankings by US News and World report in all 11 specialties, established the Berry Institute to invest in the development of internal leaders, expanded clinical programs, and achieved unprecedented financial strength. These accomplishments occurred while also guiding the system through the COVID-19 pandemic. Kempinski has 42 years of leadership experience in health care. Prior to joining Children’s Mercy Kempinski served as President of the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware and Enterprise Vice President for Nemours Children’s Health. Kempinski joined Nemours in 2003, serving as Chief Operating Officer before his promotion to president. Prior to Nemours, Kempinski was Chief Operating Officer of Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Darby, Pennsylvania. He also held senior leadership positions at Via Health in Rochester, New York; Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. He is a sought-after presenter, panelist, and podcaster on health care issues and leadership.

Kempinski obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Planning and Administration from Penn State University, followed by a Master of Science in Health Systems Management from Rush University and, most recently, completed the Symbiosis executive certification program.  He is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives and an alumnus of Leadership Philadelphia. He received the Rochester Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” award for professional achievement and community service by young leaders. In 2018, he was the recipient of the prestigious Alumni Fellow Award from the Penn State University Alumni Association, and in May 2019 delivered the commencement address to 1,000 graduating students in the College of Human Development at Penn State, which included his daughter, Jennifer. In 2021, Kempinski received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Rush University Health Systems Management Alumni Association. 

Kempinski is actively engaged in the community at a local, regional, and national level. He served on the Board of Trustees of the Children’s Hospital Association and chaired the association’s Quality Committee. He also served on the boards of the Missouri Hospital Association; Kansas City Chamber of Commerce; Kansas City Civic Council, KC Common Good, and the Ronald McDonald House of Greater Kansas City.

Kempinski resides in Bonita Springs, FL and Leawood, KS with his wife Maureen.  The couple have three grown children.

Kevin McNamara

Kevin McNamara is the President and Chief Executive Officer of TIDI Products, LLC based in Neenah, Wisconsin. TIDI is a medical device manufacturer focused on the acute care market. TIDI has manufacturing operations in Wisconsin, Mexico, and China. Kevin has over 30 years of management and leadership experience in industries ranging from consumer-packaged goods to health care. His career has included sales and marketing roles at Procter & Gamble Company, Pepsi-Cola Company, and E.J. Brach Corporation. Mr. McNamara has been with TIDI or its predecessor companies since 1998. He has held Board roles in several “for profit” and “not for profit” organizations. He holds an A. B. Degree from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. 

Jill Menzel

Faculty

Jill has over ten years of experience coaching lean principles, A3 thinking, and lean management system development. 

Jill has spent eight years at ThedaCare as a Lean Facilitator, Hospitalist Manager, and Medical Staff Manager where she was an early adaptor, mentor, and coach of ThedaCare’s lean management system.  She has successfully taught and coached lean concepts to both employed and independent physicians resulting in patient satisfaction, productivity, quality, and engagement improvements.  Jill also supported hospital leadership in daily improvement, rapid improvement events, and value stream work.  In addition, since 2012 she has been coaching a local Wisconsin school district as they implement lean thinking in the classroom.

Jill earned a degree in Chemical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, MO and in Chemical Physics from the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, MN.  Prior to joining ThedaCare, Jill had twelve years of experience in manufacturing and quality roles in the paper industry.

Theresa Moore

Faculty

Theresa Moore is an Operational Excellence Coach and Instructor.  Her responsibilities include helping connect executive and operational leaders in the development of organizational improvement systems as well as helping Process Improvement Teams transition from facilitator/event-based support to improvement coaches.  While at Catalysis, Theresa has provided support to healthcare organizations through specialized curriculum design, educational services and executive facilitation.

Prior to joining Catalysis, Theresa spent over 10 years at ThedaCare.  She started as an Improvement Facilitator and later transitioned to operations where she was the Director of ThedaCare’s System Laboratories.  While Director, she led the strategic improvement initiative to optimize the laboratory value stream.  Partnering with the information technology department, she leveraged the installation of a new information system to create business informatics that supported the lean improvement journey.  Theresa returned to the ThedaCare Improvement Consultant role where she was responsible for coaching ThedaCare senior leaders, as well as improvement facilitators in lean principles and methodologies.   Prior to ThedaCare, Theresa held numerous Plant Manager and quality positions for a variety of manufacturers including Alcoa, PolyOne and General Electric. Theresa received a MBA from Brenau University, Gainesville, Georgia and a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY.

Theresa is currently an AME Excellence Aware Assessor as well as a volunteer coach with CI² (Continuous Improvement, Community Impact).

Elaine Mead

Elaine Mead is currently an Executive Director of Improvement, Care and Compassion, IC&C, an organisation committed to supporting leaders on their improvement journey across the UK and Europe.

Elaine has enjoyed over 34 years’ experience working in clinical, managerial and Executive roles within the National Health Service across the UK.  Her original professional clinical background was as a diagnostic radiographer with experience in general, research and academic settings. 

In her previous position, Elaine held the position of Chief Executive of NHS Highland for eight years, originally moving to the Highlands of Scotland, as their first Chief Operating Officer. She was responsible for the development of the first totally integrated health and care system in Scotland, which continues to support services across 41% of the most remote and rural land mass of the UK.

Elaine is a passionate ambassador for quality and led the development of the Highland Quality Approach, an improvement system supporting NHS Highland to improve quality of care based on increasing value.  Through this work she built a world-wide network of contacts to share best practice and has hosted multiple study-tours, presented at many key international conferences and has published on both quality improvement at scale and the integration of health and social care.  Elaine coaches and supports teams at Board and Executive level to create value and minimise waste in systems through her works as Executive Sensei for NHS Improvement in England and also as Faculty member of the Institute of Health Improvement.

As a committed practitioner of Quality Improvement, Elaine is a certified Lean Leader from Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys having had a close association with the Virginia Mason Institute. Elaine has been awarded a Fellowship by the International Society for Quality in Healthcare ISQua and is a current member of Q Scotland. Elaine has had the opportunity to manage complex systems across the NHS in the UK and also deliver health care and screening in the private sector, working for a number of organisations including the Harley Street Clinic, London, the AMI Group and BUPA.  She was a research radiographer on the staff of Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals Medical Schools.

Elaine took up position of visiting Professor at the University of the Highlands and Islands supporting the delivery of disperse multi-professional health and care training across the Highlands and Islands, is an active non-executive member of the Ireland East Hospitals Board in Dublin. 

As a founding member of the Catalysis European CEO Forum, Elaine now continues to connect colleagues across Europe as Faculty, facilitating and supporting the Forum from her base in Scotland.

Al Pilong

Al Pilong blends executive coaching, financial acumen and team building skills to lead and coach multi-hospital health systems as well as non-profit organizations, to achieve peak performance from the income statement to quality outcomes. As a C-suite executive and executive coach, he leverages a patient-first perspective gained during his early career as a pharmacist and pharmacy leader to drive results.

Al leverages his extensive executive background in operational excellence, organizational effectiveness and team building skills in his coaching of leaders in hospitals, health systems, as well as non-profit organizations of all types, to drive results and achieve peak performance. Based on his experience as a CEO and C-suite executive, Al is an expert in navigating the interpersonal and political challenges of complex environments that leaders face every day and is skilled at supporting leaders to solve the problems they face along the way.

Passion for great leadership, passion for leaders, passion to see leaders succeed….this is what drives Al’s work as both a coach and an executive.

Al’s expertise spans the full range of healthcare leadership and executive coaching—from strategic partnerships and operational excellence to financial stewardship, service line development and quality enhancement. He produced $73M in organizational turnarounds and steered $500M in facility construction projects across his career—all completed on time and budget. In addition, Al leads health systems to secure Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade “A” ratings and earn recognition for outstanding patient experience from Healthgrades.

Al is an expert in executive coaching, building high performing teams, leading turnarounds, safety culture development, physician and employee engagement, and driving financial stewardship.

Mike Radtke

Faculty

Mike Radtke helps provide coaching, teaching, and support to organizations through their lean transformations. Mike previously served in different leadership capacities for ThedaCare over 15 years, including roles as an improvement facilitator, ancillary services manager, director of diagnostic imaging, and operational vice president with oversight of areas including perioperative services, trauma, air medical, therapies, and rehab. Prior to his leadership roles, Mike worked as a physical therapist at one of ThedaCare’s critical access hospitals.  In 2016, Mike became a full-time improvement and leadership coach and has been serving organizations on their improvement journeys.

Mike was first introduced to lean process improvement and leadership practices in 2003 as ThedaCare began their lean journey. He had the opportunity to learn and apply lean practices both as a member of the improvement department and as an operation leader. Mike was part of the team that initially created ThedaCare’s lean management system as documented in Kim Barnas’ book Beyond Heros. He has been faculty with Catalysis since 2012, teaching problem solving, spreading improvements, strategy deployment, and developing lean management systems throughout North America. Mike’s experiences as a clinician, lean process improvement facilitator, operational leader and executive, provides him with a unique perspective.  He thoroughly enjoys his role as a teacher and coach for organizations, supporting them in many ways to develop and enhance their management, improvement, and strategy deployment systems. 

Mike has a bachelor’s degree in physical therapy from the University of Wisconsin—La Crosse and a Master’s degree in Organizational Change Leadership from the University of Wisconsin—Platteville. Mike has taught at numerous conferences throughout the United States on lean and lean leadership in healthcare, including being the keynote speaker at the Maine Lean Summit in 2013.

Bruce Roe

Faculty

Dr. Roe has an extensive background as a senior leader at the hospital and health system level, and deep experience in organizational transformation. Driven by a passion for patient safety and quality, he served as a senior leader for 12 years at St. Boniface Hospital, a tertiary care academic health center in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He initially served as Chief Medical Officer and Executive Champion for Transformation for 10 years, and then stepped into the role of President and CEO for two years. During this time, he led St. Boniface in its pursuit of operational excellence, and deployment of management and improvement systems. He then took the role of Vice-President and Chief Medical Officer at Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, a system which includes five acute care hospitals and delivers community-based and long-term care. During his two years in this role, he provided leadership in clinical service redesign and helped engage physicians and staff in extensive redesign of patient pathways and care delivery realignment.

Dr. Roe is a leader who models humility, curiosity, and relentless pursuit of excellence. He continues to provide leadership coaching and is a practicing physician in Endocrinology at the University of Manitoba.

Don Shilton

Faculty

Don Shilton was president at St. Mary’s General Hospital in Kitchener, Ontario from 2010-2018.  Shortly after becoming president, he unveiled an ambitious new vision for St. Mary’s to become “the safest and most effective hospital in Canada,” using Hospital Standardized Mortality Ratio (HSMR) as the overall indicator for safety.

To accomplish this vision St. Mary’s began implementing lean in 2011.  As with many lean implementations St. Mary’s started strong and then began to struggle.  This struggle led them in to implement a Lean Management System (LMS).  Staff quickly embraced the rigor lean brought to their work and by 2017 were implementing an average of three improvements per employee/year.  Staff achieved breakthroughs such as reducing hospital acquired infections by more than 60%, reducing patient falls by more than 50% and reducing staff injuries by more than 35%.  In a 2017 survey staff were asked, “Overall how would you rate your organization as a place to work?”  The St. Mary’s percent positive score was thirty-three points higher than the national average. 

In 2016, St. Mary’s achieved the lowest HSMR in Canada for the second time in five years leading some in the media to call St. Mary’s, “the safest hospital in Canada.”

The St. Mary’s board also embraced lean thinking.  During Don’s tenure they started meetings with a board member-led huddle, and regularly went on gemba walks throughout the hospital to better understand the connection between strategy and front-line work.

Since retiring in 2018, Don has joined the faculty of Catalysis to help executives and boards dramatically improve health system performance.  He also consults with KPMG Canada.

Don has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Waterloo, a Respiratory Therapy diploma from the Michener Institute of Applied Sciences, and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from McMaster University. 

Michele Smith

Faculty

Michele is a dedicated Executive/Leadership Coach with extensive experience coaching individuals across all levels of the organization. She has broad experience as a designated leader and change management consultant, with expertise in team building, leadership development, and facilitation/coaching of leadership to arrive at an organizational strategy with aligned goals, solutions, and ultimately culture change. She is also a skilled Performance Improvement Coach and Facilitator (in person and virtual), with in-depth knowledge in healthcare, healthcare finance, and lean tools and methodologies.

As an International Coaching Federation accredited coach, and a certified John Maxwell Team member, Michele blends coaching, consulting, speaking, and facilitation with over two decades of business experience and her passion to help individuals become the leaders they want to be. This blend is a formula that inspires a deeper commitment to change and the achievement of transformative results. She understands challenges unique to high achievers, managers transitioning to senior leadership roles, highly technical managers, women in leadership, business disruption through mergers and acquisitions, and those of an achiever mindset who need to balance the needs of family, work, and their own well-being. 

Jamie Stilwill

Faculty

Jamie E. Stilwill is the co-author of The SIMPLE Path: The Simple Path to Simplify Your Life. She is a seasoned process improvement and change management professional with over a decade of experience, primarily in healthcare. Jamie has coached leaders at all levels and is known for her ability to meet people where they are, encouraging them to become the best version of themselves.

As a Partner and Principal Consultant at Simplify 98038, Jamie helps individuals and organizations navigate complexities with clarity and ease. She holds a Bachelor of Science from Pacific Lutheran University and a Master of Health Administration from the University of Washington.

Jamie is deeply committed to continuous learning and generously shares her knowledge through podcasts, workshops, conferences, and trainings. She holds certifications from Prosci, the Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP), and PMI. She is also Lean Black Belt and Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certified.

Jamie lives in Maple Valley, Washington with her husband, Charlie, and their two amazing children, Abby and Jackson. Together, they’ve built a lifetime of Disney memories. Her life goal is simple yet powerful: to help people make things better—one step at a time.

Joell Teal

Faculty

Joell Teal is a dynamic executive leader and senior consultant with over 20 years of experience shaking up the status quo in complex organizations. She brings purpose, heart and strategy to drive real transformation — blending people-centered leadership with process improvement to deliver results that last. Joell is all about creating spaces where collaboration, creativity, and accountability thrive. Whether she’s coaching leaders, optimizing workflows, or guiding teams through change, she’s on a mission to make work more human, more effective — and a lot more fun.

Joell got her start at Seattle Children’s Hospital, where she spent a decade learning, consulting, and growing her love for Lean and Process Improvement. She then leapt into external consulting and enjoyed working in a variety of different industries. At Valley Medical Center in Renton, WA, she had the honor of building and leading her own Process Improvement team. She capped her time there as Vice President of Transformational Services, driving strategic and meaningful, people-centered change across the organization.

Joell is also a former U.S. Air Force Reserve Chief Master Sergeant with a leadership ethos rooted in service, structure and team development. She was able to fine-tune her deep expertise in strategic planning, project governance, leadership development and cultural transformation throughout her military career.  

Joell received a Master’s Degree in Organizational Psychology and a BA in Social Psychology and Business Economics from Antioch University, Seattle, WA. She is also certified in Prosci Change Management and Lean. 

Joell currently runs her own business, The Colorful Consulting Firm, where her team is dedicated to aligning people, purpose, and process to build trust, engage and coach teams and leaders, spark creativity, sustain change — and have fun along the way! 

Ted Toussaint

Faculty

Ted teaches, writes, and consults on healthcare innovation both independently, with Catalysis, and with Prospect3. He specializes in innovation and new care model development, with a particular focus on primary care redesign.

Ted served in various innovation and improvement roles at Boston Children’s Hospital and Atrius Health. At Atrius he helped build the Atrius Health Innovation Center and worked with teams to design new clinical care models.  The innovation center worked on primary care redesign, a home-based urgent care program, and a hospital at home model. Since leaving Boston, he has worked with clients on using design, innovation, and improvement processes to target various aspects of primary care, new customer acquisition, health coaching, and system-wide primary care redesign.

Ted co-wrote the article “How Atrius Health Is Making the Shift from Volume to Value” which was published in Harvard Business Review, and has co-authored white papers on new care model development that were published through Catalysis.

Brian Veara

Faculty

Brian retired from being Program Director for the Catalysis Healthcare Value Network in 2023.  He has personally coached leaders in all aspects of their Clinical Business Intelligence program management to include their analytics maturity assessment, data governance and skills matrix development.  Brian came to Catalysis from ThedaCare, where he provided Clinical Business Intelligence program leadership throughout its’ Lean journey. Before joining ThedaCare, he spent over four years as a national Business Intelligence and Data Warehouse consultant and five years as an IT Director for a Fortune 500 retail chain.  Brian has experience working in healthcare and also in the retail and manufacturing sectors.  Brian has presented Business Intelligence subjects at the National Retail Federation (NRF) the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and various Data Governance conferences.

Adam Ward

Faculty

Adam Ward has an uncanny ability to extract high levels of performance from the teams he works with. He is a natural teacher that breaks down complex topics in the simplest terms. He is an inspirational leader who tells stories with powerful examples that inspire innovative action while staying grounded in the state of the business. He has experience across a multitude of industries, but healthcare became a passion for him, eventually leading to him writing the bestselling Lean Design in Healthcare, a book about establishing systematic innovation within healthcare organizations. He now runs his own consulting firm.

Just recently, as an Innovation & Strategy Consultant at Simpler (an IBM company) Adam was responsible for executive coaching of clients. His client list included the US Air Force, Harvard University, Atrius Health, ThedaCare, the Veteran’s Administration, EnerSys, Lockheed Martin, the Gemological Institute of America, Northwestern Mutual, and more. He has established innovation teams, improved product development output, coached c-suites on innovation, and helped developed corporate strategies. After IBM acquired Simpler, he was chosen to create integrated services combining Simpler’s proven operational excellence system and IBM’s artificial intelligence, blockchain, and IoT technologies.

Previously, as the Product Development Strategist at GE Healthcare, Adam worked for the Chief Technology Officer of the $16B company. He was key in creating and implementing multiple, transformative initiatives including the Product Leader program for the twelve, Diagnostic Imaging divisions and the Disruptive Cost Workout, which saved tens of millions of dollars during its launch year and went across other GE units as the standard.

Prior to working at GE Healthcare, Adam was a Design Leader for Honda R&D Americas. He was responsible for the electrical system of vehicles, routinely leading cross-functional teams of 50+ individuals with project capital budgets more than $100M and material spend exceeding $1B annually.

Adam holds an MBA from The Ohio State University and a BSME from the University of Maryland. He has served on several non-profit boards, led capital campaigns, and speaks regularly at conferences. He is a student coach and lecturer for the MBOE program at Ohio State.

Lucy Xenophon

Faculty

Lucy Xenophon, MD, MPH, is a nationally recognized healthcare leader and innovator with expertise in lean transformation, continuous process improvement, and operational excellence. She served as Chief Transformation Officer at Mount Sinai Morningside from 2014 to 2023, where she created and directed the first Lean Learning Lab in the Mount Sinai Health System, teaching, coaching, and modeling continuous improvement and lean leadership skills.

With a passion for designing healthcare delivery workflows that eliminate waste, improve safety, and enhance value for organizations, patients, and staff, Dr. Xenophon led the creation of the system’s first Daily Management and Incident Command Center – an innovative hub where electronic dashboards enable real-time decision-making, resource sharing, and emergency management coordination.

Dr. Xenophon began her medical career as a diagnostic radiologist with fellowship training in CT, MRI, and sonography. She trained and worked as an attending physician in the Northwell Health System and served as Director of Performance Improvement for the Department of Radiology at Long Island Jewish Hospital. Prior to joining Mount Sinai, she directed the first Lean Lab at NuHealth, a safety-net hospital on Long Island, New York.

Dr. Xenophon graduated summa cum laude from the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education and earned her medical degree from the New York University School of Medicine. She is board certified in both Internal Medicine and Diagnostic Radiology and holds a Master of Public Health in Health Management and Policy from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

She currently serves as a core member of the Better Healthcare Policy group, collaborating with organizations nationwide to improve patient safety and advance value-based healthcare, and is a member of the Board of Directors for Catalysis.