Leading Strategic Change in an Era of Healthcare Transformation

Jim Austin, a former senior executive at Baxter Healthcare, combines business strategy and organizational development theory with extensive industry experience. In 2013, Brown University appointed Jim an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Executive Master of Healthcare Leadership program where he leads the graduate Management & Marketing course.  He also lectures at the Wharton Business School and Duke CE where he tailors and delivers senior-level seminars on Strategy, Strategic Execution, Scenario Planning, and Critical Thinking for a number of leading companies including Boston Scientific, Coca-Cola, Lincoln Financial, JP Morgan Chase, Roche China, General Electric, Boston Scientific, McKesson and Hitachi. 

From 2005-2016, Mr. Austin worked at Decision Strategies International, leaving as a Senior Principal.  There he led numerous projects including scenarios of the future for a Medical Devices firm; R&D priorities for a major consumer products company; a strategic plan for the American College of Radiology; scenarios of the future for the League of Southeastern Credit Unions; and a new vision/priorities at RAND Health.  Today, he heads his own consulting/executive development firm, JH Austin Associates, Inc.

Jim holds a BA in Economics and Politics from Yale University. He was a Special Student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Urban Studies Department, and received a joint Masters in Public Affairs (MPA) and a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) from the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University.

Judith Bentkover is the Executive and Academic Director in Brown University’s Executive Master of Healthcare Leadership program. She is a Professor of the Practice in the Department of Health Services, Policy and Practice at Brown, and also a Professor of the Practice in the Economics Department at Tufts University.

Dr. Bentkover has authored approximately 100 research articles, chapters, monographs, books and reports. She has testified before Congress, explaining the drivers of hospital costs. Dr. Bentkover is a reviewer for several pharmacoeconomics, medical, and health policy journals. She was included on Health Care 500’s list of the most influential health policy makers in the US and is recognized as a developer of therapy economics, translating cost-benefit methodology into innovative strategic management tools. She often is invited as a guest lecturer at universities, executive workshops, and conferences.

Laurence Chait is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Brown University, where he teaches a Masters-level course in Strategy. He is also Managing Director of Chait & Associates,Inc., a consultancy that advises senior management and their teams on achieving and sustaining high performance—and helps them keep their strategic initiatives on track. He has over forty years of experience in business management and information technology.

In his consulting work, Mr. Chait has helped executives and organizations across industries manage change. His focus is on strategic business planning, change management, process improvement, and knowledge leverage. In addition, Mr. Chait supports clients as an executive and team coach.

Prior to Chait and Associates, Mr. Chait was Vice President and Director of Arthur D. Little, Inc. He held positions including Chief Knowledge Officer and Principal. While at ADL, Mr. Chait developed the firm’s Business Process Improvement methodology and built its practice in that area.<

Mr. Chait has authored three books on information technology and human resources, and is a contributing author of “Managing the Learning Process of the Corporation.” He has also authored 20 articles published in the U.S. and abroad, lectured in MBA and post-graduate programs in seven universities, and spoken at over 40 conferences on topics including the management of change, knowledge management, and process improvement. For the past decade, Mr. Chait has been President of the Boston KM Forum.

Mr. Chait received his AB in Economics from Cornell University and his MBA from the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration.