• Our Team

Leadership

Robert Palmer, MBA

Chairman, President, and CEO

Robert is an experienced technology developer, entrepreneur, and executive with over 20-years of industrial experience in developing analytic models for healthcare payers, providers, life sciences, professional sports, financial services, private equity, and manufacturing. Robert developed the firm’s PotentiaMED analytics products including comparative effectiveness analysis and predictive analytics for clinical and economic outcomes. He has also held executive leadership across various privately held companies and startups. Robert holds an MBA from Washington University, Olin School of Business, and a BS in Business Administration from Regis University. He is a member of the William Greenleaf Eliot Society and the YPO (Young Presidents Organization).

Todd Steussie

Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President

Todd is Executive Vice-President of PotentiaMetrics and President of PotentiaPRO. He has extensive experience in developing analytic and predictive models for athletics and healthcare. He played in the NFL for fourteen years, and among numerous other football accomplishments, he started in two pro bowls, fourteen playoff games, three NFC championship games and the 2004 Super Bowl. Todd holds an MBA from Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management, and a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies, Economic Theory from University of California, Berkeley. He earned certificates in Business Management, Entrepreneurship, Negotiations, Risk Analysis and Modeling from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton Business School. He also holds certificates in Entrepreneurship and Team Building from Harvard University, Harvard School of Business.

Kendall Qualls, MBA

Chief Commercial Officer and Executive Vice President

Before joining PotentiaMetrics, Kendall spent 20+ years leading Marketing and Sales teams in BioPharma and the Med Tech industries with global leaders such as Medtronic, Covidien and Johnson & Johnson. For the past 10-years, he has been tapped to lead new product launches or recruited to revive stalled or declining businesses. Kendall is an innovative leader and led transformational commercial projects before the era of value-based healthcare that resulted in new go-to-market strategies and structure. Before entering the healthcare industry, Kendall served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, Field Artillery for five years in the U.S. and South Korea. Kendall holds an MBA from the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Masters of Arts from the University of Oklahoma and Bachelor of Arts from Cameron University.

Jeff Block

Vice President, Process and Technology

Jeff is responsible for defining and leading the firm’s technical strategy and project delivery. He has over twenty years of experience in the development and deployment of large-scale, complex information technology. He was formerly a Regional Training Manager at BEA Systems, Inc., focusing on building the fundamental technology enterprise of Fortune Global 1,000 companies. He has experience in the development of courseware and training including software development methodology, enterprise and application architecture, and customer interaction. Jeff has a Bachelor of Science from the Engineering College of the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

Sal Calta

Senior Director

Sal brings extensive experience in information technology and business transformation. Sal was a Senior Executive at IBM (most recently the VP of Business Transformation), retiring in 2015 after a successful 36-year career that included product development, supply chain, business transformation, and information technology. Sal then served as the interim CIO at Florida Blue, focusing on healthcare innovation, successfully applying years of his business transformation experience. Sal is also on the advisory board for the Mercy College MBA program, is an advisor to Astia (a non-profit organization that provides guidance and support for women entrepreneurs), has recently served on the board of the Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce, and is the chair of the executive volunteer leadership board of the New York Blood Center. Sal earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Giri Venkatraman, MD, MBA

Director

Dr. Venkatraman is responsible for the development and management of PotentiaMED outcomes registries. Dr. Venkatraman is an otolaryngologist who was most recently a member of the faculty at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC). As the Associate Quality Office at DHMC, Giri was involved in patient safety, process improvement as well as clinical utilization and registry research with researchers at The Dartmouth Institute. Giri is trained in lean and certified six sigma black belt from Villanova University. Giri also held assistant professor roles at DHMC and Emory Healthcare and has served as Director of a healthcare intelligence firm. Giri holds an MD from the University of Maryland Baltimore and an MBA from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.

Jessica Houston, MSPH

Director

Jessica is focused on innovation and new-product development of strategic solutions. She has over ten-years of clinical trial experience, epidemiological data analytics training, and molecular science research. She developed a nutritional-based predictive analytics model to identify subclinical disease. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals and books. Most recently Jessica held a leadership role at Guidewell Innovation. Jessica is a graduate of The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. While at Hopkins, she received rigorous training in the development of mobile and technical applications in health systems, statistical analysis, clinical trial design, and global health prevention. She holds a BS. degree from Virginia Tech and an MS from the University of Virginia.

Chris Hillier

Director of International Business

Chris is a successful scientist and technology entrepreneur who has co-founded five companies and acted as strategic advisor and mentor for many more. He has received many awards for innovation including a Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellowship, two Best Company Awards; and a John Logie Baird Award for Innovation. In the Caribbean, he headed up entrepreneurship and innovation for the University of the West Indies covering 17 territories including Barbados, Trinidad, and Jamaica, won the Barbados National Entrepreneurship Competition and co-creating the Barbados Angel Investment Network. In 2014, he joined GuideWell, parent to Florida Blue (formerly Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida), as Sr. Director of Business Innovation, and subsequently as COO and CSO for GuideWell Innovation. In 2017 he created Angry Health LLC, a healthcare and life sciences consultancy.

Product

Barton Hamilton, PhD

Economics and Econometrics

Bart directs the healthcare management program at Washington University, Olin Business School in which professors from both the medical and business schools teach courses to both business and non-business majors. In addition to being an expert on healthcare economics, he also has expertise in entrepreneurship, and has directed the Hatchery Entrepreneurship Program at the Olin Business School. Before joining Olin, Barton was an assistant professor of economics at McGill University for five years. He brings to PotentiaMED both publications and an extensive expertise in evaluating surgeon performance, surgeon costs and cost volatility, and the impact of surgeon specialization on patient outcomes. He earned his PhD in Economics from Stanford University and an A.B., Economics, with honors, from University of California, Berkeley.

Gregory Mayhew, PhD

Decision Modeling, Valuation

Greg has extensive experience in advanced technology development and production. He has managed design departments and implemented numerous start-up technical and business divisions. Greg holds five patents that cover multiple technologies and seventeen technical publications. He holds a Doctorate in Information Theory and Discrete Mathematics from the University of Southern California. He earned his Master of Business Administration with concentration in finance and operations management and Master of Finance with concentration in asset pricing and econometrics from Washington University in St. Louis, Olin School of Business. He also holds a Master of Science in Digital Communications from the University of Southern California. Greg completed his Bachelor of Science in Electronics (with a minor in economics) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a professor of finance with St. Louis University, Cook School of Business.

Dorina Kallogjeri, MD, MPH

Research Statistician

Dorina is primarily responsible for the development of mathematical models, outcomes analysis and research for PotentiaMED products. Combined with her expertise in biostatistical and research design, Dorina brings the PotentiaMED team her excellent ability to take complex statistical principles and translate them into simple, straightforward, and meaningful applications. Dorina completed medical studies in Albania and obtained a Masters of Public Health at St. Louis University.

Krishna Nannapeneni

Data Architect

Krishna has over 20 years of experience developing and deploying information management, data warehousing, business intelligence (BI), performance management, planning budgeting and forecasting solutions for a wide variety of Fortune 500 clients. He was previously engaged with EDS where he was inducted into the eminent EDS Top Gun program, representing the top 2% of its talent pool. Krishna received his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Madras University, India and holds numerous technology certifications in IBM Cognos and TM1.

Sara Kukuljan, RN

Regulatory and Compliance Coordinator

Sara is a registered nurse and has worked at Washington University Medical Center in a variety of nursing and administrative positions since 1997. Her most recent position was as the Director of Clinical Studies Program Development. Sara’s current position is as the regulatory and compliance officer for the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. Sara serves on one of the WU Human Research Protection Committees and serves as a liaison between the Department and the University’s Human Research Protection office. She brings to PotentiaMED an expertise in all aspects of regulatory compliance. Sara holds a Bachelor of Science in Health Science Education from the University of Florida, and earned a nursing degree from the Jewish Hospital College of Nursing, Washington University Medical Center.

S. Joshua Swamidass, MD, PhD

Data Scientist

Josh is both a physician and a scientist, appointed as an Assistant Professor at the Washington University School of Medicine, where he is focused on using machine learning and predictive modeling to discover new medicines and new uses for existing medicines. He brings to PotentiaMED a specific expertise in solving medical problems with purpose-designed machine learning and modeling methods. This builds from both his medical training and his PhD training in Computer and Information Sciences at the University California, Irvine. He is one of the few computationally trained physicians in the country. His collaborators and consulting engagements have included the Broad Institute of Harvard/MIT, Pfizer, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, and Janssen Pharmaceuticals (a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson).

Technical Advisory Board

Jay F. Piccirillo, MD, FACS, CPI

Co-founder and Medical Advisor

Dr. Piccirillo joined the faculty of the Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine after completing a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program Fellowship at Yale University with Drs. Alvan R. Feinstein and Ralph Horowitz focusing on quantitative clinical epidemiology and health services research. Currently, he is Professor and Vice-Chair for Research of the Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery with joint appointments within the Department of Medicine, Program in Occupational Therapy, and Division of Biostatistics. As a clinical epidemiologist and health services researcher, his main areas of research interest have been the evaluation of treatment effectiveness and development of novel instruments to study illness severity and response to treatment for people suffering from cancer. For the past 10 years, he has been selected as a member of America’s Top Doctors and Best Doctors in America and perennially selected as one of the Best Doctors in St. Louis. He serves on the Editorial Board of the Archives of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery and as a reviewer for multiple journals. Dr. Piccirillo also serves as Course master for the first- and second-year medical school course entitled, “Clinical Epidemiology and Evidence-Based Medicine”, which he has taught continuously since 1993. In 2006, he received the Goldstein Teaching Award, the highest teaching award at Washington University School of Medicine.

David Theodoro, MD

Co-founder and Medical Advisor

Dr. Theodoro is a co-founder of PotentiaMED and is a developer of the company’s analytics products for cardiac surgery. Dr. Theodoro brings substantial clinical and cardiac surgery practice management expertise. Dr. Theodoro is a practicing cardiothoracic surgeon, chief of cardiac surgery for one of the largest heart surgery programs in the Midwest at SSM Hospital System, St. Louis and president of a medical service business. He has broad experience in program development, team integration, and contract negotiations. Dr. Theodoro completed Cardiothoracic Surgery training at The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He finished General Surgery training at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

James L. Cox, MD

Medical Advisor

Dr. Cox trained in Cardiothoracic Surgery under Dr. David Sabiston at Duke University, where he remained on the faculty as an Assistant Professor, then Associate Professor of Surgery. Dr. Cox subsequently became the first Evarts A. Graham Professor of Surgery and Chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, a position he held for 14-years. In July of 2000, he retired as the Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Georgetown University Medical Center. On July 1, 2006, Jim became the Emeritus Evarts A. Graham Professor of Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine. He has been the President of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, Editor of the Seminars in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Editor of Operative Techniques in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Chairman of the Residency Review Committee for Thoracic Surgery, a Director of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, and a member of the Surgical Study Section at the NIH. Dr. Cox is best known for his work in the field of cardiac arrhythmia surgery and the development of the Cox-Maze Procedure which is considered the “gold standard’ for the treatment of atrial fibrillation. Dr. Cox has trained many prominent surgeons in America, Europe and Asia and has served as the Guest Lecturer, Visiting Professor or Guest Surgeon over 200 times and in over 30 countries. Dr. Cox was honored in Paris, France as one of only thirty “Pioneers in Cardiothoracic Surgery” for the First 50 Years of the Specialty. In April 2005, Dr. Cox joined Dr. Michael DeBakey as only the second American cardiac surgeon ever elected into the Russian Academy of Medical Science.

Preethi H. Gunaratne, PhD

Medical Advisor

Dr. Preethi Gunaratne brings extensive experience in genomics, analytics and personalized medicine. Following a stint as Assistant Director of the Baylor College of Medicine DNA Diagnostic laboratory. In 1999 she joined the International Human Genome Project through which she directly contributed to the sequencing and annotation of Human Chromosomes 3, 12 and X. In 2000 she was appointed Director of gene (cDNA) sequencing at the Baylor Human Genome Sequencing Center (Baylor-HGSC). In 2005 she lead her team to make the largest single contribution of 15,000 sequences each to the National Cancer Institutes’ (NCI) Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC) in Phase I and the National Institute for Diabetes & Digestive Kidney Disease (NIDDK) - Stem Cell Genome Anatomy Project (SCGAP). Dr. Gunaratne joined the University of Houston in 2006 and went on to establish one of the first comprehensive functional genomics platforms to rationally define genetic signatures that accurately stratify and predict responsive and non-responsive host genomes to externally administered microRNAs and drugs. She collaborated with teams from Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) to pioneer methods for discovering strong tumor suppressor microRNAs for ovarian, colorectal, metastatic breast, skin and kidney cancers, multiple myeloma, and pediatric neuroblastoma and osteosarcoma. Through this work Dr. Gunaratne’s group has also established a framework for defining unique microRNA-regulated gene signatures that can be used for personalizing cancer treatments based on underlying genetic mutations in tumors as defined by Whole Exome or Whole Genome sequencing (WES or WGS). To rapidly translate their findings into clinical practice Dr. Gunaratne co-founded NEXTmiRNA Technologies a company dedicated to harnessing tumor suppressor microRNAs as the Next Generation cancer drugs – acting as circuit breakers of multiple oncogenic pathways driving cancer. Preclinical work for a tumor suppressor microRNA for ovarian cancer.

Partners