Leadership
Robert Palmer, MBA
Robert Palmer is the CEO of PotentiaMetrics. He has over 20-years of experience in developing analytic models for healthcare payers and providers, life sciences, professional sports, financial services, private equity, and manufacturing. Robert is best known for developing models to define individualized clinical and economic outcomes for cardiac surgery, home health care, and cancer. He developed outcomes models used by many of the largest medical technology companies and top academic centers. Robert’s work with Sorin Group defined the clinical and economic value of Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery. His work with Medtronic defined the reduction of complications and associated costs for using cerebral oximetry in cardiac surgery. Robert worked as a researcher and consultant at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, where he co-developed models for personalized cancer care. His work has been published in Harvard Health Policy Review and Becker’s Hospital Review. He has received awards and honors from GuideWell Innovation, the American Cancer Society, Predictive Analytics World Conference, and South by Southwest. Robert was adjunct faculty at Washington University in St. Louis Olin School of Business top-ranked Entrepreneurship Program from 2007-2013. He is the founder and co-founder of several companies. He 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 YPO (Young Presidents Organization) and is currently the Education Chair for the Healthcare Network.
Jerry Henderson, MD MBA FACP
Dr. Henderson is responsible for the development and management of the firms’ clinical data registries analytics platforms. He is also Chief Medical Information Officer at JP Health Network. Dr. Henderson formerly served as Chair of both the Informatics Governance and the Inpatient Clinical Informatics Committees at MD Anderson. Dr. Henderson is a distinguished innovator. In his time at MD Anderson, he designed and implemented the Oncologic Emergency Medicine fellowship, the first of its kind in the world, as well as a software program called Zero-G, receiving him the Innovator of the Year Award in 2013. His special interests include emerging technologies like AI, machine-learning, deep learning, to support and improve patient care. Dr. Henderson earned his medical degree from Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and completed his residency at University of Texas Galveston. He has continued education, earning an MBA from Rice University, and attended the Harvard Business School Executive Education Value Measurement in Healthcare program.
Linda Porter-Cox
Linda is a trusted leader, agile designer and innovator, go-to-market architect, brand steward, and marketing and customer success expert with 30+ years of experience. Linda is skilled at creating breakthroughs in thinking, in capability, and in stakeholder commitment, that builds and sustains businesses that produce prosperous results. As leader of the AND group, a boutique consultancy she founded in 2004, she has delivered for entities spanning the healthcare ecosystem to include providers, payers, health IT vendors, clinical analytics, med-tech, as well as, consumer and retail health and wellness care. Linda serves on the Board of iDE, a global non-profit applying human centered design in ‘empowering entrepreneurs to end poverty’. Prior to founding the AND group, Linda enjoyed a 17-year progressive career at Procter & Gamble where she held leadership positions in marketing, strategy, insights, customer development, and supply chain innovation. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with concentration in Marketing from the University of Central Florida.
Christopher Louden
Christopher Louden has vast experience and expertise in data science and biostatistics in both the healthcare and IT industries. For the better part of a decade he served as an independent statistical consultant in the IT and medical industries. His previous roles include data scientist at HP and Senior Biostatistician for University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio. Louden is highly skilled in data science, statistics and programming. He holds a Bachelors of Mathematics, and a Master of Science degree in Statistics from The University of Texas at San Antonio.
Sandra Van Trease, MBA, CPA, CMA
An accomplished Executive and Board member, Ms. Van Trease has 20 years of experience serving on boards of directors for public companies (NYSE & NASDAQ) and private, higher education, and community organizations. She recently retired in 2020 as Group President, BJC HealthCare, and the President of BJC HealthCare‘s ACO, LLC. Areas of focus included hospital and medical group operations, population health, and value-based care, leading BJC’s virtual care development and co-leading digital transformation initiatives. BJC HealthCare, with $6B in revenues, is a clinically integrated healthcare system in St. Louis, Missouri. Ms. Van Trease also established and served as the senior executive of BJC Collaborative LLC, an organization of seven Midwest regional health systems.
Her professional career includes serving as President & CEO of UniCare Inc., a WellPoint company, with $2 billion in revenues (NYSE: WLP) and as President, COO & CFO, RightChoice Managed Care, Inc. (NYSE:RIT), with $1.8 billion in revenues. Prior to her roles with RightChoice, she served clients across multiple industries during her 12 years with Price Waterhouse.
Ms. Van Trease serves on the board of Enterprise Financial Services Corp. - NASDAQ: EFSC, a $9 billion multi-regional business bank (Audit Chair, Comp committee, Executive committee); she previously served on the boards of Peabody Energy - NYSE: BTU, a Fortune 500 international energy company (Audit Chair, Health, Safety & Environment Chair, Nominating & Governance committee, Executive committee) and RightChoice Managed Care - NYSE: RIT, a health insurance company (non-independent director)
Van Trease earned her master’s degree in business administration from Washington University in St. Louis, and her bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Missouri–St. Louis. She is a certified public accountant and a certified management accountant. In 2004, she received an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Missouri–St. Louis for achieving distinction in her field and for contributing to the betterment of the university and the St. Louis community.
Sal Calta
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.
Ken Yamaguchi
Dr. Ken Yamaguchi currently serves as a professor of orthopedic surgery at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Yamaguchi recently retired from Centene Corporation after 7 years as an Executive Vice President, Chief Medical Officer. During his tenure at Centene, he continued clinical work as part-time faculty at Washington University. Yamaguchi and has been named as a Top Doctor in America by Castle Connolly for nearly 25 years, and in 2014, he received the Ann Donner Vaughn, Kappa Delta Award, considered the premier international achievement for lifetime work in orthopedic research. Dr. Yamaguchi has also been active in medical device innovation. He has worked with Zimmer-Biomet Corp and Tornier Corp (Stryker Medical) to help develop highly successful joint replacement systems for both the shoulder and elbow.