Our Expertise

Across the past several years, our firm has witnessed an expansive growth in our work and expertise in order to ensure that we are having meaningful impact on our members' most important strategic and operational issues.

A Deep Bench

Our 350-member research staff includes:

More than 50 physicians, clinicians, and former hospital executives
More than 100 PhDs, MPHs, MHAs, and MBAs
40 senior consultants from top health care and management consulting firms
25 health care industry managers

A sampling of our internal experts on these and other issues is included below.

Scott Fassbach

Chief Research Officer

MA, Harvard University
BA, Johns Hopkins University

Mr. Fassbach directs the Advisory Board's firmwide research efforts and is responsible for the overall quality and accuracy of its work. He has worked in health care for twenty years, both in hospital consulting and in health care research. Having worked at the Advisory Board from its inception, Mr. Fassbach has directed or participated in all of the firm's major research initiatives. In his current capacity as Chief Research Officer, he speaks regularly on topics related to health system strategy, health care market growth, clinical innovation, and national health care reform. Mr. Fassbach previously worked in the national health care practice of Ernst & Young, largely focusing on regulatory and reimbursement issues.

Chris Denby

Executive Director

MBA, INSEAD (Institute of European and American Studies)
MA, The Johns Hopkins University
BA, George Washington University

Mr. Denby directs research initiatives on issues ranging from nursing retention to health system growth to physician enfranchisement and personal leadership development. Prior to joining the Advisory Board, Mr. Denby was a consultant with McKinsey & Company where he led numerous projects for senior management teams of corporations in various industries including health care, financial institutions, consumer goods, and energy.

Chas Roades

Executive Director

MBA, Stanford Graduate School of Business
MA, Stanford University
BA, University of Virginia

Mr. Roades leads research efforts on the market forces and trends driving the evolution of the American health care industry, with a focus on strategic planning, margin and revenue enhancement, clinical innovation, and the organization and management of health care delivery. He also oversees the firm’s research for international hospital members and health insurance plans. In 2006, Mr. Roades was appointed to Virginia's Health Information Technology Council by Governor Timothy Kaine. In this role, Mr. Roades will help drive the adoption of electronic health records across Virginia in an effort to lower costs for employers and insurers. Before joining the Advisory Board, Mr. Roades was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company, where he was responsible for leading projects on strategy, organization, and operations for Fortune 500 clients. Previously, Mr. Roades served as a captain in the United States Air Force, working as an intelligence officer and Russian area specialist.

Michael Koppenheffer

Managing Director

MBA, Duke University
BA, Williams College

Mr. Koppenheffer’s research focuses on orthopedics service line management, technology innovation, and strategic planning. Mr. Koppenheffer has held positions at a leading pharmaceutical company, Glaxo Wellcome (now Glaxo SmithKline), and a health care trade publishing firm, F-D-C Reports. In the latter capacity, he served as Congressional correspondent for policy newsletter Health News Daily and as European editor for the drug industry weekly, The Pink Sheet.

Julie Lane

Managing Director

MPA, Columbia University
BA, Barnard College

Ms. Lane provides strategy and best practice research to hospital foundations and development offices. Prior to joining the Advisory Board, she was a management consultant at APM/CSC Healthcare, specializing in hospital strategic planning, and a planner for the Manhattan District Attorney.

Ford Koles

Executive Director

MA, Johns Hopkins University
BA, Kenyon College

Mr. Koles is one of the firm’s leaders in the area of health system economics and strategy, heading the faculty at the annual series of chief executive officer meetings. Mr. Koles is a health care economist by training with a wide range of expertise in the provider industry. He has been a dominant figure in the evolution and communication of every major Advisory Board research initiative since 1994, leaving him conversant in the history and current status of all the significant reform initiatives: vertical integration and physician partnership models, managed care and payer contracting, horizontal integration and system economics of scale, quality-based competition and consumerism. Previous to his employment with the Advisory Board, he worked as a management consultant for both the Hay Group and Ernst & Young.

David Katz

Executive Director

MD, Duke University School of Medicine
JD, Georgetown University Law Center
AB, Duke University

Dr. Katz studies and presents findings on frontier clinical, technology, quality, economic, marketing, and physician-hospital relationship practices, including how these issues will impact the practice and administration of health care. Prior to joining the Advisory Board, Dr. Katz worked in full-time clinical practice and research where he published widely in peer-reviewed journals and authored multiple book chapters in neuroscience, medical-legal issues, and medical ethics. Dr. Katz also served as an attorney working within the intersections of medicine and law with one of the leading international law firms. Dr. Katz maintained a faculty appointment at the Harvard Medical School for twenty years.

Barbara Tannenbaum

Executive Advisor

MBA, University of Baltimore
MS, West Virginia University
BS, University of Iowa

Ms. Tannenbaum leads Advisory Board work on issues encompassing profitable surgical growth, clinical throughput, rapid margin recovery, and workforce efficiency. Prior to joining the firm, she served as vice president, worldwide marketing and sales for QED Solutions, expanding the company’s market share in the pharmaceutical industry. She was also vice president and general manager at Surgical Services, Inc., where she developed and implemented new product lines for improving surgical efficiency and productivity.

Richard Schwartz

Executive Vice President

MBA, Duke University
BA, Stanford University

Mr. Schwartz serves as an Executive Officer of The Advisory Board Company and General Manager of the Advisory Board Academies Division, which is dedicated to developing a high-performance culture in American health care. He has been with the firm for more than a dozen years, until recently heading up the research function for the firm's flagship program, the Health Care Advisory Board, as well as a broader portfolio of membership programs. Prior to joining the Advisory Board, Mr. Schwartz worked for a think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as well as a boutique consulting firm, The Brock Group -- focusing in both positions on international business.

Jim Field

Executive Director

DBA, Harvard Business School
MBA, Harvard Business School
BA, Boston University

Dr. Field has been with the Advisory Board for over ten years, and is recognized as a leading thinker on clinical service line technologies and procedures, organization, and economics. Dr. Field conducts and oversees research for a large membership of hospitals, health systems, device manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and payers. Dr. Field has been a national fellow for the United States General Accounting Office, and a research fellow and associate fellow for Harvard University and Harvard Business School, respectively.