Membership Forum Luncheon - Healthcare M&A

Halee Fischer-Wright’s passion to help people led her to become a physician. Today, that same passion drives her work as a bestselling author, a speaker, a healthcare and organizational strategist, a leader, and a coach.

Halee has spent the past 16 years becoming an expert in organizational culture, strategy, and turnarounds. As president of Rose Medical Group, she helped grow the organization to 560 physicians and a best-in-class ranking. She then spent two years as a chief medical officer, helping a regional hospital improve operations and outcomes. At the same time, she earned her MA in medical management from USC’s Marshall School of Business, a certificate in executive coaching from Georgetown University, and a Fellowship in the American College of Medical Practice Executives.

As a consultant and partner with CultureSync, she worked with executive teams in Fortune 100 companies, specializing in strategy, leadership development, and building high-performance teams. In 2008, she coauthored the New York Times bestseller Tribal Leadership with Dave Logan and John King.

Now, as CEO of the Medical Group Management Association, which represents practices and groups that deliver more than half of the healthcare in America, Halee has led a traditional healthcare association into greater influence, thought leadership, and member value with a renewed focus on its mission: to lead meaningful transformation in healthcare. Together with the executive team, she has worked to grow MGMA’s membership from 30,000 to 58,000 while focusing on lean and sustainable operations. And in 2017, she released the national bestseller Back to Balance to help guide the right kind of frontline-driven change in healthcare by balancing the art, science, and business of medicine.
 

Dana Jacoby is a national thought leader across numerous business specialties and is passionate about the future of healthcare. 

Dana has experience not only guiding her personal companies through multiple merger and private equity transactions and also has consulted on billions of dollars in merger and acquisition deal flow, making her one of the most sought-after healthcare and business specialists in the country.  

Dana’s experience bridges both large corporate healthcare companies as well as individual providers. This has included positions with General Electric Healthcare and Johnson & Johnson, as well as working in the pharmaceutical sector with the Allergan company where she was tasked with the launch and growth of the drug Botox in Asia. Her work has included project development, market analysis, design implementation, and service delivery in hospitals and health systems in nearly every state in the United States and internationally in Asia, Europe, and Canada.

Ms. Jacoby is a trusted advisor to C-Suite Executives, Boards of Directors, and Physician Leaders. Her expertise is specifically focused in in the areas of strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, private equity and investment banking, alternative payment models, financial management, operational efficiencies, service line development, and process improvement. She has spent thousands of hours improving medical practice, pharmaceutical/device company strategy/planning with a primary focus on product market development, medical practice management, provider compensation strategies, efficiency metrics, and process improvement.

Dana has also committed to a life practice of philanthropy. Her charity of choice is the international healthcare organization Project C.U.R.E. Founded over 30 years ago in a garage in the mountains of Colorado, Project C.U.R.E. has saved lives and eased suffering by delivering medical relief to people in over 130 countries. She invests her spare time as well as money by traveling to recipient hospitals in the developing world and personally helping to deliver medical supplies and equipment to the people who need it most. 

Ms. Jacoby graduated from Louisiana State University, holds a Master of Management from Tulane University, and a Master of Health Systems from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. She is a Wharton Fellow Inductee from Wharton University, and the author of several books and numerous articles and white papers. She is regularly a featured keynote speaker, panelist, and moderator.

When health care companies undergo a major strategic transaction through mergers, acquisitions, consolidations, joint ventures, partnerships, buyouts, or new affiliations, health care M&A attorney Gary Herschman drives these important transactions to a successful closing. His leadership of deal teams protects his clients’ financial interests, in a regulatory compliant manner.

A skilled negotiator in major deals of any size—small ($5-$25 million), middle market ($30-$200 million), and large ($250 million to billion-dollar deals)—Gary balances the concerns of all parties, including physician groups, hospitals and health systems, ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), imaging centers, clinics and home health companies, lenders, investors, and state departments of health, to effectively structure and close complex deals.

Buyers and sellers benefit from Gary’s decades of experience on both the buy-side and sell-side of deals. His strategies for sellers maximize valuation, financial protections, and key clinical objectives. Gary helps physician practices, hospitals, and other health care clients sell their business or enter new partnerships and affiliations. He handles transactions in almost every state. Clients value Gary’s “real time” communications and his deep business, legal, and practical insights gained from more than 30 years of negotiating and closing deals. 

Mr. HIcks is Managing Partner with Excellere and is a member of the firm's Investment Comittee and Management Committee.  Mr. Hicks oversees the sourcing, evaluatiing, and executing of new investments and supports management teams on value creation initiatives at existing portfolio companies.  Mr. Hicks has more than 28 years of experience in private equity investing and financing entrepreneurial-owned and managed businesses. Throughout his career, Mr. Hicks has partnered with numerous entrepreneurial-owned and managed businesses across a number of industries, including (i) physician services, (ii) healthcare services, (iii) pharmacy products and technology, (iv) outsourced insurance services, (v) outsourced mareketing services, and (vi) industrial services and products industries, and supported those organizations in buy and build growth strategies.  Mr. Hicks currently serves ont he board of directors of Advent, MedLogix, and SePro and previously served on the board of directors of AIS Healthcare, Advance Pain Management, MTS Medication Technologies, Mentis and PhyMed Holdings prior to their sales.

Prior to forming Excellere Partners, Mr. Hicks served as an investment professional at Stone Arch Captial, LLC ("SAC"), an Upper Midwest focused middle-market private equity firm and at George K. Baum Merchant Banc, LLC ("GKB"), a private equity firm focused on a buy and build investment strategy primarily within the food and beverage, consumer products and busienss service industries. Prior to SAC and GKB, Mr. Hicks began his career as both an investment professional and financing professional in Bank of America's private equity subsidiary, BankAmerica Capital Corporation and Continental Bank's Leveraged Finance Group, respectively.

Ed has experience with both private and publicly-traded companies, In addition he has advised on profit enhancement, corporate restructurings, and mergers and acquisitions. Ed has client service responsibilities in the business sectors of Investor-Backed Private Companies, Family-Owned Companies, as well as Public Companies. His experience in litigation consulting services includes economic damage analysis, expert witness testimony, business and intellectual property valuation, and forensic accounting.  His industries and focus are technology, media and entertainment, life sciences, manufacturing and distribution, and construction and real estate.

Ed received his Bachelor of Arts degree in History from the University of California, Berkeley and his Masters of Business Administration in Accounting from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Ed is a member of the AICPA and the COCPA. He is also an associate member of the Colorado and Denver Bar Associations. In addition, Ed devotes a significant amount of time in the Denver community through several organizations including the Colorado Thought Leaders Forum and the Association for Corporate Growth. Ed had spoken at professional meetings in the CPA, legal, banking and insurance industries. In addition, Ed has published articles for the COCPA, National Litigation Consultants’ Review, and CPA Litigation Counselor.