Francois Sauer

Francois is a Special Advisor of the SHINE Program at the Center for Health and Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Founder of Sauer and Associates, LLC, a Leawood Kansas based consulting firm that, as a catalyst, helps executives manifest to the fullest their own talents. Francois has expertise in systems thinking, human relations, and international operations (Latin America and Europe). As a catalyst, author, philosopher and scientist, his proven problem solving approaches are both innovative and pragmatic. Author of Relearn, Evolve, and Adapt: An Essay to Integrate Creative Imagination with Socially Conditioned Thought and Behavior. This book demonstrates how we are the architects of our lives, and become what we think about. (http://relearnevolveandadapt.com/). Over the past three decades Francois has delivered organizational improvements and profitable business growths. He has served as a CEO, executive, adviser, and consultant to large enterprises as well as start-up ventures. His tenure has included Banamex (Health Services executive), DEC and AT&T, and CEO of Cerner International. He excels in aligning multiple constituencies, fostering collaboration between diverse groups, and integrating human capital, information capital, and organization capital. These strengths allow him to effectively deliver the organization's customer value proposition and the targeted financial results. He is adroit at creating the requisite human relationships to integrate technology with the business processes necessary to promote organizational improvement and profitable business growth. In the business world Francois is a board member of CritiTech and CrossInnovation and an adviser to two startup companies: Flow Forward and Metactive. In the non-for-profit world, Francois is a member of the System Dynamics Society (MIT), the Supercourse (distributed by WHO) and the Kickwood Society of the American Red Cross, as well as a board member of Baker University and a former board member of the KC American Red Cross and the KC International Relations Council. Some of Francois accomplishments are: In Mexico, he redesigned, implemented, and operated Banamex’s healthcare delivery system covering 100,000 lives. The new system increased customer satisfaction from 50 percent to 80 percent and concurrently cut average costs per individual by 50 percent. This level of cost reduction was sustained and documented for five years. Subsequently, more than half of Mexico’s banking system adopted this business model. In Europe, he implemented, as a member of a five-person strategic team, the restructuring of Digital-Europe (31,000 people) from a geographical model to an industry-focused model. This new structure enabled the company to better recognize and respond to the specific needs of each industry segment and was accepted by European labor unions. As a result, the volume of sales in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa exceeded U.S. sales. In US, he served as one of the five initial developers of the Global Health Net (GHNet), an international effort led by Dr. Ron LaPorte that uses the power of information technology to improve education on prevention in Public Health. Launched in 1993 at a meeting of the Pan American Health Organization, GHNet (www.pitt.edu/~super1/) is now the largest free preventive health education website distributed by WHO.