President, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Faculty Consultant
JH Austin Associates, Brown University, Wharton School of Business
Jim Austin, a former senior executive at Baxter Healthcare, combines business strategy and organizational development theory with extensive industry experience. Jim is a Faculty Consultant at the Aresty Institute of Executive Education, Wharton Business School, where he tailors senior-level seminars for leading entities including SIFMA, CUES, Boston Scientific, Coca-Cola, Lincoln Financial, GE, GlaxoSmithKline and Hitachi. Specifically, he leads seminars at Wharton on:
--Finding New Growth Opportunities
--Building a Vision
--Execution and Leading Strategic Change
--Improving Strategic Decision-Making
--Scenario Planning and Strategic Agility.
In 2013, Brown University appointed Jim a Senior Lecturer of Healthcare Leadership. He is currently Adjunct Assistant Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice where he heads a graduate Leadership & Workforce Development course. From 1996 through 2016, Jim was a Business Management Professor at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management where he received the “Most Distinguished Corporate Education Faculty Member” (2009-10) and the “Learning Excellence” (2015) awards. From 2013-2016, he was an Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Health Systems Management, College of Health Sciences, Rush University, where he taught a graduate seminar on Healthcare Ethics. Jim’s book, Transformative Planning: How Your Healthcare Organization Can Strategize for an Uncertain Future (Health Administration Press, 2018), helps healthcare leaders drive transformational change.
From 2005–2016, Jim worked at Decision Strategies International, leaving as a Senior Principal. There, he directed numerous projects including scenarios of the future for a medical devices firm, R&D priorities for a major consumer products company, a strategic plan for the American College of Radiology, scenarios of the future for the League of Southeastern Credit Unions, and a new vision and strategic priorities for the national and IL Boards of Volunteers of America (VOA). He now heads his own firm, JH Austin Associates, Inc. (www.jh-austin.com). Prior to joining Decision Strategies, Jim spent 12 years at Baxter Healthcare, the last four as vice president of strategy development for the Renal Division. At Baxter, Jim identified new business opportunities, facilitated annual strategy planning processes, and worked with senior management on organizational development for this rapidly growing, nearly $2B Division. Before that, Jim was assistant to the president for ANCHOR HMO, a subsidiary of Rush Medical Center, Chicago. Prior to his move to Chicago, Jim worked as a consultant for Arthur D. Little, Inc., where he led several large-scale planning, business development, and strategic positioning studies. Between college and graduate school, he spent four years as an economist/planning officer in the Ministry of Finance, Botswana. Jim holds a BA in economics and politics from Yale University. He was a Special Student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Urban Studies Department; he received a joint Master of Public Affairs (MPA) and Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) from the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. Previously, Jim was chairman of the Strategic Leadership Forum, a board member of the National Kidney Foundation of Illinois, member of the Board of Directors for the University Club of Chicago, treasurer of LaSalle Language Academy, and member of the Admissions Committee for the Latin School of Chicago.
Sunday, March 1, 2026
9:00am - 4:00pm CT