Global Leadership

Jim Costanzo

Chief Executive Officer

Jim joined Nordic as CEO in 2019, bringing with him well over 30 years of healthcare experience. Prior to Nordic, he served as both global health leader and Americas health advisory leader at Ernst & Young (EY).

In addition to his time at EY, Jim has held leadership roles with multiple consulting firms including Deloitte and PwC. He has experience in the healthcare provider and payor sectors, ranging from full life-cycle systems development through capacity planning, execution, maintenance, and operations. Jim has spent time with industry and government leaders all over the world, understanding the health issues they face and helping them find solutions to their most complex issues. His experience includes large-scale business transformation for all aspects of health organizations.

Jim was recently recognized by The Consulting Report as a top consulting firm CEO, ranking No. 24 on the annual list.

Jim makes his home in the Detroit suburbs with his wife Denise. They have three children.

Molly Swift

Chief Operating Officer

Molly has over 20 years of healthcare experience directly serving clients in the provider, payer, and PBM space. She joined Nordic in December of 2019 as a managing director where she led the development and implementation of the quality program and the knowledge management program. Molly took on the role of chief operating officer in February of 2021. She is responsible for developing and executing Nordic’s strategic plan, driving operational efficiencies across the global enterprise, and managing performance measures for the business.

With a focus on strategy and operations, Molly previously held leadership roles at global consulting firms including Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and Accenture, working with healthcare leaders to improve their performance and business outcomes.

Molly earned a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Health Administration from Saint Louis University. She received a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University.

Dr. Craig Joseph

Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Craig Joseph has over 25 years of healthcare and IT experience and has been Nordic’s Chief Medical Officer since June 2020. In addition to practicing medicine as a primary care pediatrician for eight years, he worked for Epic for six-plus years and has served as chief medical information officer at multiple healthcare organizations, using both Cerner and Epic.

While at Epic, Craig helped build what is now called the Foundation System. He also assisted in the implementation and optimization of the electronic health record for Epic customers across the United States and Europe.

After leaving Epic, Craig was the CMIO at Agnesian HealthCare, a Cerner enterprise customer at the time. He then served as the interim CMIO at Epic-customer Texas Children’s Hospital for two and a half years. Most recently, Craig was the CMO at an IT consulting firm and was the interim CMIO for Epic-customer El Camino Health in Silicon Valley for three and a half years.

Craig is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and American Medical Informatics Association. He remains actively board-certified in both pediatrics and clinical informatics.

Jamie Bails

President - Bails & Associates

Jamie Bails is the owner and founder of Bails & Associates, now part of Nordic’s global family of companies.

With over 26 years of Infor Lawson and enterprise business application experience, Jamie understands the products on a personal level. She not only oversees all strategic initiatives and maintains an active role in the organization but also retains a close and personal relationship with clients. Bails has won Infor awards in the last five cycles including Infor FY19 CloudSuite Excellence Partner of the Year. Additional accolades include Best in Business and a two-time Entrepreneurial Excellence Award for Best Employer.

As a trusted advisor, Jamie has been integral in the development of implementation coordination, resource assignment, project plan execution, and project facilitation for Infor Software products and services. Her consulting team is comprised of the most senior and well-respected individuals in the industry who seek her out based on her reputation as an astute businesswoman and mentor with a strong moral compass.

As an effective leader, Jamie possesses the focus, perseverance, and integrity required to get results. She has grown her company by surrounding herself with an exceptional team of individuals who work well as a team to exceed expectations. Under her leadership, Bails has grown into a successful and key Infor Alliance Partner, earning her the respect of not only her employees but colleagues and competitors alike.

A native and current resident of Southwestern Pennsylvania, Jamie enjoys spending time with her husband, children, and extended family as well as volunteer activities, board games, cooking, and reading.

Irina Brault

General Counsel

Irina provides leadership, legal counsel, and employee training across Nordic’s global operations, in areas that include the evaluation and development of compliance and risk mitigation strategies, labor and employment law, contract review and negotiation, data privacy and security, and intellectual property. In addition, she is integral in supporting Nordic’s strategy of accelerating growth and diversification through acquisition and partnership development and has played a key role in advancing its employee-focused diversity and inclusion initiatives. Irina also serves as Nordic’s corporate secretary.

Prior to joining Nordic in 2013, Irina gained invaluable experience in a variety of Wisconsin-based organizations, including, among others, working as an in-house counsel with a cybersecurity-focused firm, as a law clerk with a corporate law firm, and as a judicial intern in the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

A native of Russia, Irina graduated summa cum laude from Southern Ural State University with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in linguistic studies. After her teaching assignments in Russia, she immigrated to the United States to continue her career as an educator and administrator at the Russian Community School in Madison, WI, which was followed by earning a Juris Doctorate degree from the Marquette University Law School. Irina also obtained the Certified in Healthcare Privacy and Security designation through the American Health Information Management Association (CHPS).

Shae Crawford

Chief Human Resources Officer

Shae joined Nordic in March 2022 as the senior vice president and head of HR. Shae brings over 20 years of experience to the team, including a wealth of diverse experiences across multiple industries and all seven continents. Beginning her career in the U.S. Army, where she was deployed to Kuwait right after 9/11, Shae managed an HR team supporting 7,000 soldiers/employees in the region. Shae is the former vice president of international human resources at Pacific Architects and Engineers (PAE), where she managed over 140 recruiting and HR professionals on all seven continents, supporting more than 14,000 employees who serviced the U.S. State Department, Science Foundation, and various other government clients.

In her most recent position as chief human resources officer at Berkeley Research Group (BRG), Shae oversaw and supported their HR function across the globe, including recruiting efforts, multiple group hirings, and transitioning employees as a result of the organization’s first acquisition. Shae is deeply passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), successfully leading these efforts at BRG where she co-founded and implemented its LegUp program, offering training and mentorship opportunities for underrepresented youth.

Shae and her husband have three children (Nina, Alani, and Chris) and two dogs (Ace and Beasley). In their downtime, Shae’s family enjoys watching movies and their favorite shows (Blackish and Amazing Race).

Kevin Erdal

Managing Director and Practice Leader of Advisory Services - Digital Health

As managing director and practice leader of Digital and Cloud Initiatives, Kevin works to help expand Nordic’s internal team to continue to be a strategic partner to clients. He works directly with clients to help build strategic solutions, and in some cases build out their existing teams to support analytical needs, cloud strategies, and data governance solutions.

Kevin joined Nordic in May of 2019 after nine years working extensively in data analytics and reporting at Mayo Clinic, most recently as service delivery manager within Mayo’s unified data platform section. In that role, he managed a team of ETL developers integrating data from multiple EHRs, built the IT function to support data governance, and led the build out of the ACO data environment. In his time with Mayo, Kevin also served as lead analyst/programmer, taking on the responsibility of Cogito project manager for Epic implementation and leading a team of report developers across the health system. He began his tenure at Mayo as a report developer for both clinical and revenue cycle, primarily supporting operational reporting needs and general application support.

Kevin graduated from Winona State University with a degree in management information systems. He holds Epic certifications in Cogito Project Management, Reporting Workbench, and Radar. He also has experience with Clarity and Caboodle. Additionally, he holds the Millennium Fundamentals certification from Cerner, Project Management certifications from Mayo Clinic, and is a Silver Mayo Quality Fellow. In his free time, he stays active by playing basketball, volleyball, golf, and softball. He and his wife also stay busy chasing their two young daughters.

Don Hodgson

President, U.S.

Don joined Nordic in 2023 as president of Nordic U.S. and is responsible for work performance and delivery in the United States. He brings more than three decades of consulting services experience with a focus on the healthcare sector.

Prior to Nordic, Don spent more than two decades at Ernst & Young, most recently as a National Health Transformation practice leader who helped transition its health practice from a regional model to a national one. He has also held leadership roles supporting clients across the payer and provider spaces with solutions across digital, technology, and implementation.

Don lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his wife and three adult children. 

Kieran Hughes

Executive VP and President, Europe and Middle East

Kieran joined Nordic in 2022 as an executive vice president and president of Nordic’s European and Middle Eastern markets. He is a member of Nordic’s senior leadership team and is accountable for the strategy, performance, and operations of these regions. In his role, he is focused on developing and growing new and existing client relationships, accounts, and revenue across all Nordic business lines.

Before joining Nordic, Kieran spent several years working for healthcare consulting, innovation, and technology services firms, where he defined and executed international M&A and growth strategies as well as new commercial strategies. He is a board-level executive with a proven track record of scaling HIT services businesses and has 10 years of commercial leadership, sales, strategy, and product launch experience focusing on software and services. His previous consulting clients include Governments, National Agencies and Healthcare Provider organizations throughout Europe and the Middle East.

He is based in the UK.

Jeff Jackson

Senior VP of Client Partnerships

Jeff Jackson joined Nordic in June of 2021 as the senior vice president of Client Partnerships. With over 20 years of experience in the healthcare consulting space, Jeff oversees the U.S. team, working with account directors, account executives, and other solution leaders to develop strategic client relationships and help Nordic’s client partners accomplish their goals and priorities.

Jeff has a BS in mechanical engineering from the Missouri School of Science and Technology. In his spare time, he enjoys golfing, skiing, hiking, and traveling with his wife and family.

Terri LeFort

President, Nordic International

Terri LeFort joined Nordic in 2019, when it acquired Healthtech Consultants. After continuing to serve as president of Healthtech for three additional years, in 2022 Terri took on an expanded role as Nordic’s president and senior executive, International. In this role, the 30-year healthcare veteran sets policy and strategic direction for Nordic’s international markets, ensuring close coordination with the U.S. and fulfilling the company’s mission and financial targets internationally. She also ensures integration and standardization across the geographies, bolstering Nordic’s efforts as a global leader that addresses the local needs of regional geographies.

Prior to joining Nordic, Terri led Healthtech for 20 years, guiding healthcare organizations through successful patient safety and clinician adoption initiatives. She has significant experience in clinical systems assessment, planning, and implementation, along with CPOE and electronic medication management. She also boasts decades of clinical practice, both on the front lines and in management, has spoken internationally on electronic clinical documentation best practices, and is an industry leader in advanced clinical system planning and implementation.

Thomas O’Shaughnessy

President, Healthtech

Thomas joined Nordic in 2022 as President of Healthtech. In this role, he will help drive Healthtech’s evolution and growth, responsible for developing and executing business strategy and supporting the expansion of Nordic’s Meditech practice in the United States.

Thomas most recently served as a Partner at Deloitte Canada, where he was the Western Region Leader for Health Care and the National Leader for Clients and Growth for the firm’s Health Care Industry practice. O’Shaughnessy has more than 21 years of experience across strategy and operations with a focus on health care, including strategic planning, service delivery modernization, and large change transformation initiatives. He has established deep relationships with senior administrative and clinical leaders across the Canadian health sector through strategic engagements with the Ministries of Health, Health Authorities, unions, research institutions, and the country’s rich life sciences ecosystem.

Thomas graduated from the University of Toronto and the University of Oxford. Based in Vancouver, he is active in his community serving on several non-profit Boards, including Adler University and Arts Umbrella, Vancouver.

Abby Polich, MBA

Managing Director and Practice Leader of Advisory Services - Implementation Services

As managing director and practice leader of Implementation Services, Abby leads Nordic’s Affiliate and Implementation teams. These teams develop and implement solutions to extend Nordic’s clients’ electronic health records throughout their organization and to affiliated, merged, or acquired partners.

Abby started her career at Epic as a member of the Resolute Professional Billing implementation team. She was on the team responsible for creating Epic’s 48-Hour Install Methodology, later rebranded Community Connect, and led Epic’s first Community Connect implementations. Abby joined Nordic in 2011 as a consultant leading Community Connect projects. She founded Nordic’s Affiliate Solutions division in 2013 and was promoted to VP in 2015. In 2020, Abby was promoted to Managing Director and Practice Lead, expanding her leadership to oversee Nordic’s Implementation team in addition to the Affiliate team.

Abby graduated summa cum laude from Luther College and holds an MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the proud mother of two daughters and enjoys kickboxing and choral singing in her spare time. She also serves on the board of the Association for Executives in Healthcare Information Applications.

Katherine Sager

Executive VP of Consulting Services, Human Resources, and Talent

Katherine joined Nordic in 2011 and has held a variety of roles before being named executive vice president of Consulting Services, Human Resources, and Talent. In her current role, she oversees the management of all consultants and candidates, as well as Nordic's human resources team. She has over a decade of experience in the Epic space as a project manager and people leader.

Prior to joining the executive team, Katherine was a practice director at Nordic, heading the OpTime, Anesthesia, Radiant, and Cupid groups. She also worked as a consultant on the OpTime/Anesthesia team at WIITTS and at Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee.

Katherine began her healthcare IT career at Epic, where she was an implementation services team lead for the OpTime/Anesthesia team. Katherine holds a B.A. in history from Davidson College and an M.Phil. in economic and social history from the University of Oxford.

Paul Slaughter

Executive VP of Managed Services

Paul joined Nordic in June 2021 as the executive vice president of Enterprise Technology Transformation. He has over 25 years of leadership and experience in information technology services and operations, with a primary focus on the healthcare industry.

Paul began his career with the United States Army and spent eight years as a commissioned officer. He then joined Perot Systems, which Dell Inc. later acquired. During his six years at Perot, Paul worked his way up the client account leadership track, working with various clients to implement and support their IT platforms and systems. He then took a role at E5 Systems, serving as Director of West Coast Operations.

In 2007, Paul joined Kaiser Permanente as the Director of the Program Management Office, where he was responsible for leading highly visible and complex business and technology projects. After three years, he joined Dell, Inc. on the Dell Services Healthcare and Life Sciences business development team. Paul then led the business development team responsible for managing $1.4B+ of annual healthcare information technology services opportunities.

He spent most of his two years at NTT Data Services as Vice President, Healthcare Provider Western Region, providing strategic leadership and oversight for managing, delivering, and growing a $150M+ portfolio of accounts. Paul then took a role as Chief Operating Officer at Leidos Digital Health Solutions, his most recent position before joining Nordic.

Paul has a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Texas Tech University. He lives in New Braunfels, Texas with his wife and four children and is an avid outdoorsman.

Andrew Splitz

President - S&P Consultants

Andrew Splitz is a serial entrepreneur in the healthcare IT space. As an early LIS technology pioneer, Splitz and his longtime partner, Steve Pratt, were the first to implement a Cerner LIS system for Harvard Community Health Plan in 1988. Success within the innovative healthcare system propelled the duo to found S&P Consultants in 1996 with the aim of bringing their integration experience to hospitals and labs around the country. Today, S&P Consultants is a Nordic Global Company and is recognized by the industry's top monitor (KLAS) as "the market leader in Cerner implementation." S&P Consultants counts many nationally-leading healthcare systems among its clients, and enjoys preferred vendor status for Cerner, SCC, Beaker, Orchard, and McKesson systems.

Earlier in his career, while serving as a U.S. Army medic, Andrew developed a test to reveal the Lyme disease spirochete, a discovery published in Hematology Today. As a former faculty member of the American Pathology Institute, and inspector for the College of American Pathologists, he has published regularly in industry publications and blogs. He is a graduate of Stonehill College in Easton, MA.

In addition to his business duties, Splitz enjoys spending time with his family, which includes serving as a head coach for youth hockey for 11 years. He has served as president and board member of the Corbett’s Pond Residents Association, as a board member for Great Harbors in Falmouth, MA, and a board member at Andalucia, in Apollo Beach, FL. He operates several real estate companies throughout the U.S. and maintains a majority interest in Clinical Healthcare Analytics (CHA).

Lauren Verdery

Senior VP of Brand, Marketing, and Communications

Lauren joined Nordic as the senior vice president of brand, marketing, and communications in March of 2021, bringing with her over 20 years of experience in brand management, advertising, and communications.

Prior to Nordic, Lauren was at EY for 11 years, where she was the brand leader for Americas Consulting for four of those years. While at EY, she also launched the first ever EY Americas Consulting advertising campaign and led the marketing efforts for the Americas healthcare practice. Throughout her career, she’s worked in broadcasting for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, public relations for the 2000 presidential campaign, and advertising campaigns for brands such as Tiffany & Co. and Nike. She was appointed as the first director of communications for USCIS, part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Lauren graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in journalism and currently serves on its Board of Visitors. She currently resides in Atlanta.

David L. “Wally” Ward

Managing Director and Practice Leader, Performance Improvement, Advisory Services

Wally Ward is a managing director and practice leader of Performance Improvement, Advisory Services at Nordic. A certified public accountant and accomplished healthcare advisor with 40 years of experience, he has helped clients discover new strategies and navigate complex and transformative business initiatives. As a consultant, he focused on driving profitability, performance, and growth initiatives for large payer organizations and provider systems throughout the country, including several of the largest payers in healthcare. His work involves strategy development, new business ventures, operational improvement, financial turn-around, business transformation, provider network development, and medical cost management.

Wally has worked closely with providers and payers to develop strategies related to new ventures and business performance improvement involving collaborative approaches to meet current market and business challenges. He has helped bridge the gap between payers and providers to develop innovative approaches to financial performance, network development, customer engagement, and product development.

Prior to joining Nordic, he was CEO of digital transformation consultancy Optimity Advisors, where he led its turnaround focused on healthcare payers and provider organizations. Before Optimity, Wally was the managing director of the Southeast Region and the Health Care Advisory market leader at Ernst & Young. There, he led the development and delivery of EY services and solutions to large payer and provider organizations, including large healthcare systems, academic medical centers, and Blue Cross Blue Shield plans.

In addition to his background as an executive consultant, Wally's industry experience includes roles as a CEO, COO, CFO, and Chief Marketing and Sales Officer for large payer and provider organizations, such as Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in Georgia and Washington, D.C.

Wally has a Bachelor of Arts in Accounting from North Carolina State University.

The Reach and Power to Bring Your Vision to Life