Leadership

Carol Bonett is a Partner at Vantage Partners where her practice focuses on helping some of the world’s largest companies and their leaders build capability to negotiate and manage critical relationships. She drives measurably improved business results for her clients, leveraging her experience as a practitioner, trainer, and consultant to develop and coach leaders, manage and train sales executives, and implement solutions to improve performance, communication, and other areas of critical impact to her clients’ businesses.

Carol’s experience crosses a number of industries, with a focus on energy (oil and gas) and financial services organizations. Prior to joining Vantage Partners, Carol served as Vice President of Leadership Development at Morgan Stanley. In this role, she managed development for new leaders, including the firm’s two-year apprenticeship process culminating in learners’ promotion to key leadership roles across the organization.

Carol regularly shares her expertise and the results of her programs at industry conferences, including The Conference Board’s Transforming and Advancing Learning Workshops in New York and the Learning Transfer Summit in San Francisco.

A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Carol holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics. She is a Certified Professional in Learning and Performance from the Association for Talent Development.

Selected Articles

Tackling Your Toughest Influence Challenges: Leading and Influencing in a Matrix

Feelings and the Bottom Line

David Chapnick is a Partner and leader in Vantage Partners’ Sales and Account Management, Training Services, and Strategic Alliance practices. Since joining Vantage in 2004, David has worked globally on far-ranging projects with over 100 companies across industries — to which he brings industry-specific understanding, combined with cross-sector insight.

David’s areas of expertise include business-to-business selling strategy, customer centricity, sales force effectiveness, alliance management, and strategic account management. Ultimately, his work and passion center on building and implementing strategies that leverage the power of collaboration and innovation – between customers and suppliers, alliance partners, and across internal corporate divisions.

David is a frequent speaker and author whose work has been featured in Harvard Business Review, SAMA Velocity Magazine, and elsewhere. He is a co-author of a chapter on “Negotiation Systems and Strategies” in the 2008 International Contracts Manual, as well as Vantage’s studies on “The Value of Pricing Discipline” and customer-supplier negotiations.

David also is a veteran of the Vantage Volunteers team, which creates volunteering and team-building opportunities for the firm. He is a graduate of Boston University.

Selected Publications

The Downside of Discounts (Harvard Business Review)

Strategic Thinking for SAM Success: How to Put the 'Strategic' Back into Strategic Account Management (SAMA Velocity Magazine)

Extreme Negotiations with Customers (SAMA Velocity Magazine)

You Say You Want Collaboration: Key Trends in Customer-Supplier Partnerships (SAMA Velocity Magazine)

Danny Ertel is a founding partner of Vantage Partners and an expert in negotiation, relationship management, and organizational transformation. His work centers on developing and implementing strategies that leverage enhanced collaboration across internal organizational boundaries and with external partners. Danny frequently helps clients through complex negotiations with key clients, alliance partners, or critical suppliers, and to transform corporate functions to better support their business strategies. His experience spans multiple industries, including energy and mining, legal, finance, technology, and life sciences.

Prior to co-founding Vantage Partners, Danny was a principal at Conflict Management Inc. and a senior researcher at the Harvard Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School. He has taught negotiation at the University of Toronto Law Faculty, practiced law with Debevoise & Plimpton, and served as a law clerk to the Hon. Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court and to the Hon. Patricia M. Wald of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

Danny co-authored Getting Ready to Negotiate and The Point of the Deal: How to Negotiate when Yes is not Enough, which won the 2007 Book Award from the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution.

He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was Managing Editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Selected Publications

What's Your Negotiation Strategy? (Harvard Business Review)

Turning Negotiation into a Corporate Capability (Harvard Business Review)

Getting past yes: Negotiating as if implementation matters (Harvard Business Review)

Points of Law: Unbundling Corporate Legal Services to Unlock Value  (Harvard Business Review)

The Reinvention of Procurement (Supply Chain Management Review)

Untangling Complex Spend (Procurement Leaders)

Jack Gao is a Principal at Vantage Partners focused on developing and operationalizing business strategies and organizational transformations. He has over ten years of experience in the field, including leading complex negotiations, change management initiatives, training programs, and business process analytics and optimization. He has worked across many industries, including energy and mining, legal, finance, high-tech, and life sciences. 

Jack has also contributed to several management publications, such as Vantage’s Sponsor-CRO Collaboration Study and Supplier Relationship Management Benchmarking Study.

Outside the corporate arena, Jack’s advisory roles include negotiation and partnership programs for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (UNOCHA) and West Point Negotiation Project. He is also a co-founder of R3SOLUTE, a non-profit organization focused on accelerating the integration of refugees and local host communities by empowering individuals with enhanced conflict management skills.

Prior to joining Vantage, Jack worked in online sales and retail at Wanted (Apparels) where his responsibilities involved market analysis and strategy. Jack holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in Systems Science and Engineering and Master’s degree from Columbia University in Negotiation and Conflict Management.

Mark Gordon is a founding partner at Vantage Partners, where he works with organizations on their most critical relationships—whether with suppliers, partners, clients or customers—to help them maximize value from those relationships and claim an appropriate portion of that value for themselves. By asking questions that sharpen his clients’ focus, Mark helps them clarify their strategic relationships and brainstorm new ways of meeting both their own needs and those of their counterparts.

Mark has taught courses at institutions including Harvard University, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the NATO Defense College in Rome, Texas A&M University, and the University of Stockholm, and is the Senior Advisor to the Harvard Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School. He is co-founder and former chairman of Conflict Management Group and served on the board of directors of Mercy Corps and serves on the advisory board of the Negotiation Strategies Institute. Mark was a corporate attorney at Cravath, Swaine & Moore.

A frequent speaker on negotiation, alliance strategy, and relationship management, Mark has written for publications including The Harvard Business Review, The Harvard Communication Update, and the Harvard Business Review blog. He has appeared as a negotiation expert on MSNBC and is the co-author of The Point of the Deal, published by Harvard Business School Publishing.

Mark is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School.

Selected Publications

Slippery Scope: Common Errors made by Professional Service Firms in Managing Scope (Whitepaper)

Points of Law: Unbundling Corporate Legal Services to Unlock Value  (Harvard Business Review)

The Value of Pricing Discipline: A Vantage Partners Sales Study on the Impact of Pricing Exceptions

Negotiating and Managing Key Supplier Relationships: A Cross-Industry Study of 20 Best Practices

Craig Jones is a Principal at Vantage Partners.    He brings expertise in aligning complex mission-critical corporate relationships in midst of rapid change achieving measurable improvements in safety, delivery, innovation, quality, schedule, and total cost.   His work ranges from diagnosing and repairing distressed commercial relationships to increasing the effectiveness of internal enterprise-wide collaboration, operating models, and organizational structures.   Passionate about developing senior leaders and organizational capability, Craig is an experienced learning facilitator and business faulty contributor.

Prior to joining Vantage Partners, Craig was the General Manager of Information and Digital Technology for Shell’s Upstream business, where he led several initiatives to reduce business complexity while enabling new profit and loss impacting business capabilities.   As a former client of Vantage Partners and initially trained in 2008, Craig has over a decade of experience applying the joint problem-solving approach and leading teams across internal business, functional and external supply relationships.    Before that, Craig was a Global Alliance Manager in the IT Software Industry, managing and developing key alliance relationships and programs.

Craig is a graduate of Bradley University with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics.                                                        

Stuart Kliman is a founding partner of Vantage Partners, where he helps his clients solve their most challenging business problems. Stu has worked across multiple industries, with an emphasis on helping biotechnology / pharma organizations, academic medical centers, and other organizations within the healthcare ecosystem collaborate to bring greater value to patients.

Many of Stu’s projects center on organizational design and development and driving significant change. He frequently helps clients think through and implement externalization strategies and align and implement “future of work” initiatives. He is a frequent speaker and writer on collaboration, alliance strategy and implementation, and the intersection between strategy and behavior.

Stu is a co-author of Vantage’s study on Alliance Management and has written for numerous publications. In addition to his work at Vantage Partners, he has taught at the Harvard Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.

Stu graduated from Franklin and Marshall College and Harvard Law School and is a member of the Maryland Bar.

Selected Publications

The Future of Work: Winning with a Flexible Workforce

Top 21 Alliance Execution Challenges to Focus Alliance Management Efforts

Transcending Organizational Barriers – A Cross-Industry View of Alliance Management Trends and Challenges (Research Study)

Alliance Governance: Too Often Failing the Leadership Test

Adam Kornetsky is a principal at Vantage Partners, where he focuses on life sciences and healthcare. Adam helps clients unlock the value of collaboration and achieve breakthrough results in a changing healthcare landscape. His experience includes advising organizations on building and executing alliance management capabilities, designing and implementing change management and organizational design initiatives, conducting partnership launches and health checks, and facilitating negotiation and conflict management training. Adam has also supported many clients in their goal of creating a more innovative business environment.

Prior to joining Vantage, Adam was a Senior Consultant and Account Manager at Arcadia Healthcare Solutions, an organization dedicated to enabling healthcare providers and payers succeed in value-based care.

Adam has co-authored several articles on navigating complexities in healthcare partnerships, on topics that include virtual alliance launches and engagement model due diligence. He speaks regularly at Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP) conferences and frequently leads workshops at the Strategic Alliance Management Congress, exploring topics such as “Managing and Executing Pharma-Digital Partnerships” and “Alliance Managers as Interventionists.”  

Adam received his MBA with honors from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, with a concentration in Health Sector Management and focus on Leadership and Organizational Transformation. He received his BA in International Relations and Economics from Tufts University.

Selected Publications

Virtual Alliance Launch Best Practices

Andrew Lewis, principal at Vantage Partners, helps companies negotiate and create value in their relationships with customers, suppliers, and alliance partners through improved processes and skills. His work spans biopharmaceuticals, professional and financial services, technology, medical devices, and agrichemicals. Andrew has helped pharmaceutical companies negotiate more effectively with payers in managed markets through enhanced negotiation preparation, capability building, and coaching prior to high-stakes negotiations.

Prior to joining Vantage Partners, Andrew worked in human capital management at Goldman Sachs, re-designing a leadership competency model and rolling out a global training curriculum for new VPs. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Andrew consulted at a boutique firm on the human capital aspects of large change initiatives, including reorganizations and post-merger integrations. His clients included Fortune 500 companies in the financial services, professional services, and pharmaceuticals sectors, as well as major public sector organizations.

Andrew has worked in the field of international conflict resolution, as a senior advisor to the Foreign Minister of South Sudan during the country’s independence process from 2009 to 2013, promoting effective dialogue in the international negotiations that led to the creation of the world’s newest state.

Andrew holds a BA in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from the University of Oxford, and a Master’s in International Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University.

Dan Luotto is a Senior Vice President of Global Accounts at Vantage Partners.  His practice focuses on the art and science of driving better business decisions faster via strategic business presentation, conversation, negotiation, and collaboration. 

Dan’s specific areas of expertise include business-to-business selling, customer centricity, and sales force effectiveness, with an emphasis on the high-tech sector. Ultimately, his work and passion center on building and implementing training strategies that provide the essential knowledge, skills and tools sales teams need to outperform the competition and achieve high levels of sales success. 

His commitment to his clients and professional partners has earned the trust of an extensive global network throughout the corporate world.  

Prior to joining Vantage Partners, he served as SVP, Global Sales & Client Success on behalf of Mandel Communications, the original source of SCIPAB®, a powerful Personal Communication Framework, now available exclusively through Vantage Partners. 

A graduate from California Polytechnic State University, Dan holds a Bachelor of Science in Human Development & Psychology.

Naomi Price is a Senior Vice President of Global Accounts at Vantage Partners. Her practice focuses on the art and science of driving better business decisions faster via strategic business presentation, conversation, and collaboration.

Her commitment to her clients and professional partners has earned the trust of an extensive global network throughout the corporate world.

Prior to joining Vantage Partners, she served global accounts on behalf of Mandel Communications, the original source of SCIPAB®, a powerful Personal Communication Framework, now available exclusively through Vantage Partners.

Naomi was instrumental in launching the Women’s Energy Network, Greater Colorado Chapter and recently served as Speaker Chair for the National Women’s Energy Network Conference in Fort Worth, Texas.

She is a strong advocate for young women entering business. She serves as a mentor for the University of Denver graduate program and has worked tirelessly to support service-disabled veterans who are shifting their skills from the battlefield to the boardroom.

A graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Naomi holds a Bachelor of Science in Journalism.

Liz Rayer leads the Training Services practice at Vantage Partners. She brings expertise in organizational development, leadership, change management, influence, and negotiation to help clients more strategically and effectively work with internal and external stakeholders, for a positive bottom line impact. Her work ranges from creating and implementing organizational-wide change initiatives to designing large-scale learning and skill development programs to leading bespoke learning journeys.

Prior to joining Vantage Partners, Liz was CEO of BPYI, Inc., a health and wellness company, where she led the company to increased, sustainable growth by developing profitable domestic and international partnerships. Before that, as Managing Principal of Elevation Strategies, she consulted to organizations on relationship management, leadership, and operational effectiveness issues. Liz was also Chief Knowledge Officer at Thinking Sun, Inc., a consultant with DBM, and Adjunct Professor of Psychology at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

Liz earned her PhD in Psychoeducational Processes from Temple University. Her focus and dissertation were in the field of organizational development and adult learning.

Selected Publications

Maximizing Execution and Innovation in a Matrixed Organization

Customer Supplier Negotiation Study

Sponsor-CRO Collaboration Study

Ben Siddall is a partner at Vantage Partners, where he helps pharmaceutical, medical device, and healthcare organizations build and execute strategies to manage the evolving healthcare ecosystem.  These strategies often involve helping focus innovation efforts and supporting clients as they envision and manage partnerships and other forms of collaboration to help achieve their strategic objectives.  Ben also works with sales organizations to achieve breakthrough results, with a particular emphasis on the pharmaceutical medical device, and IT sectors. His sales work regularly involves supporting sales leadership teams to define game-changing macro negotiation strategies, design relationship management tools, and develop effective cross-selling, joint solution development, and collaboration processes to achieve financial and strategic objectives.

Prior to joining Vantage, Ben led business development and partnership outreach at a startup technology company in Boston. He began his career as a commercial litigator for Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. and has also worked as an economic consultant, helping companies and governments assess regulated industry pricing and manage complex risks.

Ben is a frequent speaker at industry events on topics including managing complex negotiations, defending value during the sales process, partnering for pharmaceutical and technology companies, and conducting effective pharma market access negotiations.

Ben is a graduate of Boston University and Georgetown University Law Center.

Selected Publications

Customer Supplier Negotiation Study (Contributor)

“Extreme Negotiations” with Customers  

Managing Outsourcing Relationships to Maximize Value: Evolving Relationship Management Practices

Align Internally for Better Cross-Selling

Sam Stewart is a Principal at Vantage Partners and a leader in the firm’s organizational effectiveness practice. Sam partners with leaders to design organizations and operating models, manage and implement alliances and integrations, build high-performing teams, and accelerate complex transformation initiatives. He has worked across industries, and has particularly deep experience in life sciences, utilities, and financial services.

Prior to joining Vantage Partners, Sam was a consultant at Kotter, Inc. and at Slalom Consulting. He began his career as an economic consultant, helping governments and NGOs assess the economic impact of various policy proposals.

Sam is a graduate of the University of Colorado and of Yale School of Management’s Accelerated Management Program.

Selected Publications

Competition from the Inside Out (MIT Sloan Management Review)

David Vazdauskas is Vantage Partners’ Chief Marketing Officer and is responsible for all aspects of our brand management, content marketing, digital marketing and social media, external communications, and strategic marketing partnerships. David also works directly with Vantage clients on issues of strategic brand positioning, market segmentation and new market identification, market research, and strategic marketing alliances.

With over twenty years of marketing and brand strategy experience, he has worked in both B2B and B2C industries including technology, financial services, transportation, media and entertainment, and healthcare.

Prior to joining Vantage, David held Partner positions in the Marketing Strategy practice at Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman), and at Lippincott & Margulies, where he focused on repositioning brands and helping clients identify new areas for brand growth. David also held senior positions in several advertising agencies, including Saatchi & Saatchi and Foote, Cone & Belding.

David’s experience also includes Director of Brand Identity for BankBoston, where he managed the brand across all lines of business and throughout its global presence. He was also Chief Marketing Officer for two Boston-based technology start-ups – one in the consumer and SMB legal services sector, and one for an applications services provider in the affinity group space.

David received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, his B.A. in economics from Bowdoin College, and attended the London School of Economics General Course program.

David J. Ward is a principal and member of Vantage’s sourcing and supply chain management practice, where he specializes in leading clients through procurement and supply chain transformations. He has deep expertise in strategic sourcing, category management, supplier relationship governance, and change management. David’s experience includes pharmaceuticals packing and distribution, clinical development and outsourcing, and direct materials sourcing. He also is an experienced training instructor and facilitator.

Prior to joining Vantage Partners, David was most recently executive director of global procurement, Europe and emerging markets, for Merck. Previously, he served as vice president of business development for Asia Pacifica and Japan for DHL Supply Chain. David also served as Procurement Director for Asia Pacific at GSK where he successfully created a harmonized procurement team from two legacy procurement organizations.

David speaks regularly at industry and professional conferences, including recent presentations on “Enhancing Negotiation Effectiveness” and other topics for the Institute for Supplier Management.

David is based in the United Kingdom and is a graduate of Thames Valley University.