Leadership

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

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)

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

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 was the Senior Advisor to the Harvard Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School. He is co-founder and former chairman of Conflict Management Group and serves on the board of directors of Mercy Corps and on the advisory board of the Negotiation Strategies Institute.

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

Jonathan Hughes is a partner at Vantage Partners, where his practice focuses on business strategy and organizational transformation. He has worked with leading companies and state-owned enterprises across a range of industries in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa, with particular focus on developing and implementing new strategies that leverage enhanced collaboration across internal organizational boundaries and with external business partners.

Prior to joining Vantage Partners, Jonathan was a senior analyst at Putnam, Hayes & Bartlett, where he provided litigation strategy and management consulting advice to clients. Jonathan has authored articles for publications including the The Harvard Business Review and elsewhere, and often keynotes at industry conferences. He has been a guest lecturer at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Advanced Program of Instruction for Lawyers at Harvard Law School.

Outside the corporate arena, Jonathan is currently leading an initiative with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA) at the United Nations, to develop and implement a strategy for partnerships with private sector companies.

Jonathan is a graduate of Harvard University.

Selected Publications

The Reinvention of Procurement (Supply Chain Management Review)

What is Supplier Relationship Management and Why Does it Matter? (Danish Purchasing and Logistics Forum)

Want Collaboration? Accept—and Actively Manage—Conflict  (Harvard Business Review)

Simple Rules for Making Alliances Work (Harvard Business Review)

How to Handle Extreme Negotiations with Suppliers (Supply Chain Management Review)

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

Jessica Wadd is a partner at Vantage Partners, where her practice focuses on strategic planning and organizational transformation.  She frequently leverages ideas from the fields of behavioral economics and game theory to help clients develop practical approaches to improve their businesses. Jessica has worked with clients across a broad range of industries, including high-tech, manufacturing, financial services, life sciences, healthcare, and professional services.

Prior to joining Vantage, she was a strategic relationship manager at Lincoln Financial Group where her responsibilities included negotiating and managing several of the company’s most critical alliances. Jessica holds an MSc in Behavioral Economics from the University of Nottingham as well as BAs in both English and Economics from Bryn Mawr College.

Outside the corporate arena, Jessica co-led an initiative with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA) at the United Nations, to develop and implement a strategy for partnerships with private sector companies.

Selected Publications

Getting the Most Out of SRM  (Supply Chain Management Review)

Approaching Persuasion as Joint Problem Solving (DILForientering)

The growing Importance of Supplier Collaboration in Asian Markets (Supply Chain Asia)

Customer Supplier Negotiation Study  (Contributor)

Exit Task In-Sourcing, Enter Comprehensive Outsourcing (Scrip100)

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. His areas of expertise include business-to-business selling strategy, customer centricity, sales force effectiveness, alliance management, and strategic account management. In Training Services, David crafts transformational learning experiences to build the critical “soft skills” required for working in today’s complex business environment. Ultimately, David’s work and passion centers on building and implementing strategies that leverage the power of collaboration and innovation – between customers and suppliers, alliance partners, and across internal corporate divisions.

Examples of David’s recent work include supporting the customer centricity transformation of a major pharmaceutical services company, driving a multi-phased negotiation capability improvement effort of a medical device company’s sales force, launching biopharma alliances to bring new therapies to market, developing the coaching skills of frontline sales leaders to drive revenue growth and take competitor share, supporting the redesign of the business development and licensing model of a global pharmaceutical company, and the execution of leadership development programs for a variety of companies.

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 is also a veteran of the Vantage Volunteers team, which creates volunteering and team-building opportunities for the firm, partnering with Greater Boston nonprofit organizations such as the Jimmy Fund, Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, Chill, the Food Project, Cradles to Crayons, Room to Grow, and Massachusetts Audubon.

David 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)

Shifting the Curve: A Systematic Approach to Transforming Organizational Sales Capability

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. Carol drives measurably improved business results for her clients, leveraging her experience as a practitioner, trainer, and consultant in the fields of executive leadership development and coaching, sales training and management, and corporate communication skills. Her experience crosses a number of industries, with a focus on energy (oil and gas) and financial services organizations.

In addition to her work as a negotiation facilitator and coach, Carol’s extensive consulting expertise allows her to design and execute pragmatic, high-impact performance improvement solutions—from needs analysis to learning transfer to ultimate business impact.

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. She presents frequently, delivering provocative and resonant keynote presentations, workshops, webinars, simulations, and other learning experiences to business executives in the US and internationally.

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.

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

Gabriella Salvatore returned to Vantage Partners in 2019 after ten years in the biopharma industry and brings with her a passion for enhancing collaboration among individuals, teams, and companies. Her work focuses on the human side of business: change management, organizational culture, leadership team effectiveness, and soft-skills training.

Gabriella was Head of Organizational Development for Sanofi’s Diabetes & Cardiovascular business unit and served as Senior Director, Global Leadership & Organizational Development for the Sanofi Genzyme business unit prior to that. She also held roles in Patient Advocacy at both Sanofi Genzyme and Takeda Oncology.

Prior to her role at Sanofi, Gabriella worked at Vantage Partners for ten years, designing and facilitating leadership and team development programs as well as training initiatives focused on leadership, teamwork, change management, and collaboration. She has served clients around the world, in a variety of industries, with a focus on biopharmaceuticals, healthcare, and professional services.

Gabriella is a frequent presenter at industry and professional conferences in the human resources, learning and development, leadership, and patient advocacy fields. She has been a guest faculty member at Babson College, Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, Harvard Law School’s Advanced Program on Negotiation, and Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

Gabriella holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Cornell University and received her Master’s in Organizational Psychology from Lesley University.

Selected Publications

Competition From the Inside Out (MIT Sloan Management Review)

Building Resilience: L&D’s Evolving Role in Business Continuity Planning (Training Industry Magazine)

Learning: A Day-to-Day Activity (Chief Learning Officer Magazine) 

A Market-Driven Approach to Learning (Training Magazine)

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