Founder &
CEO
Eliette Krakora
Eliette is a strategy advisor to senior executives in leading global organizations. She has worked in the United States, Europe and Asia across many different industries with a deep focus in Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices. Eliette’s work spans from insights generation to strategy development to execution. She has experience in a broad set of strategic issues facing clients in different functions and levels of an organization. Eliette is particularly passionate about developing strategies anchored in deep understanding of customers, competition and current and future industry dynamics.
Prior to founding THRIVE, Eliette spent many years at Monitor Group, a global strategy firm, most recently as the co-head of Monitor’s Life Science practice in Asia based in Singapore & Shanghai.
Eliette holds a Master of Economics and International Commerce from the Vienna University Of Economics And Business Administration. She also studied at the University Of Chicago, Booth School Of Business and the Classe Préparatoire Heaute École De Commerce (H.E.C).
Eliette currently lives is Los Angeles where she is always busy planning the next travel adventure. She loves yoga, boxing with her heavy-weight pro trainer, and eating oysters.
Joel Smylie
Principal
Joel is a consultant with THRIVE with experience in the areas of new product launch and launch readiness assessments, competitive strategy and simulations, commercial capability building, financing/partnership pitch development, and innovation management. Joel holds a B.Sc. from Cornell University and Masters Degrees from Queen’s School of Business and the Vienna University of Economics and Business.
Joel was also a competitive rower, having won 5 national championships and raced for team Canada, and continues to train recreationally in his spare time.
Andrea Lenhardt
Vice President & General Counsel
Andrea is VP and General Counsel for THRIVE. Prior to joining THRIVE, Andrea was a partner with the law firm Bassi, Edlin, Huie & Blum LLP. She spent 10+ years as a litigator, specializing in the representation of companies, including Fortune 100 and 500 companies, in all phases of civil law and motion practice; providing strategy recommendations and evaluations; and advising on regulatory / compliance matters.
Andrea earned a B.A. from UCLA and graduated cum laude with departmental honors. She earned her J.D. from Loyola Law School and was named to the Dean’s Honor List and served as Articles Editor for the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review.
Andrea currently lives in Los Angeles. She is also a published poet and singer-songwriter who plays guitar and trumpet.
Jessica (Yunjoo) Bae
Associate Consultant
With a firm educational foundation in biochemistry, Yunjoo (Jessica) has always been driven by her passion for the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry. She completed her B.S. from Loyola University Chicago, graduating with summa cum laude. Pursuing advanced studies, she earned her M.S. from New York University. Her academic journey led her to contribute to significant research in an infectious disease lab, enhancing her expertise and dedication to the field.
George Norsig
Senior Advisor
George has several decades in C-level strategy consulting experience including positions as Senior Director at McKinsey and Senior Partner at Monitor Group. His singular focus has been on leadership, both in teams and business units, dealing with very complicated client situations requiring holistic thinking, considerable creativity in problem-opportunity definition, design of new problem-solving tools, and constructing innovative solutions. Many of these situations have been corporate turnarounds and transformations, and new business creations in the technology, healthcare, business services, and energy industries.
David Sandrich
Senior Advisor
David Sandrich brings over 20 years of experience building businesses and delivering results, both from within the biopharma industry and in strategy consulting. David’s core expertise is in commercialization and marketing across drug, device, and diagnostics in a broad range of therapeutic areas. His experience spans cross-functional commercialization including product/franchise brand strategy, launch strategy and tactical planning, competitive strategy, market access, and global market entry.
David’s background includes roles as Senior Advisor at Researcher, an early stage company focused on improving productivity of scientific research, Founding Principal of Accelinsight, a strategy advisory firm focused on development stage biopharma and med device, SVP at inVentiv Consulting, VP Corporate Programs and Partnerships for Abraxis BioScience, and Principal and West Coast Head of Innovation at Monitor Group.
David earned his MBA with emphasis in International Marketing and Strategy from Anderson Graduate School of Management, and his BA in linguistics cum laude from UCLA.
Katrin Kalischer-Stork
Senior Advisor
Katrin is an experienced strategy consultant based in Los Angeles, with 25 years of experience in consulting life sciences companies on corporate and commercial strategy. Over the years, Katrin has advised clients on a diverse set of strategic issues spanning competitive strategy, corporate strategy, growth and diversification strategy, decision making under uncertainty, scenario planning, market entry strategy, product launch strategy, as well as business model evaluations and operational optimization.
In addition to serving life sciences companies, Katrin has significant experience in working with leading global and regional foundations on their most pressing needs related to Global Health initiatives, sustainability programs and urban economic development in underserved US communities. In that context, she has worked extensively with Public-Private Partnerships and gained deep understanding of the complex dynamics of public health ecosystems across countries.
Katrin has worked on assignments in the US, Eastern and Western Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Regardless of her clients’ regional operating environment, she is deeply passionate about creating measurable impact for them and partnering with their management teams. Katrin’s engagement style embraces the direct dialogue with C-level executives on their priorities and Board interactions, as well as the close day-to-day collaboration with functional leaders and team members.
Prior to joining the THRIVE team, Katrin held a Partner position at HighPoint Associates, a boutique consulting firm. Before joining HighPoint she spent five years as a Partner at BCG in the firm’s Health Care practice, largely focused on commercial strategy. Prior to her time at BCG, Katrin was Senior Leader in the Life Sciences sector of the Monitor Group where she spent nine years in the firm’s London, Johannesburg and Los Angeles offices. Katrin holds a Masters degree in Information Sciences (with distinction) and a Masters degree in Japanese Sciences (with distinction), both from the FreieUniversität Berlin in Germany, and has studied at Kyoto University in Japan. Katrin earned her MBA at INSEAD in France.
Jason Wan-Jiun
Analyst
Jason is a consultant at THRIVE Consulting. Prior to joining THRIVE, Jason worked in real estate, education services, and served as a Corporal in the Taiwan Army. His primary areas of expertise include customer relations and marketing. Jason earned his master’s degree in business administration (MBA) from the Drucker School of Management, Claremont Graduate-University.
Outside of work, Jason is a ballroom dancer who has been dancing for more than 8 years and serves as Artist in Residence for Claremont Colleges Ballroom Dance Company.
Shondip Ghosh
Senior Consultant
Shondip is an independent strategy consultant with 14 years of consulting and operating experience. He has advised clients on issues including growth strategy, marketing strategy, customer experience innovation, and new business creation. Shondip was previously a consultant at Monitor Group, a global strategy consulting firm, where he advised clients across North America, Europe, and Asia. Shondip’s operating experience comes from his time as co-founder and CEO of Banyan Energy, a cleantech startup. As the CEO, he raised venture financing, developed the team, and built commercial relationships with global top 20 solar companies. He was the lead inventor of Banyan’s core technology, with five issued patents. Shondip has an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, a Bachelor’s in Physics from Harvard University, and has previously served as Adjunct Faculty for the Bay Area NSF Innovation Corps. He currently resides in San Francisco, but is often found on a hill in the beautiful Bay Area, or adventuring around the world.
George Baeder
Senior Advisor
George Baeder has spent 35 years helping companies build profitable businesses. As a strategy consultant, corporate leader, entrepreneur and investment banker, he has worked across virtually all industries, but with particular focus on pharmaceuticals, medical devices, oil and gas, specialty chemicals and consumer products. While he has worked globally, living in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan over the course of four decades means that George brings deep expertise in Asian markets, especially China.
As successful entrepreneur, George built two professional service firms and sold them to global leaders in their respective fields. He subsequently held senior leadership roles at Quintiles, Monitor Group, and AT Kearney.
George is passionate about creating innovative business models and practical results-oriented strategies to drive sustainable, profitable growth. He assists both leading Western firms and emerging Asian multinationals to solve critical business challenges.
Carsten Boers
Senior Advisor
Carsten is an entrepreneur and angel investor. He started his career in strategy consulting at Monitor Group and then co-founded the western world’s first mobile marketing company, Flytxt, in London at 24 years of age. After selling Flytxt in 2007, Carsten started investing in start-ups and advising and coaching entrepreneurs, as well as supporting institutional investors in transactions.
Carsten’s investment activity and work is focused on bringing breakthrough science innovation to commercial success. Based in Cambridge, MA next to MIT’s campus, his portfolio expands over medical devices, industrial biotech, material sciences and data-tech.
As part of his investment activity, Carsten is also the Managing General Partner at Rhapsody Venture Partners: