Dr. John Norris
Founder & Executive Chairman
Dr. John Norris, JD, MBA, is a globally recognized visionary, thought leader, and craftsman in health policy, law, and management. He is best known for inventing strategies and products for better methods and means for Life Sciences, Healthcare, and HC IT/AI/ML product development, risk management, regulatory compliance, and crisis management. He did his early work as COO of the US FDA and as a faculty member at Harvard. He is now a risk management entrepreneur.
​
Above all, Norris has decades of highly recognized success in advanced risk management and complex problem-solving. A US President and his Secretary of HHS asked him to co-lead the last major internal reform of the US FDA and the US responses to the Tylenol and Chornobyl crises. His Team’s FDA reforms enhanced the FDA’s productivity, timeliness, and ability to cut new-product review times significantly and greatly reduce other costs borne by regulated companies (and, therefore, the patients they serve). His FDA, Tylenol, and Chornobyl efforts saved countless lives and dollars.
Also, Norris has facilitated raising billions of dollars to support essential Life Sciences, Healthcare, and Healthcare IT/AI/ML innovations by companies, non-profit organizations, and government agencies—in the US and worldwide.
​
Dr. Norris' primary skills involve thoughtfully, insightfully, and intuitively listening, validating, analyzing, negotiating, and applying facts and concepts in problematic deal-making, growth-creating, risk-management, or crisis-management settings. Included here is leading the work of others related to envisioning, conceptualizing, negotiating, editing, executing, and enforcing (1) product, branding, or strategic innovations, (2) action plans, (3) marketing/PR plans, (4) fundraising plans, (5) budgets, (6) employment, customer, distributor, manufacturer, warehouser, and funding contracts, (7) enterprise board and operating policies, and (8) litigation or regulatory-non-compliance case settlement deals.
​
Many of the details:
1. Dr. Norris has over 29,000 LinkedIn followers/subscribers and 6,000 contacts. He has given some 300 HC risk-management-related talks and TV appearances in the US and worldwide. He has served long-term on 20 top boards. Additionally, he has advised long-term, senior executives of 30 well-known US and Global advisory clients.
2. He has experience taking companies public, then private, and then selling them to world-class buyers at a high premium, all to enhance shareholder value, ROI, and corporate difference-making in the US and globally.
3. Dr. Norris has served as a Board Chairman, CEO, or COO for many enterprises. He has managed 14,000+ employees and a $6B budget in today’s dollars. With his partners, he co-led the negotiation of a deal that sold one of their young companies to Nestle for today’s equivalent of $1.5 billion, thereby producing extensive investor ROIs.
4. Norris is a prolific editor and writer. He has served as editor-in-chief of two academic journals, one at Cornell and the other at Harvard. In addition, he has published more than 20 articles (and 50 LinkedIn posts) on how to manage COVID-19 and its variants better, both in the US and worldwide, using his software-as-a-service (SaaS) SW device.
5. He is a former Principal Deputy Commissioner and COO of the US FDA, a former Harvard faculty member, and a current Founder and Executive Chairman of the Board of Safely2Prosperity LLC, an infectious disease safety preparedness and risk-management company. S2P fully manages customer preparedness, prevention, and mitigation.
6. On boards, Dr. Norris helps senior executives and their boards and committees to formulate, negotiate, and fully execute their critical (a) strategic action plans, (b) FDA compliance and negotiations, and (c) funding and customer contracts.
7. Norris' current or former long-term clients and/or board seats include Life Sciences—Pfizer, Konica Minolta, and Summit Technology; Healthcare—Harvard’s Partners HealthCare System (now Mass General Brigham), MGH, and HCHP; Health-Related—The AMA, The MHA, and The JCAHO (now The Joint Commission), prominent enterprises, all.
8. His own HC and life sciences or business advisors have included: Dr. Frank Young, Former US FDA Commissioner; Dr. Harvey Fineberg, Former Harvard Provost; Dr. Sam Thier, Former Partners HealthCare (now Mass General Brigham) CEO; Mr. Fred Hassan, Former Pharma Chairman; Mr. Tom O’Neill, Former Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor (and a key advisor to US Speaker Tip O’Neill); and Mr. Bob Dilenschneider, Former Hill & Knowlton CEO.
9. Dr. Norris' mentors have included Mr. Bill Steere, Former Pfizer CEO; and Mr. Yuji Kuroiwa, Current Kanagawa Prefecture (State), Japan, Governor.
10. Norris' honors: a perfect (800) board score and a prestigious Boston Ten Outstanding Young Leader (TOYL) award.
11. His Public Service includes board-member of, and/or a significant donor to, MA Kiwanis, Beth-Israel Plymouth Hospital, The Hunger Project, Stanford, Cornell, Rochester, Harvard, MIT, Boston University, and Boston College.
12. Dr. Norris has undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate training in chemical engineering, economics, political science, computing, Russian, Chinese, law (JD), business (MBA), and government, at Harvard, Cornell, and Rochester. His published full bio is at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnnorrisboston. His cell number is: 617-680-3127. His best email address is: john.norris@safely2prosperity.com.