R. Brooke Hollis, Sloan ’78

Brooke Hollis MBA/HHSA, MArch & UD is a 1978 Sloan graduate and has been a dedicated volunteer working for decades to contribute to the program. He served for over 15 years on the Sloan Alumni Association (SAA) board and served as president. During his tenure he helped to recruit Will White as Sloan director. He then worked closely with Will and with his successor Sean Nicholson to lend support to re-energizing of the program and assisted with its rise in the rankings from 29th to the top 10.

Brooke’s most recent appointments have been as professor of practice in Policy Analysis & Management, executive director of the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures (CIHF), associate director, Sloan Program, and he currently serves as an Executive-in-Residence for the Executive MHA program. In addition to teaching 4 courses, his work has been largely involved with external relations including connecting students with industry and alumni. He also facilitated multi-year collaborations with Entrepreneurship at Cornell and co-led the development of CIHF–which was initially jointly funded by and is a collaboration among the Hotel School/College of Business, and Human Ecology’s Sloan Program and Design & Environmental Analysis (DEA). He has lectured and helped develop programs on entrepreneurship, senior living and applications of hospitality and planning/design thinking to health/wellness, seniors housing and other areas for CIHF, Sloan and eCornell.

Beyond his current part-time Cornell appointment, his outside work involves mergers & acquisitions (M&A) and consulting. Recent engagements include a private equity-backed healthcare acquisition search and advising an international law firm representing a public company in the health sector. He has served on the boards of several non-profit organizations, including Cayuga Health System, and on a number Cornell-related boards including the Cornell Club of Greater Hartford and the Human Ecology Dean’s Advisory Council. Additional activities include serving as president of a national healthcare professional association, where he was involved in advocacy work at the federal and regional level.

Prior to returning to Cornell, he served 30+ years in a variety of leadership roles. In the hospital sector, he worked in a community hospital in Illinois, a 1,000 bed 3 hospital system in Massachusetts, and the University of Cincinnati Medical Center (UCMC), a 2 million SF campus that had 715 beds in 2 inpatient facilities and a medical school/research complex.

In the outpatient services area, he was a partner and a leader of an entrepreneurial group where he directed renovation and development of de novo specialty clinics, a Durable Medical Equipment operation and contract services for hospitals in a 3-state region. He was also responsible for managing the divestiture of the organization after his partners had financial issues. This led to work as a partner in two M&A firms involving consulting and transaction work for health and professional services firms in 20 states and Canada.

Brooke’s academic background includes degrees from Cornell and Washington University in St. Louis. He also passed the oral and written exams and fulfilled the coursework and experiential requirements to have been granted two M&A certifications and one in healthcare by three professional organizations.