Over the past two decades, Dr. Kassam has led four Neurosurgery programs; pioneered and globally taught novel surgical procedures; founded or held leadership roles in several technology start-up companies; and has held executive healthcare administration leadership roles needed to translate these innovations through Integrated Service Line delivery models. He is the Founder and CEO of Intent Medical Group and Neeka Enterprises and recently served as the Chief Scientific Strategist, Vice President of Neurosciences, and Chairman, Department of Neurological Surgery, AdvocateAurora Health Care. He previously served as the Chairman, Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He currently serves as the Executive Vice President, Chief Medical Affairs and Transformation Officer, Northwest Community Healthcare, Northshore University Healthcare System. Dr. Kassam also serves as the Chairman, Department of Neurosciences, Northshore Neurosciences Institute at Northwest Community Healthcare (NCH).

Grounded on a unique active clinical practice, Dr. Kassam has developed a defining experience in minimally invasive Neurosurgery. Having led teams that performed many of the first-in-man procedures, he remains a global destination surgeon, educator and academic having trained a generation of fellows. Dr. Kassam has published over 322 peer-reviewed articles, 3 textbooks, 80 book chapters, given over 250 lectures globally and served as a distinguished guest for multiple international meetings and societies. He has an H-index of 76, 98th percentile RG-impact score, and his work has been cited over 24,000 times. He authored the 1st and 3rd most cited article in his field over the past decade and published a sentinel atlas of the human neural network: “The White Matter Chassis.” Dr. Kassam has published a Neuro-oncology textbook which outlines a compendium of the approaches he and his team have developed to access the skull base and subcortical deep regions of the brain.

In his role as the Chief Medical Officer for the National Hockey League Alumni Association his team has completed a trial examining Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) and quality of life of the Alumni via a purpose-built digital wellness platform to enhance self-efficacy and peer-to-peer connectivity, the preliminary results suggesting a significant impact. The machine learning-enriched analytics and “Data Visualization/Segmentation Dashboards” from this trial will be foundational for trials in broader populations facing health equity disparities. This data is now being prepared for federal funding submission. Additionally, since the pandemic, Dr. Kassam has further focused on resource optimization. His team of data science engineers created and published AI-infused tools including web-based multi-parametric predictive COVID modeling that anticipate surges, hospital bed capacity and inform strategic planning. The team has built a responsive econometric algorithm and a series of integrated tools at the DRG level that focus on strategic institutional planning and quality-metric based performance measurements – “econometrics”.

Dr. Kassam has a broad network, including being appointed as the National Hockey League Alumni Association CMO, econometrics and optics consultant for Stryker Corporation, and JLL Enterprises. This broad and deep range combined with a track record of implementing purpose-built patient-centric horizontally Integrated Service Lines across diverse ecosystems, positions him to be uniquely capable of providing data-driven, predictive clinical and economic insights to optimize resources during a time of unprecedented need both for patient care and academic pursuit. The singular focus remains sustainable optimized patient services leveraged through data. On the precipice of a healthcare crisis, this experience uniquely positions him to navigate the collision of three emerging verticals collectively representing the life sciences sector: academia, corporate healthcare, and technology (medtech, datatech, biotech). Operating at the nexus of this triad and bridging these sectors will be vital in transforming healthcare and effecting dual transformation: enhanced patient outcomes coupled with differentiated patient experience culminating in enhanced operational efficiency yielding optimal derivative financial value.

Dr. Kassam has emerged as a strategic thinker and operator that can fluidly work across the triad, bringing people together to create measurable value through high performance multistakeholder teams, enabled through innovation to serve patients.