Dr. Laura Esserman (A)

Laura Esserman, a surgeon and faculty member at the University of California at San Francisco as well as a graduate of Stanford Business School, is engaged in a major effort to change the delivery of breast cancer services and the information systems used to support both research and patient care. A true visionary with enormous personal charm and charisma, Esserman has run into obstacles and opposition as she tries to get support in a bureaucratic, complex, academic medical organization. The case focuses on what she has done, the various other actors, and poses the issue of how she should develop more power and influence to move her vision along.