Former L.E.K. Japan head Harold Smith-Franzen joins Emerton

Former L.E.K. Consulting Japan managing partner for Harold Smith-Franzen has joined global strategy consultancy Emerton following its joining of forces with Savono Medical.

Medical device and pharmaceutical expert Harold Smith-Franzen has joined international consultancy Emerton as a partner and head of its Healthcare practice, expanding its footprint in the Asia-Pacific. The recruitment follows Emerton’s integration of Savono Medical, a boutique consultancy focused on the medical device and pharmaceutical segment which Smith-Franzen founded in 2010.

“I am pleased that Savono Medical will become a fully-integrated part of Emerton,” commented Smith-Franzen. “Emerton has a strong track record in high-tech highly regulated industries. By joining Emerton, our team will be better able to serve clients with a significantly stronger footprint in Europe and access to Emerton Data’s offering in Artificial Intelligence and advanced data analytics.”

Savono, which focuses on bringing tech-driven solutions and best practices to the Japanese healthcare market, is the second consultancy founded by Smith-Franzen to have been picked up by an international player, with earlier Japan and Singapore-based healthcare strategy firm Acumen bought by L.E.K. Consulting in 2008, a move which saw Smith-Franzen establish L.E.K.’s Japan office.

In addition to serving as L.E.K.’s Japan managing partner, Smith-Franzen was also the firm’s Asia Pacific MedTech practice head, catering to multi-national medtech, pharmaceutical and private equity companies. It was his second stint with the firm, having been an L.E.K. associate consultant in Chicago for three years leading up to 2000.

Kicking off his career as a mergers & acquisition analyst for Bank of America Securities, Smith-Franzen has since amassed more than two decades of experience in the healthcare sector, which is the fastest growing consultancy segment in numerous markets around the world, including the Asia Pacific, and especially so in Japan, which together with Australia is driving around a quarter of the growth.

Having also served as a member of a Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare working group on single-use medical device re-manufacturing, Smith-Franzen is a leading expert in the local healthcare market, with expertise covering commercialisation strategy development and execution, market opportunity assessment, regulatory support, and product due diligence among other specialist areas.

With Savono Medical integrated into Emerton’s global healthcare practice (one of Emerton’s major practice lines together with the energy, industry, TMT, mobility, consumer, and aerospace sectors), Smith-Franzen will only not help to expand the firm’s capabilities in the Asia Pacific but also serve the firm’s global client roster, which from offices in Paris, New York and Dubai extends to every continent.