Our Advisors
Careers built inside the systems we work across.
Altigad is a founder-led boutique practice supported by a senior affiliate bench. Members bring depth in evaluation, public health, regulated science, federal systems, operations, and software — so when an engagement calls for deep domain expertise, we can add it quickly, without full-time overhead.
Areas of depth
Research
Federal & Defense
Health Informatics
Operations
Technology
Cybersecurity
Life Sciences
Strategy & IntelligenceNoteAdvisory and affiliate activities are conducted independently. Institutional appointments held by individual members, including adjunct or research roles, are separate from Altigad engagements and do not imply university endorsement, representation, or use of institutional resources in client work.
Jacob Allen Freitag
Founder & Systems Strategist
Systems strategist with a decade across bioengineering research, strategic advisory, and federal ecosystem analysis, from restructuring a late-stage maritime innovation proposal awarded $325K, to a 40-day embedded diagnostic inside a 375-person CRO, to systems-level analysis of federal STEM funding ecosystems.
Jacob traces how information, incentives, and decision structures actually behave inside organizations, helping leaders see where coordination breaks down, where systems stop translating intent into outcomes, and where targeted interventions can improve execution. He supports programs across STEM, innovation, workforce, and institutional development.
Jacob leads Altigad's embedded systems work and brings in the bench when a problem touches a specialized domain.
- Restructured a late-stage maritime innovation proposal into a scoring-aligned commercialization and evaluation strategy in the final week before submission, aligning partner roles, metrics, and funder logic on an award that reached $325K.
- Conducted embedded operational work inside a 375-person contract research organization in a chief-of-staff-style capacity, mapping commercial workflows, analyzing contracts and feedback systems, and delivering governance and process recommendations for senior leadership.
- Mapped funding allocation across roughly $500M in federal STEM education programs and conducted deeper structural analysis on a $120M DoD STEM portfolio, identifying coordination failures across program design, institutional execution, and outcome measurement.
- Separately from this practice, currently serves as an adjunct researcher, continuing contributions to research in peptide science, biomanufacturing, and materials interfaces.
The Bench
Senior affiliates, brought in by domain
Henry “Hank” Salmans III
Federal Cybersecurity & Defense Strategy
Retired USMC Major with TS/SCI eligibility and 35+ years of leadership spanning federal cybersecurity, enterprise IT modernization, and DoD program management, from the National Military Command Center to civilian agency environments including USDA and Marine Corps Headquarters.
Hank's career spans nuclear command authority, enterprise systems architecture, cloud migration recovery, and cybersecurity policy authorship at the highest levels of the U.S. federal government. He has led programs responsible for billions in military payroll, commanded hundreds of Marines, and advised General Officers and Senior Executives at Headquarters Marine Corps. Published in the Journal of Defense Software Engineering. Fluent in English and Spanish.
- Nuclear Command and Control Communications Officer, National Military Command Center: a 14-man team supporting 20 worldwide military operations including Allied Force, Desert Fox, and the USS Cole response
- Authored the Marine Corps Risk Management Framework (RMF) cybersecurity strategy: the first successful enterprise-level validation under the new DoD framework
- Directed enterprise IT systems enabling $13.6B in annual USMC military payroll and accounting of $25B+ in annual budget
- Recovered a twice-failed Army cloud migration (CHARA). Transitioned critical DoD infrastructure to secure, scalable multi-cloud environments
Dr. Ruth Wetta
Evaluation Methodology & Implementation Science
PhD, MPH, MSN, RN with 25+ years aligning clinical care, community health systems, and population health data infrastructure, from bedside nursing through national-scale health informatics product leadership at Oracle Cerner.
Dr. Wetta's career spans clinical practice, federal program evaluation, health data standardization, and large-scale health informatics product development. Anchored in the Theory of Planned Behavior, her work focuses on how education, measurement, and data infrastructure shape practice change across healthcare and public health systems. Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Kansas School of Nursing (2009–2024), teaching Implementation Science and Microsystems Improvement in Health Care Operations. Peer-reviewed publications in Health Informatics, Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, and Evaluation and Program Planning.
- Lead Clinical Researcher and Product Manager, Oracle Cerner: informatics product leadership at the world's largest health IT enterprise, leading work on Social and Behavioral Determinants of Health (SBDH) data standardization, EHR-integrated health literacy assessment, and clinical research methodology
- Co-Chair, Nursing Big Data Science Determinants of Health Work Group, University of Minnesota School of Nursing (2021–2023), leading national methodology work on SDOH data integration; member of the work group 2017–2024
- Federal and national health data standards bodies: Gravity Project Technical Advisory Committee (2020–2023); National Quality Forum Prevention and Population Health Standing Committee (2021–2023); NQF Patient-Reported Outcome Measures Technical Expert Panel (2021–2022); LOINC Nursing Subcommittee (2017–2024); Joint Commission Bernard J. Tyson Award Panel (2023–2024)
- Sustained scholarly contribution to health services research, community-based participatory research, and program evaluation: 40 peer-reviewed publications spanning two decades, with 800+ total citations and an h-index of 17; foundational work includes SBDH evidence-based concept creation (Health Informatics, 2020), health literacy assessment in EHRs (Health Informatics Journal, 2019), and Kansas community health assessment methodology (Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 2014); workshop presenter at the American Medical Informatics Association 2022 Annual Symposium
Dr. Dominic Warrino
Biologics, Biosimilar Strategy & Regulatory Compliance
PhD Immunologist with 30 years across biologics development, immunogenicity assessment, and biosimilar strategy. Senior Director of Scientific Services at KCAS Bio, with 11 publications, contributions to FDA 510(k) approvals, and co-leader of the AAPS Critical Reagents Focus Group contributing to industry bioanalytical standards.
Dominic leads technical strategy, client engagement, and regulatory alignment across bioanalytical programs at KCAS Bio. His career spans preclinical through Phase III biologics development across oncology, infectious disease, allergy, and autoimmunity, with expertise in large-molecule PK, immunogenicity, biomarker assays, and biosimilar programs. His work has contributed to FDA 510(k) approvals, major business growth initiatives, and industry leadership through AAPS.
- Senior Director of Scientific Services at KCAS Bio, leading large-molecule PK, immunogenicity, and biosimilar biomarker programs across preclinical through Phase III; previously drove 50%+ growth in biosimilar and Bio-Better assay programs at Viracor-IBT
- Co-Leader, AAPS Critical Reagents Focus Group; Bioanalytical Program Track Chair, AAPS Summer Scientific Forum, active in shaping industry standards and regulatory direction
- Contributed to FDA 510(k) approvals, authored 11 publications, and developed industry-recognized expertise in flow cytometry, immunogenicity, and bioanalytical method validation
- Former Scientific Advisory Board member, ImmoSoft Corporation (2009–2015) and Biogen Idec JC Virus Advisory Board (2009), with expertise in biologics, biosimilars, and large-molecule regulatory strategy
Advisory activities are conducted independently and do not involve bioanalytical services or engagements with CRO competitors.
Matt Rider
Supply Chain Operations & Performance Optimization
Operations executive and co-founder with 25+ years across eCommerce fulfillment, reverse logistics, and manufacturing. Led 2M+ sq. ft. of fulfillment at Qurate/QVC delivering $11.7M in annual savings, drove 20 consecutive months atop Walmart's fulfillment network at Jet.com, and co-founded the first order-online drive-thru grocery operation in the U.S.
Matt's career is defined by measurable turnarounds at scale: stabilizing underperforming operations, developing leadership pipelines, and improving the systems that drive fulfillment, manufacturing, and distribution. He has led operations spanning millions of square feet and consistently delivered documented gains in throughput, cost efficiency, and team performance.
- At Qurate/QVC, led 2M+ sq. ft. of fulfillment across 51 managers and 1,700+ team members, achieving 45% UPH increase, $11.7M in annual savings, and two consecutive quarters of highest RTV output in company history
- At Jet.com/Walmart, led Kansas City FC to 20 consecutive months at the top of the Walmart fulfillment network in CPU and VCPU, applying Six Sigma, Kaizen, and Gemba methodology with 73% increase in receiving productivity
- Co-founded Zoomin Market, the first order-online drive-thru grocery operation in the U.S., built from concept through construction, WMS design, software development, and launch
- Consistent record of leadership development: six internal promotions at DEMDACO, six straight quarters of highest-ranked team members at Jet.com/Walmart, and regional GM trainer at Gopuff
Maria Saavedra
AI-Integrated Product Engineering & Cloud Architecture
Principal software engineer and founder of M7 Studio with 10+ years building production systems from startup to scale. Delivered features to 12M+ users at Screencastify, contributed to a product acquisition at Gather Learning, and builds AI-integrated platforms for early-stage founders across edtech and enterprise.
Maria's work spans the full product engineering lifecycle, from early-stage prototypes to production systems used at scale. She has delivered features to millions of users, contributed to products that achieved acquisition, and built systems combining modern full-stack architecture, cloud infrastructure, and AI-enabled functionality.
- Delivered features to 12M+ users at Screencastify and contributed to product development at Gather Learning supporting a later acquisition
- Architected scalable systems using NestJS, PostgreSQL, Next.js, and OpenAI APIs with secure Auth0 authentication and automated CI/CD pipelines across AWS, Azure, and DigitalOcean
- Technical Director at Adva Digital Solutions, leading 5+ concurrent projects and mentored a team of engineers across React, TypeScript, C#, and Azure
- Founder of M7 Studio, building production-ready platforms for startups across edtech, enterprise, and early-stage software
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