Trevor Fetter
Senior Lecturer of Business Administration
Senior Lecturer of Business Administration
Trevor Fetter is a Senior Lecturer in the Accounting and Management unit and joined the Harvard Business School faculty in 2019. An experienced corporate executive, director, and entrepreneur, he teaches two MBA required courses: Leadership and Corporate Accountability, and Financial Reporting and Control. He also teaches a Short Intensive Program for MBA students: The Life and Role of the CEO. Trevor is a founding member of the school’s Healthcare Initiative Advisory Board and former member of the Board of Dean’s Advisors. He received an MBA degree from HBS in 1986.
After graduating from HBS Trevor joined the investment banking division of Merrill Lynch in Los Angeles, where he worked with clients in the healthcare, entertainment, and oil services sectors. In 1988 he joined client MGM/UA Communications, a producer and distributor of motion pictures and television programs under the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and United Artists brands, as senior vice president, becoming executive vice president in 1990 and Chief Financial Officer in 1993.
In 1995 he left the entertainment industry for healthcare, joining former client Tenet Healthcare Corporation. In 1996 Trevor became Tenet’s Chief Financial Officer and served in that role through the end of 1999. Seeking to create a new venture from within Tenet, in late 1999 Trevor and several colleagues launched Broadlane, a company designed to improve the performance of healthcare providers in the supply chain using emerging e-commerce technology. Broadlane was featured in Inc. magazine's list of fastest growing private companies during his tenure.
In late 2002, Trevor was asked to return to Tenet as President and was named Chief Executive Officer and a director in 2003. Under his leadership, the company grew to $20 billion in revenues (Fortune 500 #134) and increased EBITDA each year during his tenure, expanding margins all but one year in which the company made a significant acquisition. The company employed 130,000 people, making it one of the top sixty employers in the U.S., and had operations in more than 40 states and the United Kingdom. As CEO, Trevor launched initiatives to re-shape the company’s hospital portfolio and to create growth engines in new business lines of outpatient services and business-to-business services in the revenue cycle and value-based care. Tenet’s hospitals that held a #1 or #2 market position went from 60% of the portfolio to more than 75%. The newly-formed divisions each became multi-billion dollar businesses and one of them, Conifer Health Solutions, is the subject of an HBS case study on innovation within large enterprises. Trevor was known for establishing a culture of growth and patient centricity while at Tenet. He launched several initiatives dedicated to providing exemplary healthcare to all, including a “Commitment to Quality,” which transformed the company into a clinical quality leader, and the “Compact with Uninsured Patients,” which was adopted industry-wide and praised by patients’ rights advocates. After serving as CEO for 14 years, Trevor retired from Tenet in 2017.
In addition to serving on the board of Tenet from 2003-2017, including as its chairman, Trevor has served on the board of The Hartford Financial Services Group, a diversified financial services company principally in the insurance business, since 2007. At The Hartford, he is the Lead Independent Director and has served on every committee and has chaired the Nominating and Corporate Governance and Compensation committees. He serves on the board of two private companies, Trimedx Inc., where he is board chair, and the Santa Catalina Island Company. He is a member of the Senior Advisory Boards of Towerbrook Capital Partners, a private equity firm, and Morrow Sodali, a corporate governance advisory firm. Trevor’s non-profit engagement includes the boards of the Catalina Island Conservancy, a land trust dedicated to preserving the ecology of the island, the Board of Fellows of Stanford Medicine, the Smithsonian National Board, and the Founders Council of the United States of Care. He also serves as an advisor to several early-stage companies seeking to transform elements of the healthcare system.
Trevor received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford University in 1982. Since 1983 he has been married to his Stanford classmate, Melissa, a community volunteer and soon-to-be proprietor of a bookstore and café in Beacon Hill. Together they were honored with the 2017 Henry Cohn Humanitarian Award presented by the Anti-Defamation League.
- Cases and Teaching Materials
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- Fubini, David G., Rebecca Henderson, Sarah Gulick, and Trevor Fetter. "Crisis at the 11th Hour." Harvard Business School Case 320-041, January 2020. (Revised November 2020.) View Details
- Fetter, Trevor, and Kira Seiger. "Roll-Ups and Surprise Billing: Collisions at the Intersection of Private Equity and Patient Care." Harvard Business School Case 321-049, November 2020. (Revised November 2020.) View Details
- Snowberg, Erik, Trevor Fetter, and Amy W. Schulman. "The Business of Pain: Johnson & Johnson and the Promise of Opioids (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 720-423, December 2019. View Details
- Fetter, Trevor, Eugene F. Soltes, and Grant Wahlquist. "Background on Insider Trading Liability." Harvard Business School Background Note 320-080, December 2019. (Revised January 2020.) View Details
- Snowberg, Erik, Trevor Fetter, and Amy W. Schulman. "The Business of Pain: Johnson & Johnson and the Promise of Opioids." Harvard Business School Case 720-420, December 2019. View Details
- Fetter, Trevor, Erik Snowberg, and Rebecca M. Henderson. "The Leveraged Buyout of TXU: (B) Energy Future Holdings." Harvard Business School Supplement 320-065, December 2019. (Revised January 2021.) View Details
- Fetter, Trevor, Erik Snowberg, and Rebecca M. Henderson. "TXU (A): Powering the Largest Leveraged Buyout in History." Harvard Business School Case 320-064, December 2019. (Revised January 2021.) View Details
- Toffel, Michael W., Trevor Fetter, John Masko, and Sarah Mehta. "JUUL and the Vaping Revolution." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 619-068, May 2019. View Details
- Areas of Interest