Ann Brandau

Ann Brandau is known for turning around organizations that had run out of options. As Principal Consultant at Prosperity Consulting, she advises hospitals, physician practices, and nonprofits on the financial, operational, and regulatory problems that most directly affect performance. Her healthcare work has included recovering lost revenue, negotiating payer agreements that had stalled for years, tightening operations, meeting complex regulatory requirements, and expanding access to care across rural hospitals, community health centers, specialty practices, and nonprofit providers.

That operator's instinct was formed across an unusually varied career. Brandau has held healthcare executive roles, served three terms as a Wyandotte County Commissioner chairing the Economic Development Standing Committee, and completed two appointed terms on the Kansas Board of Regents, where she helped oversee the University of Kansas Health System and Medical Center.

Her most visible turnaround was a neighborhood, not a balance sheet. As Executive Director of the Argentine Neighborhood Development Association, she led the redevelopment of a 17-acre Superfund site that had been contaminated and abandoned for more than three decades, working with Walmart and a coalition of public and private partners to build a working neighborhood market and secure millions of dollars for parks, senior housing, libraries, and public safety.

Brandau traces her method to early work in intensive probation supervision, where a focus on measurable outcomes reshaped how she approached every role that followed: challenge assumptions, and be willing to rethink the standard approach. She also writes about leadership, resilience, and public service, and about the ways institutions shape the people inside them.

Portfolio: https://ann-brandau.com/