This roundup is published monthly. It is meant to highlight some of healthcare’s recent hiring news and is not intended to be comprehensive. If you have news about an executive appointment, resignation or layoff that you would like to share for this roundup, please reach out to [email protected].
Hires
Lalith Vadlamannati joined Aledade, a national network of independent primary care practices, as its chief technology officer. He came to the organization from Hinge Health, where he also served as chief technology officer.
Healthcare IT company DrFirst welcomed Laizer Kornwasser as its new CEO. In the past, he held leadership positions at Teladoc Health and CareCentrix.
Evolent Health, which sells software to help providers manage their value-based care programs, hired David Lim as chief clinical officer. He joined the company from RightMove Health, where he served as chief medical officer. Before that, he held leadership positions at Innovacare Health, Quartet Health and Castlight Health.
Hackensack Meridian Health named Joel Klein as its new chief digital information officer. He has spent the past nine years at the University of Maryland Medical System, where he most recently served as CIO.
Specialty pediatric mental health provider InStride Health appointed two new C-suite leaders. The company named Joe Pietrzak as CFO and Don LeBlanc as chief commercial officer. In the past, Pietrzak has held executive roles at Oncology Care Partners and Cancer Treatment Centers of America, which was acquired by City of Hope in 2022. LeBlanc’s previous positions include CEO of StackCommerce and president of platform at Printful.
L.A. Care Health Plan welcomed Melanie Fontes Rainer as its first chief strategy and transformation officer. In the past, she has served as the national director for privacy, cybersecurity and civil rights at HHS, as well as counselor to former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.
Drugmaker Novartis US hired Katie Mazuk as its chief patient experience officer. She joined the company from Johnson & Johnson, where she most recently served as senior vice president of patient engagement and customer solutions.
Suki, which offers an AI-powered voice assistant for providers, named three new executives: Kevin Wang as chief medical officer, Vikram Khanna as chief customer officer and Joe Chang as chief of technology. In the past, Wang has held executive positions as Apree Health, HealthCare Partners and Evolent Health. Khanna was a leader at companies including Innovaccer and Google, and Chang served in leadership roles at PrimerAI, Uber and Google.
Telehealth provider Teladoc Health welcomed Vidya Raman-Tangella as its new chief medical officer. She joined the company from Amazon Web Services, where she served as general manager of healthcare and life sciences. In the past, she has held executive roles at UnitedHealth Group, Johnson & Johnson and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.
Promotions
UnitedHealth Group named Bobby Hunter as CEO of government programs. He has worked at the company for 14 years, serving most recently as the CEO of just its Medicare division.
Exits
Community Health Systems CEO Tim Hingtgen will retire at the end of September after 17 years at the health system and nearly five years in the CEO role. Kevin Hammons, the health system’s CFO, will serve as interim CEO, and Jason Johnson, its chief accounting officer, will serve as interim CFO.
DexCom CEO Kevin Sayer will step down on January 1 after 11 years at the company. He will be replaced by Jake Leach, the company’s current COO who joined the company more than 21 years ago.
Layoffs
Best Buy Health is laying off 161 employees. The job cuts come amid financial challenges for the retail giant’s healthcare division — just a month ago, it divested its home care business Current Health, which it acquired in 2021.
Ohio-based health system MetroHealth announced that it is eliminating 125 workers’ positions, as well as freezing some of its hiring. The layoffs affect mainly administrative roles across the system, ranging from senior leaders to entry-level employees. The health system said the move is “part of a broader effort by MetroHealth to stabilize its finances as it experiences an unprecedented surge in the cost of care it delivers to Greater Cleveland’s uninsured,” adding that its charity care costs now exceed $1 million a day.
Sarepta Therapeutics, which focuses on developing genetic medicines for rare diseases, is cutting 36% of its workforce, which is about 500 employees. The news comes after a second fatality this year in a patient dosed with the drugmaker’s Duchenne muscular dystrophy gene therapy.
San Diego-based health system Sharp HealthCare is laying off 315 people, 1.5% of its workforce. The majority of the affected employees work in nonpatient care roles. Sharp is also reducing its senior executives’ compensation by about 15%. These changes are a result of the ongoing financial challenges that healthcare providers face, the health system said.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is reducing its IT workforce by about 12%, with 1,200 employees accepting voluntary buyouts. The VA’s budget for next year includes a $300 million in cuts to its IT spending.
