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
Humana named Japan Mehta as its new CIO. He will take over during the first quarter of 2025, and Humana’s current CIO, Sam Deshpande, will retire at the end of 2024. Mehta will join Humana from Citi, where he serves as chief data officer. Before that, he held leadership roles at several other large companies, including JPMorgan, Barclays and Verizon.
Salt Lake City-based health system Intermountain Health appointed Ryan Smith as its new chief digital and information officer. Smith, who will begin his new position in early 2025, is replacing Craig Richardville, who left the role in June. This is Smith’s third stint at Intermountain. He spent nearly two decades serving in various leadership roles from 1994 to 2013, and he also served as the health system’s chief information officer from 2020 to 2022. He then left to work at digital health startup Graphite Health, where he currently serves as interim president and CEO.
Nari Gopala joined Mayo Clinic as its new chief digital officer. He replaced Rita Khan, who left Mayo in 2023 to fill the chief consumer officer role at Optum. Gopala joined Mayo from Kaiser Permanente, where he most recently served as chief digital officer. Before that, he held leadership roles at tech giants, including Amazon Web Services and Sony Online Entertainment.
The National Association of ACOs (NAACOS) announced that Emily Brower will take over as its new president and CEO in February. She will replace Clif Gaus, who co-founded NAACOS in 2012 and had been serving as its CEO ever since. Brower currently serves as senior vice president of clinical integration and physician services at Trinity Health, a Michigan-based health system.
Behavioral health platform Rula Health welcomed two new executives: Mark Khavkin as CFO and Prashanthi Raman as chief external affairs officer. Mark has more than 15 years of financial leadership experience, having held executive roles at companies such as MinIO and Pantheon Platform. Raman has more than 20 years of experience working as an attorney and public policy executive at companies like Lyft and Cruise. Khavkin and Raman joined Rula shortly after the company expanded its therapy services to all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
Sacramento-based Sutter Health hired Aparna Abburi as senior vice president of population health and health plan services, as well as CEO of Sutter Health Plan. She has previously held leadership positions at UnitedHealth Group, Centene and Cigna, serving most recently as president of Cigna’s Medicare & CareAllies business.
Symplr, which provides healthcare operations software, appointed Steve Filler as COO and Matt Grill as chief delivery officer. Filler joined the company from Boston Consulting Group, where he led its digital health practice, and Grill comes from workforce management software company UKG, where he held a variety of vice president roles.
Promotions
Amwell expanded the leadership role for its CFO, Mark Hirschhorn, who joined the company in October. Beginning on January 1, he will serve as Amwell’s COO as well as its CFO. Before Amwell, Hirschhorn worked as CEO of TapestryHealth, and prior to that, he held leadership positions at other healthcare companies, including Teladoc Health and Talkspace.
Consulting firm Avalere Health appointed Amar Urhekar as its new CEO. Urhekar, who joined Avalere in 2023 as COO, replaces former CEO Jon Koch. In the past, Urhekar spent nearly two decades in executive roles at McCann Health, a global healthcare marketing and communications firm.
The Federation of American Hospitals (FAH) promoted Don May to executive vice president, and he will begin leading the organization’s policy team on January 1. May, who currently serves as senior vice president, joined FAH in 2020. Before that, he served in policy leadership roles at the American Hospital Association and the Advanced Medical Technology Association.
Exits
Amwell also announced that two of its executives will leave at the end of 2024: Chief Commercial and Growth Officer Kathy Weiler, as well as Chief Operating Officer Kurt Knight. Weiler joined Amwell from Optum last year, and Night joined Amwell from Boston Consulting Group in 2011.
Brian Gragnolati, CEO of New Jersey-based Atlantic Health System, announced his plans to retire. He joined the health system in 2015, serving as its CEO for a decade. Gragnolati plans to remain in the CEO role until Atlantic finds a successor. He has had a 45-year career in healthcare, which has included executive roles at other health systems, such as WellSpan Health and Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Margaret O’Kane, president of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), said that she will retire at the end of 2025. She has served as president of the nonprofit organization — which seeks to improve healthcare quality through measurement and transparency — since she founded it in 1990.
Layoffs
CVS Health plans to lay off 164 remote employees who work for its Aetna division starting on February 15. The job cuts are “due to an unexpected loss of contract in Kansas,” according to a document CVS filed in Connecticut. Some of the impacted positions include case management analysts and nurse case managers.
Medical device manufacturer Masimo will lay off 75 employees in January, according to a regulatory filing the company made in November. Masimo’s founder and CEO, Joe Kiani, stepped down in September following a proxy battle between the company and Politan Capital Management.
In March, Optum will lay off 34 workers at a clinical laboratory in upstate New York. The reason for these job eliminations is “sale of business,” according to regulatory documents Optum filed in New York this month.
Dallas-based Steward Health Care made two filings with Pennsylvania this month, informing the state that it will shutter Sharon Regional Medical Center, resulting in 848 layoffs. The first notice said that 149 “professional staff members” will be laid off, and the second filing said that 699 “line staff” positions will be eliminated.
