Health care execs on the move

Welcome to a new recurring article wherein we will track career moves of the Health Evolution community. For this initial version of the column, we’re looking at who’s been on the move in the last two months and the first couple of weeks of January. If you recently made a move in this space, let us know here. 

 

Payers 

Greogry Deavans officially became the CEO and President of Independence Blue Cross on January 1, taking over for Dan Hilferty. 1/1/21 

Jared Short officially became the CEO of Cambia Health Solutions on January 1, taking over for Mark Ganz. 1/1/21 

Read more: Guiding principles for CEOs and aspiring leaders: An interview with Cambia’s retiring chief Mark Ganz 

Kim Keck officially became the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) on January 4, taking over for Scott Serota. 1/4/21  

Karen Lynch will become the CEO of CVS Health in February replacing the retiring Larry Merlo. Lynch is the president of the Aetna business division. 11/5/20 Speaking of CVS, they announced the company announced Michelle Peluso will join the company as Chief Customer Officer effective January 25. She was previously at IBM. 1/7/21 

Humana CEO Bruce Broussard was elected to as the Chairman of the AHIP Board of Directors. Also elected to the AHIP Board: 

• Deavens, President and CEO, Independence Blue Cross  
• CainHayes, President and CEO, Gateway Health 
• Diane Holder, President and CEO, UPMC Health Plan 
• Sachin Jain, MD, MBA, FACP, President and CEO, SCAN Group and SCAN Health Plan 
• Virgil Miller, President, Aflac Group and Chief Operating Officer, Aflac U.S. 

• Erhardt Preitauer, President and CEO, CareSource 
• Short, Chief Operating Officer and CEO-elect, Cambia Health Solutions  
• Paul Tufano, Chairman and CEO, AmeriHealth Caritas Family of Companies 11/16/20 

Sutter Health and Aetna announced Jeb Dunkelberger as the new Chief Executive Officer of their joint venture, which will aim to expand their footprint of employers across 16 counties in Northern California. 12/2/30

R. Scott Blackley was appointed to serve as Chief Financial Officer of health insurer Oscar. 12/3/20 

Shantanu Agrawal, MD, was named Anthem’s s Chief Health Officer, effective at the end of January. Dr. Agrawal will lead Anthem’s community health strategy and the Anthem Foundation as well. 12/16/20 

Over at Cigna, Eric Palmer became president and chief operating officer of Cigna subsidiary Evernorth. It also named its president of government business, Brian Evanko, executive vice president and CFO. 1/1/21 

Sarita Mohanty, MD, was named the new President and CEO of The SCAN Foundation starting January 2021. 1/1/21 

Highmark Health named Robert James its new Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer. 1/11/21 

Providers 

Cheryl Pegus, MD was appointed Executive Vice President of Health and Wellness, Walmart. She was previously Cambia Health Solution’s president of consumer health solutions and chief medical officer. 11/30/20 

See Dr. Pegus and others in this webcast: Accelerating Future Care Delivery Models 

Wendy Horton, PharmD, was named CEO of UVA Medical Center. Prior, she was was the chief administrative officer for The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center College of Medicine 11/12/20 Also at UVA Health, the health system appointed Jason Lineen as its new Chief Strategy Officer. 1/8/21 

Princeton Community Hospital CEO Jeffrey Lilley left the organization and was replaced by Frank Sinicrope, interim CEO and chief financial officer. 11/17/20 

Frank McGillin and Egbert van Acht were tapped to lead the joint venture between Cleveland Clinic and Amwell to scale up the MyConsult virtual health offering. McGillin was most recently senior vice president and chief commercial officer at NeuroMetrix, while van Acht was CEO of the Personal Health business at Royal Philips. 11/19/20 

Sanford Health’s longtime CEO Kelby Krabbenhoft left the organization after controversially stating he would not wear a mask. 11/30/20 

UnityPoint Health named Clay Holderman as the next President and CEO of the organization, starting mid-February 2021 and Sanjeeb Khatua, MD was named the next President and CEO of UnityPoint Clinic. 12/1/20 

Gaurov Dayal, MD will serve as President and COO of Everside Health, formerly Paladina Health, Activate Healthcare and Healthstat. He previously was with ChenMed. 12/2/20 

Atrium Health named Delvecchio Finley the next President and CEO of Atrium Health Navicent, which is a safety-net health system for central and south Georgia. 12/3/20  

At Hospital Sisters Health System, Mary Starmann-Harrison, president and CEO of HSHS, has shared her plans to retire in the second half of 2021. 12/15/20 

Charleston, South Carolina-based Trident Health President and CEO Todd Gallati announced he is stepping down in mid-2021. 12/22/20 

Michelle Edwards, most recently with CommonSpirit Health, will become Providence’s first-ever chief experience officer. 12/30/20 

George Hager Jr. has retired as CEO of post-acute provider Genesis Healthcare, and Bob Fish, chair of the Genesis board of directors, is his successor. 1/5/21 

Wayne Deschambeau, CEO of Wayne HealthCare, is retiring and Jeff Subler, Vice President of Support Services, will take over. 1/7/21 

 

Life Sciences 

McKesson named Nimesh Jhaveri president of community pharmacy after a stint in the company’s Health Mart division. 10/16/20 

Gossamer Bio, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, acquiring, developing and commercializing therapeutics in the disease areas of immunology, inflammation and oncology, appointed Faheem Hasnain as CEO and President. It’s his second stint helming the company. 11/16/20 

Paul-Peter Tak, MD, was appointed president and Chief Executive Officer of Candel Therapeutics in a planned transition as the company advances its pipeline of oncolytic viral immunotherapies. Tak previously served as CEO of Tempero Pharmaceuticals, which got bought by GlaxoSmithKline 12/8/20 

Eli Lilly Chairman and CEO David Ricks was appointed Chairman on PhRMA’s Board of Directors. Ricks succeeds Giovanni Caforio, MD, chairman of the board and CEO, Bristol Myers Squibb, who completed his term as PhRMA board chair. 12/9/20 

Mike Coyle left Medtronic as its Executive Vice President and President, Diabetes Operating Unit at the end of 2020 to take over at iRhythm Technologies.  12/14/20 

Sage Therapeutics named Barry Greene, the former president of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, to replace Jeff Jonas as CEO. 12/16/20 

Myovant Sciences named David Marek as its new CEO. Marek recently served as general manager of Amgen’s Neuroscience Business Unit. 1/4/21 

Elizabeth Nabel, MD, CEO of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston is leaving to focus on biotech innovation. 1/6/21 

Policy 

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. nominated California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).  

Biden also nominated Rochelle Walensky, MD, Chief of Infectious Diseases at Mass General Hospital (MGH), who lead the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC) 

Also nominated for the Biden team: Vivek Murthy, MD, an advisor to President-elect Biden, who was nominated as Surgeon General, a post he held with the Obama administration; Jeffrey Zients, former director of the National Economic Council, as the COVID-19 coordinator; Natalie Qullian, Deputy Coordinator for the COVID-19 response; and Marcella Nunez-Smith, MD, Founding Director of the Equity Research and Innovation Center (ERIC) at the Yale School of Medicine, who will be heading up a taskforce on reducing health disparities. 

 

Read more:  Biden’s HHS secretary pick Xavier Becerra holds promise to reduce care disparities