Welcome to this week's Chutes & Ladders, our roundup of hirings, firings and retirings throughout the industry. Please submit the good news—or the bad—from your shop, and we will feature it here at the end of each week.
Kaiser Permanente
Narayanan “Nari” Gopala has been promoted to chief digital officer for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals.
Gopala previously held the position of vice president of capability and platform engineering for the health system. He also previously held IT leadership positions at Amazon Web Service, Sony Online Entertainment and Daybreak Gaming. He has racked up over 25 years leading global digital platforms. At Kaiser, Gopala will spearhead cross-functional teams to transform digital touchpoints for the health system’s 12.6 million members.
Kaiser announced this week that it would be acquiring Geisinger Health with the goal of creating a new multisystem value-based care organization dubbed Risant. If the merger is completed as planned, President and CEO of Geisinger Health Jaewon Ryu, M.D., will transition to CEO of Risant.
Prat Vemana most recently held the position before leaving to take the role of chief digital and product officer at Target. Gopala will report to Chief Information and Technology Officer Diane Comer with joint accountability to Kaiser Chair and CEO Greg Adams.
Allina
Dominica Tallarico has accepted the position of executive vice president and chief operations officer of Allina Health.
Tallarico will be responsible for implementing the health system’s strategic plans into daily operations while seeking to accelerate the integration of innovative care models. For the past 18 years, she has served in various roles within Advocate Health. Most recently, she held the position of executive vice president of the health system’s Illinois market.
Advocate’s Illinois market is comprised of nine hospitals, a children’s hospital, 400 ambulatory sites of care and medical group clinics, 6,300 physicians of which nearly 1,800 are employed and $7 billion in revenues. During her time in the company, she helped grow the company’s acute and ambulatory network, population health capabilities and clinical service lines. Tallarico also established partnerships with One Medical, Surgical Care Affiliates and MD Anderson.
Butterfly Network
Effective immediately, Joseph DeVivo has taken the helm at Butterfly Network as president and chief executive officer. The digital health company developed a hand-held, whole-body ultrasound.
DeVivo spent time at telehealth and virtual healthcare company Teladoc Health where he worked as president of hospitals and health systems. He previously held the position of CEO and director at InTouch Health. While at InTouch, DeVivo grew top-line revenue by a compound annual growth rate of 30% over four years while overseeing the sale of the business to Teladoc Health for $1.1 billion.
DeVivo comes to Butterfly by way of the AI-guided ultrasound platform Caption Health where he worked as executive chairman of the board of directors. He was instrumental in the sale of the company to GE HealthCare.
Butterfly founder and chairman of the company’s board of directors Jonathan Rothberg, Ph.D., held the position of interim CEO for several months after previous CEO Todd Fruchterman, M.D., Ph.D., departed.
Optum
Optum tapped Genevieve Morris as its new vice president of interoperability strategy for medical network group.
Morris previously filled the role of senior director of interoperability strategy at health tech company Change Healthcare. At Optum, she will work to bridge the gap between clinical and administrative interoperability as the buzzword gains a foothold in large-scale organizational planning throughout healthcare.
In the previous few months, Optum has announced several other shifts in its leadership team. In February, the company’s chief information officer Phil McKoy took on the role of new enterprise lead. He will be responsible for both enterprise shared services and enterprise integration services. Caitlin Zulla was also promoted to chief executive officer of Optum Health's east region. Zulla will be responsible for primary, specialty, surgical and home-based care and behavioral health services across the Northeast quadrant of the U.S.
Optum, a UnitedHealth Group subsidiary, quietly acquired Refresh Mental Health in March without a public announcement.
> Duke Regional Hospital's Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Hoy, Chief Nursing Officer Vicky Orto and Chief Operating Officer Mitch Babb have been asked to step down from their roles after an assessment of the hospital's performance over the past year.
> Adventist Health has named Jennifer Stemmler as its new chief information officer.
> Sutter Health has named Dominic Nakis the system's interim chief financial officer as it searches for a permanent CFO over the next 12 to 18 months.
> Corewell Health welcomes Darryl Elmouchi as chief operations officer and Alejandro Quiroga as president of Corewell Health West.
> Artera, a SaaS digital health leader in patient communications, hired Karri Alexion-Tiernan as vice president of product marketing, Joanne Chen as VP of data and Mark Thomson as VP of customer success.
> Gameto, a female reproductive biotech company, appointed Teri Loxam as its first chief financial officer.
> Reperio Health, a provider of instant at-home health screenings, announced Naomi Levinthal as chief growth officer.
> Northwestern Medicine named Craig Johnson as chief operating officer.
> Quantum-Si unveiled Katherine Atkinson as senior vice president of demand generation and corporate brand as well as Alex Hutcheson as SVP of sales and service, Christine Nishiyama as vice president of supply chain and reagent manufacturing and John Vieceli as VP of algorithms and data science.
> Allogene tapped Timothy Moore as chief technical officer.
> Crouse Health named David Landsberg, M.D., as chief medical officer.
> Wilson Sonsini added Andrea Linna to the firm’s regulatory department as a partner in the digital health industry group and FDA regulatory, healthcare and consumer products practice.
> Huntington Medical Research Institutes added two new members to its board of directors: Edward Mena, M.D., and Rick Wentzel.
> Vektor Medical picked Marlou Janssen and Craig McPherson, M.D., to join Vektor’s advisory board.
> Papa welcomed Stephanie Tilenius as an independent board member.