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.
Thyme Care
Medical oncologist Samyukta (Sam) Mullangi, M.D., has joined Thyme Care as medical oncology director. She recently completed her hematology-oncology fellowship from one of the nation’s leading cancer treatment centers, Memorial Sloan Kettering. Mullangi will also be joining the clinical staff at Tennessee Oncology. As Thyme Care’s medical oncology director, Mullangi will be focused on nurturing and expanding relationships with oncologists, helping build out and oversee oncology-specific interventions for members and work closely with the executive team to expand the company’s oncology and payer partnerships.
She previously held teaching positions at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and advisory positions with Aledade, Wellframe and the Partners Healthcare Center for Connected Health.
Wheel
Virtual care platform Wheel hired Kristina Omari as the company's new chief financial officer. Omari has spent her career at innovative enterprise and consumer companies, including Adobe, Lyft, Everly Health and Fitbit. Most recently, she served as the executive vice president of finance at Everly Health, where she managed financial planning and analysis and corporate development.
Omari brings to Wheel three decades of finance experience—including deep industry knowledge across healthcare, tech and marketplace platforms. She will play a key leadership role as Wheel expands its virtual care offerings, the company said.
Verily
Alphabet precision health technology company Verily hired health AI and digital health leader Andrew Trister, M.D., Ph.D., as chief scientific officer. Trister will be responsible for leading the company’s population health initiatives and will provide expertise across Verily’s portfolio as the company furthers its precision health strategy.
Trister comes to Verily with two decades of experience leveraging new technologies to translate research into product, drive population health initiatives and increase access to care. He previously served as deputy director of digital health and artificial intelligence at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
He also was a founding member of Apple’s Health team, where he led clinical research and machine learning with Apple partners. He was responsible for developing and executing studies to discover novel biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease and leading population health management programs. Prior to Apple, he was a senior physician at Sage Bionetworks, where he designed and shipped ResearchKit, an open-source tool for large-scale clinical trials and developed infrastructure to share and collaborate on medical imaging.
Cone Health
Cone Health named Elsie Graves, R.N., as chief nursing officer for the Greensboro market of Cone Health. Graves will oversee nursing operations at Cone Health Behavioral Health Hospital, The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital and Wesley Long Hospital. In this position, she is responsible for continuously elevating the standard of care at Cone Health. She also sets the standard for nursing in the market and works with nursing leadership in making Cone Health a top choice for exceptional nurses.
Graves joins Cone Health from AdventHealth Sebring, in the West Florida region, where she served as vice president and chief nursing officer for the last four and a half years. Prior to that, she was the chief nursing officer at Central Texas Medical Center and CHRISTUS Health-Westover Hills in Texas.
Graves holds a master’s degree in health services administration from Saint Joseph’s College and a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Chamberlain College of Nursing. She is a board-certified Nurse Executive, Advanced level (NEA-BC).
> Clinical management platform Rimidi tapped Mark Cohen, M.D., Ph.D. as chief medical adviser. Cohen has spent over three decades in healthcare both as a practicing cardiac electrophysiologist and health system leader, having served as chief of quality, informatics-IT research for the Piedmont Heart Institute and as the chief medical officer for Piedmont Atlanta Hospital.
> Bill Kong is joining healthcare jobs marketplace Vivian Health as its chief marketing officer. He will oversee Vivian’s brand marketing vision, strategy and execution, including ways to leverage AI to better engage and connect with both clinicians and healthcare employers.
> SAGE, the world’s largest and oldest organization dedicated to improving the lives of LGBTQ+ elders, announced Staci Alexander. David de Figueiredo and Loren Ostrow joined its board of directors.
> Medical practice technology leader ModMed appointed Denise Ceule as its chief legal officer. Ceule brings extensive expertise in securities law, corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, capital raising, compliance and administration to her new role at ModMed.
> David Bertoch, one of children’s healthcare’s leading data program experts, is joining Configo Health as executive vice president of pediatric analytics and research programs. Bertoch will be instrumental in driving Configo Health’s strategic growth initiatives and further enhancing its innovative analytics suite, Opus, the company said.
> Heidi Schwarzwald, M.D., was tapped to serve as chief medical officer of the home and community services business at Signify Health. Schwarzwald previously served at Aetna as VP and CMO of provider network and deputy CMO for Aetna Better Health.
> Christine Hsu Evans has been promoted to president of Headspace. She previously served as chief marketing and strategy officer. Karan Singh, Ginger co-founder, was promoted to chief people officer at Headspace, which was formed from the merger of Headspace and Ginger. Following the merger, Singh served as the chief operating officer of Headspace and now serves a dual role as chief people officer at the company.
> Financial services firm Baird appointed Ro Bhandari and Benjamin Port to its Global Healthcare Investment Banking team as managing directors covering medical technology and provider services, respectively. Ro joins Baird from William Blair, where he was partner and a managing director and co-head of MedTech Investment Banking. Benjamin joins Baird from Moelis where he was managing director and head of healthcare services M&A.
> The American Association of Post-Acute Care Nursing (AAPACN) promoted Amy Stewart, R.N., to chief nursing officer. In her new role, Stewart will be responsible for advancing the profession of skilled nursing and expanding AAPACN’s expertise across post-acute care.
> Virtual care, navigation and collaboration platform Pager tapped Steven Shi as its new chief technology officer. Shi will develop and implement Pager's technology strategy and capabilities, including product engineering, platform engineering, architecture, security and corporate IT.
> Carenet Health, a provider of 24/7 and on-demand patient engagement solutions, brought on Patches Seely as executive vice president of clinical solutions. Seely has more than 20 years of experience in healthcare as a registered nurse and healthcare executive, ranging from inpatient care delivery to virtual nursing services within a multistate, integrated delivery organization.
> Perosphere Technologies, a private medical technologies company focused on developing next-generation coagulation diagnostics, appointed Michelle Brennan to its board of directors. Brennan has three decades of leadership in healthcare, including expertise in regulatory affairs, clinical trials, market access and global commercialization directly related to medical devices.