With barely a month left in the year, Medtronic is shuffling up its executive team. The medtech giant announced four new hires—which will become effective between this week and the early days of 2022—in support of the company’s plans to build out its technology offerings and digital strategy.
The quartet includes two global executives of strategy and digital innovation and two leaders of individual units within Medtronic’s neuroscience business.
“We’re making bold moves to lead in healthcare technology and be a destination for world-class talent,” CEO Geoff Martha said in a statement. “These executive appointments bring outside-in thinking, new skills and capabilities, and diverse perspectives to our already talented leadership team—and will continue to power Medtronic’s transformation.”
First up in the latter category is Mira Sahney, who will become president of the pelvic health operating unit Dec. 6. In that role, she’ll oversee the development of new tech and help improve access to Medtronic’s existing devices in the category, which include sacral and percutaneous tibial neuromodulation devices to treat pelvic floor disorders like urinary and bowel incontinence.
Sahney joins Medtronic from synthetic cartilage maker Hyalex Orthopaedics, where she’s been president and CEO since 2017. Prior to that, she held a handful of leadership roles within Smith & Nephew’s gynecology business—during which she oversaw the sale of that business to her new employer in 2016—and co-founded medical robotics startup Myomo.
Sahney will be followed soon after by another Smith & Nephew alum, Harry “Skip” Kiil, whose appointment as president of Medtronic’s cranial and spinal technologies operating unit becomes effective Jan. 4. At that time, he’ll begin spearheading the expansion of the segment, which has already seen steady growth through a series of acquisitions including Medtronic’s purchase of spinal surgery company Medicrea a year ago.
Before making the jump to Medtronic, Kiil spent three years at Smith & Nephew as global president of orthopedics. That was preceded by a variety of vice president positions at NuVasive and Alcon—prior to its spinoff from Novartis—and more than a decade at Stryker, where Kiil worked his way up from working in a regional sales department to being named vice president and general manager of Stryker Europe.
In addition to expanding its neurotech leadership, Medtronic is also adding to its global strategy team. As of Monday, Bob Hopkins is the company’s new head of global strategy, putting him in charge of business development, capital deployment and communications with investors.
Hopkins was tapped by Medtronic after about 13 years as managing director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and more than two decades in total as an analyst for the medtech sector. He’s consistently ranked among the top three medtech analysts in Institutional Investor’s annual survey for the past 17 years and scored the top spot in the three most recent rankings.
Also starting at Medtronic this week is Mei Jiang, the company’s new head of global digital innovation. In her new job, Jiang will find ways to use data and artificial intelligence to boost Medtronic’s internal operations across all segments.
She brings with her plenty of experience in digital growth, including, most recently, a one-year stint as global head of innovation, product and solutions commercialization at data management services provider Iron Mountain. Before that, she spent nearly a decade at HP, culminating in a six-year post as head of digital innovation and business transformation.