The aftershock of C-Suite shifts

Changes in C-Suite usually represent dynamic changes in the executive leadership in a company.

The change at Zimmer Biomet / 3M highlighted some of the major recent C-suite changes in large-cap medtech companies. The past 12 months have had some iconic medical device leaders move on to the next stage of calling in their lives.

Great leaders who for now retired from the everyday operation of their companies, like Michael Minogue from Abiomed, Mike Mussallem from Edwards Lifesciences, and Gary Guthart, while still CEO, handing off the President role at Intuitive may introduce changes from the managers level up through the executive teams of these organizations.

Lineup changes in the form of reimagined teams, canceled programs, budgets expanded or reduced, business units sold off, and new business opportunities launched. On average, new CEOs make their people decisions in the first 60 days.

A Harvard Business School study showed that when the CEO remained constant, senior-level management turnover was 16% annually, 8.5% was voluntary, and 7.5% was involuntary.

In the case when there is a CEO change, and it is an internal executive who moved to the top slot, the organization had involuntary senior leadership turnover jumps to 12.5% from 7.5%, an increase of about 65%.

In the case of Abiomed, Edwards Lifesciences, and Intuitive, the new leaders were internal promotions with Andrew Greenfield, who is 18 years at Abiomed, Bernard Zovighian, who has 9 years at Edwards, Dave Rosa has 27 years at Intuitive, and the new CEO of Zimmer, Ivan Tornos with nearly 5 years at the company.

Greater disruptive transitions occur when a new leader comes from the outside, which generally happens in only mid-performing and low-performing firms, as high-performing firms rarely replace their CEOs with outsiders; involuntary turnover averaged 26%, almost four times the rate when the CEO did not change.

Keeping an eye on the ever-changing landscape of building companies and careers.