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Healthcare Moves: A Monthly Summary of Hires, Exits and Layoffs

November has seen a slew of executive hires, promotions and layoffs across the healthcare industry. For instance, the Joint Commission, Silicon Valley Bank and Regard named new executives. There were also layoffs at organizations including Oak Street Health, Providence and Optum.

By Katie Adams on November 26, 2025 9:36 am
healthcare moves

This roundup is published monthly. It is meant to highlight some of healthcare’s recent hiring news and is not intended to be comprehensive. If you have news about an executive appointment, resignation or layoff that you would like to share for this roundup, please reach out to [email protected].

Hires

The Joint Commission, an independent nonprofit that accredits and certifies healthcare organizations, hired Arjun Srinivasan as its deputy chief medical officer. Srinivasan spent the last 22 years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he most recently served as deputy director of the division of healthcare quality promotion.

LB Pharmaceuticals — a clinical-stage company developing therapies for schizophrenia and bipolar depression — appointed Kaya Pai Panandiker as its chief commercial officer. She joins the company from Neumora Therapeutics, where she also served as chief commercial officer. Earlier in her career, Panandiker led commercial strategy at Cerevel Therapeutics and worked as general manager of neuroscience at Lundbeck U.S.

Healthcare engagement platform mPulse has named Eileen Cianciolo as its new chief product officer. She previously served as chief product and innovation officer at Clarity Software Solutions, a healthcare communications company that mPulse acquired in August.

Population health company Navvis hired Jeff Gleason as its chief medical officer. In the past, he has held executive roles at Guidehouse, Lumeris and Vanderbilt Health Affiliated Network.

Oregon Health & Science University appointed Tarek Salaway as its next CEO, effective December 15. He currently serves as a senior vice president at Kaiser Permanente, where he oversees regional strategy and operations for its health plans.

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Ratio Therapeutics, which is developing radiotherapeutics to treat cancer, named Marcel Reichen as its chief strategy officer. He joins the company from Novartis, where he spent the last five years, serving most recently as a leader in business development and strategy for new cancer therapies.

Regard, a startup providing AI tools to help providers spot diagnoses and simplify clinical documentation, hired David Kirk as its new chief medical officer. He comes to the company from North Carolina-based WakeMed, where he most recently served as a physician and chief clinical integration officer.

Promotions

Matthew Zuino will take over as CEO of Jacksonville, Florida-based Baptist Health on January 17. He joined Baptist in 2017 as president of the health system’s physician enterprise, and he has been serving in the COO role since 2020. Before that, Zuino worked for 16 years at New Jersey-based Virtua Health. He will replace current Baptist CEO Michael Mayo, who has worked at the health system for nearly 15 years.

The Cigna Group named Amy Flaster as its new chief medical officer. She came to the organization last year, serving as chief medical officer of Cigna Healthcare, the company’s insurance unit. Before that, she spent about a decade as an internal medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Optum Health, UnitedHealth Group’s care delivery business, promoted Krista Nelson to the role of CEO. She joined Optum Heath this year as COO — but she has a long history with UnitedHealth Group. She worked for the company in various leadership roles from 2009 to 2014, and then again from 2017 until now.

Silicon Valley Bank appointed Megan Scheffel as its new head of life science and healthcare banking. She joined the bank in 1997 as an associate and has worked there ever since.

Cristy Page officially became the new CEO of UNC Health after serving as interim CEO since July. She began working at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2016, serving first as chair of the department of family medicine.

Layoffs

Oak Street Health said it plans to cut 219 jobs early next year. The layoffs will come as a result of a restructuring by CVS Health, Oak Street’s parent company.

Optum is shutting down nearly 90 of its clinics in New Jersey, which will lead to 572 people being laid off. Most of these job cuts are expected to take place during the course of February and March.

PacificSource is eliminating 300 positions, which is about a sixth of its workforce. The health plan said the layoffs are happening because it’s facing steep financial pressures, including a sharp drop in Medicaid membership.

Providence is cutting 446 roles — 296 in Washington and 150 in Oregon. The health system cited financial pressures as the reason for the layoffs.

Pennsylvania-based Tower Health is laying off 350 employees due to ongoing financial pressures. The job cuts will primarily affect administrative staff, non-clinical support roles and some frontline healthcare workers.