More executive shakeup at Cerner: Two top leaders leaving Kansas City-based company
Two top executives will leave Cerner Corp. in the latest leadership shakeup for the healthcare IT giant.
CEO Brent Shafer Friday morning announced the departure of John Peterzalek, chief client and services officer, and Randy Sims, chief legal officer.
Both positions will be filled through internal promotions.
Peterzalek will be replaced by Travis Dalton, who currently leads the Cerner government services division. And Sims will be replaced by Dan Devers, currently the company’s senior vice president of cloud strategies.
Peterzalek, who has been with Cerner since 2003, has held a variety of leadership positions. Sims has led the legal department since 1997.
“I thank both John and Randy for their many years of service with Cerner,” Shafer said in a note to employees Friday morning. “I’ve appreciated their counsel and leadership and wish them the very best in their next chapters.”
Since coming on board in 2018, Shafer has reshaped much of the executive ranks of Kansas City’s largest private employer.
Shafer is the first outsider to lead the firm, since co-founders Neal Patterson, Paul Gorup and Cliff Illig created the company in 1979. Patterson served as chief executive until his death in July 2017.
In October, Cerner announced that Marc Naughton, executive vice president and chief financial officer, would leave after nearly 30 years at the company.
In November 2019, the company announced that Chief Operating Officer Mike Nill, another company veteran, would retire by the end of the year. Around the same time, the company announced the departures of Chief Strategy Officer Joanne Burns and Jeff Townsend, executive vice president and chief of innovation.
Both men promoted Friday have extensive history with the company.
Dalton, who has been with Cerner since 2001, has worked with several large clients of Cerner, including hospital systems Tenet Healthcare and HCA Healthcare. He’s also led the work on Cerner’s $10 billion contract with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Devers has worked as corporate counsel for Cerner since 2002. He established the company’s patent program, oversaw litigation, employment and intellectual property matters and led negotiations with Amazon, which the company began partnering with last year.
Cerner initially pioneered the work of digitizing the nation’s paper healthcare records. But that domestic market has largely completed the move away from paper records and Cerner and its competitors have saturated the market.
That’s pushed Cerner to look for ways to diversify its business model
In his note to employees, Shafer said clients are pleased with Cerner’s progress in transforming the business. But he said employees needed to work together “with a greater sense of urgency.”
“We know clients want us to more quickly bring technology to market,” he said. “I know that Travis, Dan and all of our senior leaders believe we are well-positioned to move more rapidly in delivering innovations for our clients.”
This story was originally published January 15, 2021 at 8:30 AM.
