“Today is my last day with Medtronic,” Ajizian wrote today. “After almost 10 years serving millions of patients and caregivers globally, I am excited about my next chapter. You’ll hear more about that soon.”
The ACM business at Medtronic includes monitoring technologies, oximetry technologies, respiratory intervention platforms and more. Ajizian served in that unit within the medtech giant for nearly four years.
“To the Acute Care & Monitoring Clinical Research and Medical Science team, thank you for helping me be the best leader I can be for the last nearly 4 years. You pushed me to lead through adversity and change, and I am grateful. You are a talented group that will continue to advance our mission and succeed in finding innovative ways to support our patients and customers for many years to come,” Ajizian wrote. “Thank you all again for an incredible and rewarding journey, an amazing time, and I wish Medtronic, my ACM colleagues, and all of you continued success helping keep patients safe, driving better outcomes, and working toward personalized precision care.”
Ajizian later updated on LinkedIn on Aug. 30 that he took the position of chief medical officer at Inflammatix. The company’s website describes its mission as aiming to “provide best-in-class host response diagnostics to address significant unmet needs in hospital care, starting in the emergency department.”
Another departure at Medtronic
Ajizian joins a number of high-ranking officials who have left Medtronic over the past several months.
The world’s largest medical device company is experiencing major changes, including portfolio management moves such as shuttering Medtronic’s ventilators business, layoffs and last year’s early retirement program, greater expense discipline, and increased use of automation and digitization. At the same time, the company says it has made strategic R&D investments to support future growth.
CFO Karen Parkhill was the most recent departure, announcing that she was leaving in June to take the same post at HP.
Also in June, the company confirmed the coming retirement of EVP and Global Regions President Rob ten Hoedt. Endologix recently tapped two of the company’s former leaders to join its C-suite, filling the CCO and COO roles.
Bonnie Handke — most recently VP of global health economics, policy and reimbursement for Medtronic’s coronary and renal denervation, peripheral vascular health, structural heart, and aortic and cardiac surgery businesses — joined CVRx in May as well Former SVP of corporate development, Christopher Cleary, left in March after 10 years. Gio Di Napoli, president of the company’s gastrointestinal business, also announced his departure in March.
Another Medtronic business unit leader, Ariel Mactavish, president of the company’s Respiratory Interventions unit, also announced that she was leaving the company in March. That move came after Medtronic shared plans to exit the ventilator market in February, also coinciding with the departure of Medtronic EVP and Medical Surgical President Bob White, who received $3 million in severance.
Medtech Pay Analysis: Medtronic CEO pay jumps 30%, employment and median worker pay drop
This article initially ran on Aug. 29. It was updated on Aug. 30 to include Ajizian’s new position.
