Carl Byers, the CFO who helped take Athenahealth Inc. from its early start-up days through an initial public offering and finally to profitability, will step down in early 2010.
Byers, 37, said he’s leaving the Watertown-based electronic healthcare records company to “pursue a family goal to live abroad.” He will also relinquish his role as company treasurer. Officials at Athenahealth said he will work with the company’s search committee to appoint his successor.
Athenahealth also said it would consolidate all accounting, planning and other financial activities under vice president of finance Dawn Griffiths, who will assume the mantle of chief accounting officer and treasurer.
Byers joined Athenahealth in 1997, after leaving his post as a management consultant with strategic consulting giant Booz Allen & Hamilton. He is a Wesleyan alum, along with company co-founder and chief executive Jonathan Bush, who said he’d known Byers for many years prior to the founding of Athenahealth and that the company would miss his “intellect, humor and wisdom.”
Byers’ departure comes at an interesting time for Athenahealth, which has grown by leaps and bounds to become one of the more profitable healthcare information technology providers in the state.
The company posted $42 million in sales during the first quarter of 2009, nearly doubling its take from the same period last year.
And with its perch as a leading provider of Internet-based electronic healthcare records, the company stands to make great gains from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which is slated to pump nearly $20 billion into electronic healthcare records.
Athenahealth employs 824 people, more than 780 at its Watertown facility. a facility . The company also has operations in Belfast, Maine, and India, according to a regulatory filing.
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