Witt/Kieffer Appoints IT Practice Co-Leaders
September 26, 2016 – Executive search firm Witt/Kieffer has named principals Hillary Ross and Chris Wierz as co-leaders of its information technology practice. Ms. Ross, based in Oak Brook, IL, is an experienced healthcare information technology executive search consultant. She specializes in the recruitment of senior level physicians and other clinicians, and conducts searches for chief medical information officers and chief health informatics officers.
Additionally, she recruits very specialized positions including: director; biomedical and bioinformatics; chief research informatics officer; chief data analytics officer; personalized medicine and VP; quality and innovation. She focuses on identifying information technology leadership for hospitals, health care delivery systems, academic medical centers, vendors and consulting firms across the country. She is based in the firm’s Oak Brook, IL office.
Ms. Wierz, also based in Oak Brook, IL, brings over 30 years of healthcare experience to her executive search practice, including 20 years in healthcare information technology. She will lead the teams that focus on the CIO/CTO/CISO/CNIO, analytics and other senior IT leadership searches for both healthcare and higher education.
Ms. Wierz has particular expertise in strategic and business planning, developing executive and physician relationships, project management and contract negotiations. Throughout her career she has recruited a wide variety of healthcare executives, senior leaders and directors for various roles and understands the ever changing and unique healthcare IT industry landscape across the country and the diverse skills necessary to be successful. In addition to strong executive and physician relationships, she is an expert in interpreting federal regulations, including ARRA Meaningful Use assessments, HIPAA interpretations and evaluations, and ICD-10 classification assessments and implementation.
An Evolving and Expanding Sector
“The field of information technology continues to expand and evolve rapidly, and we are fortunate to have Chris and Hillary, both well-established leaders within the industry, co-lead our IT practice,” said Andrew Chastain, managing partner and chairman of Witt/Kieffer’s healthcare practice. “In the coming year, Chris and Hillary will concentrate on continuing to build the practice while overseeing quality and client satisfaction. Their contributions will complement Witt/Kieffer’s existing services and our ability to identify top leaders.”
Witt/Kieffer’s information technology practice assesses and recruits prominent IT leaders to roles including chief information officer and chief medical informatics officer. Its consultants are qualified with knowledge concerning challenges within health IT and informatics, higher education, and broader technology arena.
According to survey results from Robert Half’s ‘IT Hiring Forecast Trend Report,’ recruiting in the sector remains a challenge: 59 percent of CIOs said it is ‘somewhat’ or ‘very challenging’ to find skilled IT professionals. Sixty-nine percent of respondents said they are taking action to address recruiting challenges for IT staff. Some steps they are taking include increasing networking activities (48 percent); using recruiters or staffing firms (37 percent); offering referral bonuses (36 percent); and hiring consultants to augment current staff (36 percent).
Contributed by Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor, Hunt Scanlon Media
