Gatti & Associates Launches Healthcare Practice

November 14, 2016 – Executive search firm Gatti & Associates, a GattiHR company, has launched a new healthcare recruiting practice. Senior vice president Richard Fleming has been appointed practice leader. Mr. Fleming brings 25 years of HR search and leadership experience to the role. In addition to leading the firm’s healthcare practice, he will continue servicing clients within life sciences, consumer products and technology based organizations.

Prior to joining Gatti, Mr. Fleming worked for three years in executive search with Kenzer Corporation, a New York-based recruitment provider servicing the retail and financial services industries. As vice president of its Boston office he directed search activities for companies with locations across the country.

His industry experience includes roles as vice president of human resources for FTM Corporation — an operating division of Fidelity Investments, and vice president of store personnel for Zayre Corporation. He participated in the design and implementation of an integrated competency-based HR system, developed quality improvement/employee involvement programs, designed line management assessment systems and countered union organizing campaigns.

“Richard has focused on this sector for over 10 years. He has deep understanding and knowledge of what today and ‪tomorrow’s HR leaders look like in healthcare,” said Alice Koehn Benson, president and chief executive officer of Gatti & Associates.

“Explosive change in the healthcare industry is driving the need for an overhaul in thinking about talent, the HR operating model and the expectations of an HR leader. We needed a dedicated search professional to lead our efforts in this fast-changing sector,” said Ms. Benson. “The pressure on the industry to dramatically re-think how it delivers care and operates makes the HR leadership team critical to achieving these goals. We are uniquely positioned to help CEOs and CHROs find the right talent,” Ms. Benson added.

GattiHR is a human capital services firm providing clients with executive search, workforce analytics and HR technology solutions. It has offices in Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia. Gatti & Associates’ search practice focuses exclusively on finding human resource executives. It has completed numerous searches for several of the top medical schools, top 25 academic medical systems and a variety of systems and their flagship teaching hospitals.

High Growth Sector for Recruiters

Healthcare is among the most rapidly growing employment fields, according to analysts at Hunt Scanlon Media, which tracks trends in the executive search and leadership solutions space.

According to the most recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report, healthcare employment continued to trend up during the month (+31,000). Within the industry, employment growth occurred in ambulatory healthcare services (+19,000) and hospitals (+13,000). Over the past 12 months, healthcare has added 415,000 jobs.

“Pharmaceutical, biopharma, diagnostic, medical device, and other life sciences-oriented organizations are undergoing massive transformation among deepening market uncertainty,” said Scott A. Scanlon, founding chairman and CEO of Hunt Scanlon. “As healthcare technologies expand, the industry evolves with them — and so, too, does the need for proven leaders who can maneuver and manage through incredible change. Companies in this sector now more than ever require top leadership that can take these companies into the future. It is one of the most demanding, lucrative and fastest growing sectors in the recruiting business today,” he said.

Search Firms Stepping Up

A handful of executive search firms have been creating new practices to address client’s expanding talent needs within the healthcare sector. Here’s a look at a few taken from the Hunt Scanlon archives.

Horton International – North America, a principal partner of Horton International, named James D. Utterback as managing director in the firm’s healthcare and life sciences practice. He focuses within the healthcare information technology and services sectors. Throughout his 30-year career in operating CEO roles, human capital and executive search, Mr. Utterback has accumulated leadership experience in multiple sectors, including diagnostic imaging, healthcare technology, pharmaceuticals, contract research organizations, hospitals, medical devices and wearables as well as private equity consulting.

Futurestep launched a dedicated healthcare technology & services practice. It will bring broad capabilities and expertise across the entire health tech market, serving payors, providers and healthcare technology companies. Jessica Johnson was been named the sector’s leader.

Diversified Search appointed Martha Hauser as leader of its healthcare practice. Ms. Hauser is a well-known thought leader with more than two decades of experience recruiting leaders in healthcare and higher education across the country. Her clients include some of the country’s most prestigious hospitals, healthcare systems, academic medical centers, and service providers in the field, a list that includes Beaumont Health, Emory Healthcare, and the East Carolina School of Medicine, among others. Diversified Search also acquired San Francisco-based BioQuest, a recruiting boutique specialist serving healthcare innovators in the life sciences market. Under terms of its acquisition agreement, BioQuest will operate as an independent, wholly-owned subsidiary within Diversified Search.

Quick Leonard Kieffer named Scott Sammon as partner in Chicago. Mr. Sammon works with clients to manage C-level search assignments in the healthcare provider and not-for-profit sectors and has served as a consultant to both association and hospital boards and has acted as a facilitator to companies for board retreats. He has worked with a variety of clients over the past 15 years, including critical access hospitals, some of the largest public health systems in the country, academic medical centers, and community hospitals – healthcare providers of nearly every size and governance structure.

Witt/Kieffer expanded its academic medicine and health sciences practice with the additions of Joyce De Leo, Ph.D. and Bruce Schroffel. Dr. De Leo has more than 25 years of experience in research, academic program building, strategic planning, mentoring and teaching mentoring and teaching. She recruits senior executives, clinician leaders, and senior scientists on behalf of leading academic medical centers, hospitals and health systems, research institutes, faculty group practices, health sciences universities, colleges and universities, public health organizations and not-for-profit institutions. Mr. Schroffel has more than 30 years of experience leading and managing large, complex healthcare organizations.