Medtronic announced the succession plan for Chairman and CEO Omar Ishrak in August, and Michael Coyle’s interview during the Wells Fargo Healthcare Conference in Boston gave a brief glimpse into what the company expects from its new leader next year.
Mr. Ishrak will transition to executive chairman of the company on April 26, 2020, and Executive Vice President of Restorative Therapies Group Geoff Martha will step into the CEO role. In the interim, Mr. Martha has become president of the company and will join the board of directors on Nov. 1.
Here is what Mr. Coyle said at the Wells Fargo event when asked about potential changes in store for the company, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha:
“Geoff is highly committed to innovation being the first among equals of the strategies, the most important thing that we do and so even doubling down on that both organically and in organically for the therapy innovation, disruption, accretion of new markets, obviously, we're all very committed to the globalization strategies. Maybe we'll see even more emphasis on appropriate R&D and manufacturing localization in certain countries for growth in those countries,” said Mr. Coyle. “And then economic value, I think we may see some modification of emphasis within there to really focus on what we call therapy innovations, the idea of basically providing warrants on outcomes for patients, and time that economically in a risk-sharing way because our customers have really resonated with that. So, and I think the final thing is, that Geoff will really put an emphasis on execution and simplification of the business model for Medtronic, which I think will make us more nimble across everything we do.”