CEO Mark Briggs of fast-growing health care IT provider Ability Network since 2010 will resign at the end of August, to be succeeded by his board chairman, who has large-company health care executive experience.
Ability Network said in a prepared statement that Briggs, a physicist who graduated from Dartmouth College in 1993, is retiring to spend more time with his family.
The new chief executive will be Mark Pulido, chairman of the Ability Network board of directors that he joined in 2012. In the 1990s, he was CEO of huge McKesson Corp. and CEO of the former Sandoz, now Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp.
The company said neither Pulido, who is in his early 60s, nor Briggs, who is younger, were available for interviews on Thursday.
Pulido has been a California-based private equity investor, board member of several companies and vineyard owner for the last decade, according to his LinkedIn page. He said in a statement he is "thrilled to become the next CEO of Ability. We have an innovative platform, a tremendous leadership team that has delivered strong year-over-year growth, and an exciting future."
Briggs will remain a director of Ability Network. "I can think of no better leader for this next phase of Ability's journey and am so pleased with how this transition has gracefully occurred," he said in a statement.
Ability Network, based in the Warehouse District of Minneapolis, has doubled its employment to 450 since last year and has said it operates the largest Web-based payment-and-information exchange in the country.
The company links 120,000-plus hospitals and clinic clients with payers such as insurers and Medicare through a broad suite of electronic workflow and transactional services designed to eliminate paperwork and improve efficiency as health care rapidly adopts electronic systems.
Ability Network in 2014 was acquired by Summit Partners, the Boston-based private equity investor, for $550 million in cash and debt, in one of Summit's largest deals ever.
Ability, which declines to disclose its revenue, has added offices in recent years in Boston, Florida and New Jersey.
At the time of the buyout in April 2014, Briggs said: "This confirms the course we've been on for the past few years and validates the contribution to innovation and service Ability has brought to the health care industry. Providers need the very best clinical and administrative technology supporting their work in changing health care in this country for the better. We intend to continue as leaders in that transformation."
Neal St. Anthony • 612-673-7144
