With its chief operating officer out the door and its chief financial officer expected to step down by the end of the year, Hartford Hospital has now also hired a major executive search firm to comb the country for a lieutenant and eventual replacement for its top dog, CEO John J. Meehan.
Despite the unprecedented sweep of its executive suite, all following a restructuring that vests more power in the institution’s board of directors, Hartford Hospital insists that the power vacuum is only a coincidence.
That’s a contention, though, that some management experts say seems disingenuous.
Central Connecticut’s largest hospital announced in late May the departure of COO Kevin Hannifan, 55, and the “transition” of CFO John Biancamano, 61, to a lower profile position within the hospital. Hannifan has since left, and has been replaced on an interim basis by Jeffrey Flaks, COO of the MidState Medical Center in Meriden, an affiliate of the hospital. Hannifan had no other post lined up before he bolted.
It’s very unusual to find a hot shot hospital executive who leaves his job without having another one waiting, said Gary Stein, a Louisville, Tenn.-based consultant who provides interim CEO services to hospitals.
“My assumption would be that, without another job, there’s more to the situation,” Stein said.
On The Lookout
New York-based Witt/Kiefer will conduct the search, working with a committee comprised of hospital board members. That search committee will be chaired by Ramani Ayer, CEO of The Hartford, and includes Martin Wolman, a partner in the law firm Day Pitney’s Hartford office.
Although he was not made available for an interview, Meehan said in a letter to employees that the hospital will look “for a new COO who will become the CEO in a timeframe determined by the board.”
Meehan, 62, has been the top executive at Hartford Hospital for 19 years. The facility is modestly profitable, a situation that has been stable for several years.
The executive office shuffle follows a year of changes in the governance structure of Hartford Hospital, including the renaming of the executive board as the board of directors, the establishment of several new committees of directors, and creation of an additional executive-level position – vice president of quality and safety.
Those changes, said Monroe, were not prompted by any one reason. “Taking a look back at it, we have been doing things in an unchanged way for a couple of decades… it was time to do a little housekeeping and structural changes.”
But the departures of Hannifan and the “transition” of Biancamano were not part of those plans, Monroe said.
And the decision to look for an eventual replacement for Meehan was only made after Hannifan resigned, she said.
In the statement announcing his departure, Meehan and the board praised Hannifan as an executive of considerable talent who was leaving “to pursue a career where he might more rapidly progress to the leadership position he deserves.”
However, the board did not view Hannifan as a possible replacement for Meehan, Monroe said.
Hannifan, whose last day was June 30, has not found a new position. A phone message seeking comment was left at Hannifan’s Avon home, but went unreturned, as did calls to numerous members of the hospital’s board. Those board members who were reached by phone declined to comment.
