Top 10 executives to watch in 2025

Ambitious growth strategies bumped into cold realities in 2024 for some organizations, prompting retrenchments, while others found success. This year, the industry will have to contend with a new administration in Washington, D.C., and what that could bring. Here are 10 executives to keep an eye on as the year gets underway.

Graham Barnes, Medically Home

Graham Barnes stepped into the CEO role at Medically Home in mid-2024, a pivotal time for the technology company that partners with health systems on hospital-at-home programs. Some systems have paused programs or put aside planned expansions due to uncertainty over Medicare reimbursement for home-based hospital care. In November, Medically Home offered providers an incentive, announcing a partnership with SCP Health to staff a command center for health system partners that don’t want to man their own hubs. Barnes came to Medically home with decades of experience in healthcare technology, supply chain management and staffing. His challenge is to leverage that experience to expand the company beyond the 20 partnerships Medically Home has with healthcare systems.

Dr. Sreekanth Chaguturu, CVS Health

CVS Health named Dr. Sreekanth Chaguturu head of its healthcare delivery arm in November, giving him responsibility over Medicare-focused primary care chain Oak Street Health, in-home technology firm Signify Health and MinuteClinic retail locations. Chaguturu's appointment came as the board of directors ousted several top executives after the company struggled to shrink medical costs and boost pharmacy sales. Chaguturu must evaluate how healthcare delivery fits into CVS’ broader strategy amid pressure from activist investor Glenview Capital Management to increase earnings. He also is charged with navigating how Oak Street responds to the final year of Medicare Advantage payment reform as it expands its footprint.

Heather Cianfrocco, Optum

Heather Cianfrocco was appointed CEO of Optum, one of the nation's largest employers of physicians, in April. She will lead the unit's growth while Andrew Witty, CEO of parent company UnitedHealth Group, oversees the broader company and handles the fallout from UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s death. In its third quarter, Optum generated almost $64 billion in revenue, an increase of almost 13% from the year-ago period. However, its third-quarter results were affected by business disruptions at Change Healthcare, which costed it about $135 million during the quarter. It remains to be seen how Optum recovers from the Change cyberattack, whether OptumRx makes any changes in light of the growing scrutiny of PBMs among lawmakers and regulators and if it will close on the pending $3.3 billion Amedisys deal.

Andrew Dudum, Hims & Hers

Andrew Dudum, CEO of Hims & Hers, has led the direct-to-consumer telehealth company as its entered into the competitive world of weight loss medications. In May, the company rolled out compounded shots of weight loss glucagon-like peptide agonist medications. The compounded shots, essentially copies of popular weight loss medications made by manufacturers such as Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, are controversial and not all telehealth companies are on board with them. Dudum is banking on the cheaper medications to increase subscriptions for Hims & Hers and predicts shortages of the brand-name medications won’t be going away any time soon. For its part, the company has said its subscriber growth has come from segments outside of weight loss.

Mary Langowski, Walgreens

Mary Langowski, president of Walgreens' U.S. healthcare business, is navigating her team through a challenging time at the retail pharmacy chain, as the company slashes costs and tries to recenter on its core pharmacy business. Walgreens is taking a step back from its investment in primary and multispecialty care provider VillageMD — once a cornerstone in its U.S. healthcare business — after the company’s aggressive expansion plans fell apart in 2024. The healthcare business exceeded $14 billion in operating losses in fiscal 2024. Langowski is tasked with turning the division into a profitable one, while also repositioning its role within the company’s strategy. More changes may be coming, as Walgreens is reportedly considering selling itself to private equity firm Sycamore Partners.

Eric Palmer, Evernorth Health Services

As Cigna pulls out of Medicare Advantage, Evernorth Health Services President and CEO Eric Palmer is steering the company's heightened investment in its care delivery and pharmacy services division. Palmer led Evernorth through major announcements in 2024, including its decisions to launch biosimilars for high-cost medications Humira and Stelara, to provide financial guarantees for employers and health plans covering GLP-1s, and to expand mental health services by forming Evernorth Behavioral Care Group. The unit is continuing to find ways to capitalize on the growing specialty pharmacy market this year while fighting regulatory and legal scrutiny of its pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts. Evernorth drove more than 80% of Cigna’s $181.5 billion in revenue generated through the first nine months of 2024.

Dr. Shiv Rao, Abridge

Dr. Shiv Rao has led ambient documentation company Abridge into a competition with Microsoft-owned Nuance and a slew of other startups. Companies in the sector are attempting to take recordings of a doctor-patient conversation and turn them into usable clinical notes in the electronic health record. As they try to combat clinician burnout, many providers are putting vendors up against each other in head-to-head competitions. A partnership with EHR company Epic in 2023 helped fast track Abridge’s growth. The company has quadrupled its headcount in a year and raised $150 million in a Series C funding round. Abridge notched deals in 2024 with a series of health systems including Baltimore, Maryland-based Johns Hopkins and Oakland, California-based Kaiser Permanente.

Dr. Jaewon Ryu, Risant Health

Dr. Jaewon Ryu, CEO of Risant Health, helms the Kaiser Permanente-backed nonprofit. Risant was formed in April after Kaiser acquired Geisinger Health and Cone Health was added in December. Risant aims to acquire a handful of integrated health systems in its effort to create a national value-based care network. Ryu is tasked with vetting potential acquisition targets, standardizing clinical practices across the national network and improving health systems' financial performance. Risant pledged a minimum of $1 billion to support Cone's infrastructure and capital projects and a $215 million investment in Geisinger’s care delivery programs, health plan services, research and education.

Donald Trump, president-elect of the United States

Donald Trump, the former and future commander in chief, barely campaigned on healthcare in his re-election bid, then promptly served notice the health sector could take nothing for granted in his second term by rolling out a series of unorthodox appointees. None of his early choices to lead key health-related agencies are predictable Republicans, starting with the selection of vaccine skeptic and healthy-food crusader Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to lead the Health and Human Services Department, and followed by the choice of Dr. Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Two of the non-health agencies that impact healthcare are the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission through their anti-trust enforcement responsibilities. Trump picked Andrew Ferguson to head the FTC and Gail Slater to lead Justice's anti-trust unit. And Elon Musk, who Trump named to lead his new Department of Government Efficiency, will help lead efforts to cut healthcare spending.

April Verrett

April Verrett, Service Employees International Union president, may have a lot on the horizon given the healthcare employment environment. Labor organizations are growing in demand across numerous positions and SEIU, with two million members between the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, could benefit. Verrett, a Chicago native raised by her grandmother, a former union steward for a SEIU chapter, began as secretary and treasurer for the union organization before becoming president of California’s largest local union and the country’s largest long-term care union, SEIU Local 2015. She then became the executive vice president of SEIU Healthcare Illinois and Indiana. Some of her main areas of focus in her work as a union leader revolve around eliminating inequities based on race and taxes, health disparities and generational poverty.