Movers & Shakers: NCI names new director, NIH leader retires, Tenet chairman resigns

New director at the National Cancer Institute 

Monica Bertagnolli, MD, has taken over as the 16th director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Bertagnolli is the first woman to hold the role. 

She succeeds Norman Sharpless, MD, who stepped down as director in April 2022. Douglas Lowry, MD, has served as acting director since April 30, 2022. Lowry will resume his role as principal deputy director of NCI and as chief of the Laboratory of Cellular Oncology in NCI’s Center for Cancer Research.

Bertagnolli joins NCI from Harvard Medical School, where she served as the Richard E. Wilson Professor of Surgery in the field of surgical oncology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She was also a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, as well as a member of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Treatment and Sarcoma Centers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She is also a highly regarded cancer researcher. 

She also served as vice president of Coalition of Cancer Cooperative Groups, group chair of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, president of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology Foundation, and CEO of Alliance Foundation Trials. In addition, she served as president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in 2018-2019 and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2021.

NIH CIO retires

The chief information officer (CIO) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Andrea Norris, is retiring. She also serves as director of the center for information technology (CIT).

She has led a $1.6 billion technology portfolio that supports NIH’s research across its 27 institutes and centers and researchers across 2,500 universities and medical centers that receive NIH funding. Norris’ career is marked by leading national management and technology programs and operations in the public sector for the last 40 years. She joined NIH after serving in senior leadership roles at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA.

She was selected as a Fellow in the National Academy of Public Administration and received the Theodore Roosevelt Government Leadership Award at NIH.  She also twice was recognized with the Presidential Rank Award. She also established the NIH Science and Technology Research Infrastructure for Discovery, Experimentation and Sustainability (STRIDES) Initiative.

NIH will launch national searches for a new CIT Director as well as a new CIO.

Tenet Healthcare executive chairman resigns

Ronal Rittemayer, executive chairman of Tenet Healthcare, has resigned, effective Oct. 1, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He has also resigned as a member of the board of directors. His resignation was due to personal health reasons, according to the filing.

J. Robert Kerrey was appointed by the board as chairman, effective Oct 1. In addition, the board reduced the number of authorized directors to 10. As part of Rittenmayer’s departure, the company has agreed to treat his resignation as a termination on account of disability.

Kerrey first joined the board of Tenet in 2001 and most recently served as lead director.