Mark Erceg will join Cerner Corp. as the healthcare information-technology company’s new chief financial officer Feb. 22, the company said Thursday.
Erceg, who will also serve as an executive vice president, will replace Cerner’s long-time CFO Marc Naughton. Naughton in October had announced plans to leave Cerner in 2021. He will serve as an executive advisor during the transition and will leave Cerner at the end of the first quarter.
Erceg previously worked as CFO at three publicly held companies outside of the health sector.
Erceg held the title at door manufacturer Masonite International Corp., Canadian Pacific Railway and jewelry retailer Tiffany & Co.
“Mark’s diverse skill set and deep experience in global and operational finance is an excellent fit as Cerner continues to transform and innovate for worldwide providers and healthcare systems,” said Brent Shafer, Cerner’s chairman and CEO, in a statement.
Erceg marks the third leadership change Cerner has made in 2021.
Cerner on Friday announced it had promoted Travis Dalton, president of Cerner’s government services, to chief client and services officer and Dan Devers, who previously led Cerner’s cloud projects, to chief legal counsel. Dalton and Devers replaced John Peterzalek and Randy Sims, who will leave the company in the coming weeks.
“I’m pleased to share these important internal succession appointments,” Shafer on Friday wrote in a note to Cerner employees that was shared with Modern Healthcare. “I thank both John and Randy for their many years of service with Cerner. I’ve appreciated their counsel and leadership and wish them the very best in their next chapters.”
Shafer in the note cited the company’s internal annual client survey, writing “Cerner clients tell us that we’ve made good progress but have more work to do,” including innovating more quickly.
“Delivering a better client experience will take all of us working together with a greater sense of urgency,” Shafer wrote. He highlighted a set of cost cutting, portfolio management and business simplification initiatives Cerner launched in 2019, internally referred to as “Cerner.Next,” as an effort that will help the company streamline product development.
Cerner has recently emphasized “data-as-a-service” as a substantial growth opportunity, with plans for products that build on secondary use of clinical data held in its systems.
Cerner posted $1.4 billion in revenue for 2020’s third quarter, down 4.3% year-over-year, which Naughton in October attributed to recent divestitures, termination of a revenue cycle contract with Adventist Health in 2019, and COVID-19. He added that the company’s portfolio management activities positioned it for growth.
Cerner’s adjusted operating margin for the third quarter was 20.4%, up from 18.1% during the same period in 2019.