EVP – Strategy and Portfolio — Surgical-Systems Portfolio

The mandate

A surgical-systems business is approaching design freeze on a next-generation platform intended to support multiple procedural specialties. The architecture offers improved visualisation, data capture and instrument control, but several decisions remain unresolved. Full backward compatibility would protect hospitals’ existing instrument investment and simplify adoption, yet would constrain parts of the new design. A more closed system could improve performance and recurring economics while increasing switching cost and the burden of clinical and procurement justification.

The portfolio already contains overlapping consoles, instruments and accessories acquired or developed at different times. Product groups have modelled the new platform as incremental growth without fully accounting for cannibalisation, training capacity, installed-base transition, service inventory or evidence required to expand procedure claims. Competitors are using financing and multi-year supply arrangements to lock in hospital systems before the company’s planned launch.

The EVP – Strategy and Portfolio will lead the choices that connect architecture, clinical value, portfolio sequencing and enterprise economics. The remit covers corporate and portfolio strategy, market and competitor intelligence, business cases, evidence priorities, ecosystem and partnership choices and board decision support. Product, engineering, medical and commercial leaders retain their accountabilities; the EVP ensures their assumptions reconcile before capital and market commitments are made.

Approximately 850 employees and material partners sit within the wider portfolio perimeter. The role is on site in Minneapolis, reports to the Chief Executive or designated executive sponsor and is a planned replacement. The successor will inherit active decisions, not a fixed plan, and must be able to challenge attractive platform forecasts without paralysing a programme nearing design freeze.

Why this seat is open

The current strategy leader is moving into a non-executive portfolio role after an agreed succession. They established the initial platform thesis and will provide context during a short transition. The board has broadened the specification because the next phase requires direct ownership of installed-base migration, evidence sequencing and partnership boundaries, not only long-range planning.

What you will own

• Lead the platform architecture and ecosystem decision from a strategic perspective, quantifying compatibility, clinical performance, adoption, service, recurring revenue and future innovation consequences.
• Govern a multi-year portfolio and evidence investment above USD 400 million across consoles, instruments, software, accessories and selected legacy products.
• Build an installed-base transition model by hospital, configuration and procedure, including training, capital cycle, service, inventory and customer stranded cost.
• Establish portfolio gates for procedure expansion, product claims and accessories using clinical need, evidence, development capacity and economic contribution.
• Decide which data, interface, instrument and partner capabilities should be open, controlled or exclusively owned, with safety, interoperability and commercial rationale recorded.
• Reconcile competitive, procurement and financing intelligence without allowing a rival announcement or individual tender to override the long-term platform choice.
• Chair portfolio reviews that stop, sequence or partner work and actually release engineering, clinical and commercial capacity.
• Build a strategy team capable of supporting operating decisions and maintaining one assumption and decision record for the board.

The first 12 months

• Days 1–90: Validate installed-base, compatibility, evidence and economic assumptions; identify decisions that must precede design freeze and those that can remain modular. Agree board criteria for the ecosystem choice and prevent sales or supplier commitments from deciding it implicitly. Review every active portfolio project competing for platform resources.
• Months 4–9: Secure architecture and migration approval, translate it into portfolio, evidence and commercial-investment gates and close or resequence lower-value work. Establish hospital migration archetypes and test them with representative clinical, procurement and service stakeholders. Define partnership and interface boundaries before external negotiation.
• Months 10–12: Demonstrate a coherent launch and installed-base transition case, with capital, training, service and supply plans reconciled. Complete the first portfolio cycle under the new gates, show resource release from stopped work and update the three-year platform roadmap as verification and customer evidence develops.

What the board will measure

• A documented ecosystem and compatibility decision supported by clinical, technical, hospital and economic evidence rather than one function’s preferred outcome.
• Platform investment and portfolio resources concentrated on approved claims, procedures and migration needs within the USD 400 million-plus perimeter.
• Installed-base transition assumptions validated with hospital capital cycles, training capacity, service capability and customer switching cost.
• Legacy and overlapping products retired or sequenced with explicit customer and inventory plans, not left to decline without ownership.
• Partnership and interface rights preserving safety, future innovation and the strategic control approved before negotiations.
• Board forecasts adjusted promptly for verification, evidence or adoption changes, with cannibalisation and stranded cost visible.

The person

You are an EVP or SVP of strategy and portfolio, surgical business-unit strategist, product executive or general manager with 22–28 years in medical devices or high-complexity health technology. You have shaped a platform transition involving capital equipment and recurring instruments or consumables. You have governed at least USD 300 million of portfolio investment and influenced at least 600 employees.

You understand hospital adoption beyond clinical enthusiasm. You can evaluate capital budgets, installed workflows, training, service, sterile supply, interoperability and contracting alongside product performance. You have made a compatibility or ecosystem choice and can explain which future options it created or foreclosed.

The board will consider candidates from surgical systems, imaging, interventional platforms, diagnostics or connected capital equipment. Consulting or corporate-strategy backgrounds must include actual product and resource decisions. Product leaders must demonstrate portfolio breadth and willingness to stop work outside their historical franchise.

This role is on site in Minneapolis with travel to hospitals, development centres and relevant markets. International candidates may qualify if US hospital and regulatory experience is current and relocation is credible. The EVP must reach decisions with incomplete evidence while preserving explicit triggers for revision.

Compensation and terms

The role offers a USD 360,000–480,000 base range, annual incentive and long-term participation. Measures will reflect ecosystem decision quality, portfolio concentration, evidence, installed-base transition and platform value. The appointment is permanent and planned as part of succession. Relocation and documented forfeited awards may be considered.

Confidentiality

The company, platform architecture, product roadmap and hospital research are confidential. Identifying information will be shared only after fit and confidentiality protections are established. Candidates must not contact hospitals, suppliers or industry sources to infer the client.

Each response must contain no more than 49 words.