NETHERLANDS —Royal Philips, a leading global health technology company has appointed Julia Strandberg as the Chief Business Leader of its Connected Care businesses, effective April 24, 2023.
Ms. Strandberg will become a member of Philips’ Executive Committee, reporting to CEO Roy Jakobs.
The Connected Care businesses will include the Monitoring, Sleep & Respiratory Care, and Enterprise Informatics businesses, starting from April 1, 2023.
Ms. Strandberg, who is American and was born in 1974, previously served as the Chief Commercial Officer of Pear Therapeutics, where she led the commercial team responsible for developing, launching, and growing their prescription digital therapeutics offering.
She also led a healthcare business consulting firm that focused on driving client growth and was previously in leadership positions at Medtronic and Covidien’s Respiratory & Monitoring group. She began her career at 3M.
“We are delighted to welcome Julia Strandberg as our new Chief Business Leader of the Connected Care businesses and member of the Executive Committee,” said Philips CEO Roy Jakobs.
“Julia brings extensive experience in developing and commercializing medical technologies, and her multi-disciplinary expertise, particularly in informatics and monitoring, will be invaluable to Philips.”
Ms. Strandberg will succeed Dan Leonard, who took on the role of Chief Business Leader Connected Care and interim.
The connected-care business has been a significant challenge for Philips, and the company’s new leadership is expected to provide a fresh impetus to turn things around.
While component shortages may be outside the company’s control, the issues caused by defective sound abatement foam in its breathing devices have no clear end in sight.
In the full-year 2022 results, Philips reported an operating loss of 1.53 billion euros (US$1.63 billion) on sales of 17.8 billion euros (US$19.03 billion), with a 3% decline in comparable sales.
The company attributed the decline to operational and supply challenges, lower sales in China, the consequences of the Respironics field action, and the Russia-Ukraine war.
The comparable order intake also dropped by 3% year-over-year in 2022, compared to 4% growth in 2021.
The double-digit decrease in Royal Philips’ connected-care businesses was a significant contributor to the decline.
The troubled connected-care business has been a significant challenge for Philips. However, with the appointment of new leadership, the company is expected to gain fresh impetus to address the issue and improve performance in this critical area.
In light of recent turmoil, Royal Philips appointed a new CEO, Roy Jakobs, in October of last year.
Jakobs has been with the company since 2010, previously serving as managing director of academic and government markets at scientific publisher Elsevier and as a retail manager for Belgium and Luxembourg at oil company Shell.
Jakobs pledged to address the component shortage and support the patients affected by the ventilator recall through incremental improvements, leveraging the company’s market position, customer base, innovations, partnerships, brand, and talent.
The market is adopting a wait-and-see approach, and Philips’ stock price has remained steady at around US$17 since the Jan. 30 earnings statement.
This is likely a relief for the company, which saw its stock price plummet by over two-thirds in the past two years, dropping from highs of over US$56 per share before the recall in mid-2021 to a low of US$12.65 on Oct. 1.
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