In less than a month, Zimmer Biomet’s executive team has gotten quite the makeover.
The changes began in late August, when Ivan Tornos, previously the company’s chief operating officer, was named president, CEO and a member of the board—taking over for Bryan Hanson, who left to head up 3M’s soon-to-spin-out healthcare business. Now, barely two weeks into Tornos’ tenure, a handful of other Zimmer Biomet leaders are moving on up as well. The devicemaker announced the changes—comprising a trio of executive promotions—on Tuesday.
“The expansion of Zimmer Biomet’s executive leadership team coincides with our renewed focus on commercial execution and innovation to drive the company forward,” Tornos said in the announcement. “These appointments demonstrate the continued evolution of our business strategy as we remain focused on developing our team to drive value for patients, customers and all stakeholders.”
Among the newly promoted staffers is Mark Bezjak, who has been at Zimmer Biomet since 2008. During the ensuing decade and a half, he’s worked his way up from director of corporate sales to, most recently, president of the company’s commercial, downstream marketing and distribution activities in North America. He’ll now add Latin America to his purview as president of the Americas.
The other two promotions went to much more recent hires: Both Wilfred Van Zuilen and Nitin Goyal, M.D., joined Zimmer Biomet in 2021.
Van Zuilen, a 23-year veteran of Medtronic, has spent the last two years as president of Zimmer Biomet’s sales, marketing and distribution operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. With his newly expanded title—group president of EMEA—he’ll also take charge of certain global R&D projects.
Goyal is a practicing hip and knee reconstruction surgeon. He came aboard Zimmer Biomet as its first-ever chief science, technology and innovation officer. As a newly appointed member of the company’s executive leadership team, he’ll continue that work, but as a direct report to Tornos.
Tornos took the helm Aug. 22. He joined Zimmer Biomet in 2018 after two decades in leadership roles across the medtech industry, including at Johnson & Johnson, Baxter, Medtronic and BD. At the Indiana devicemaker, he climbed the ladder from president of orthopedics to COO in the span of about three years, reaching the latter rung in 2021.
While announcing last month that Tornos had been tapped as CEO, Zimmer Biomet also noted that Suketu Upadhyay had earned a promotion of his own. After joining the company in 2019 to serve as executive vice president and chief financial officer, Upadhyay is now also in charge of overseeing all global operations and supply chain functions.
Amid the high-level shifts, Zimmer Biomet doubled down on its previously set financial forecasts, which predict total revenue growth between 6.5% and 7% for the full year, according to its Aug. 1 second-quarter earnings report.