The Worldwide President of Depuy Synthes Spine, Namal Nawana, just announced his resignation this morning after only a few months on the job. He’s apparently heading to yet-named publicly traded healthcare company. It shocked a lot of people. Max Reinhardt, the recently appointed VP, will replace him.
DePuySynthes Spine President Replaced (Orthopedics This Week)
Namal Nawana resigned from his position as worldwide president, DePuySynthes Spine on November 27. Max Reinhardt, current vice president, worldwide marketing, will be named the new president.
Debbie Williams, the company’s communications director, confirmed the news to OTW in an email on the same day.
Namal Nawana
Nawana took the DePuy Spine position in March 2011. Since then, DePuy merged with Synthes, Inc. to form DePuySynthes, the largest orthopedic company in the world. Michel Orsinger, head of Synthes took over as head of the combined companies.
Nawana began his career as a research engineer at Royal Adelaide Hospital in 1992 before serving as a product development engineer with Howmedica International. He was with Johnson & Johnson and DePuy for more than 15 years, serving in roles in engineering, marketing, sales and general management in Canada.
In 1997, Nawana joined Johnson & Johnson Orthopaedics as a technical support manager in the UK. He was promoted to sales director, DePuy Orthopaedics and Trauma, France and where he led a team that achieved a sales turnaround. In 2004, Nawana was promoted to general manager for DePuy Canada and later was appointed to lead and build the DePuy business in Australia. When promoted to area vice president of Johnson & Johnson Medical, Australia and New Zealand in 2009, he assumed responsibility for MD&D (Medical Devices and Diagnostics) franchises in Australia and New Zealand, leading a team of over 700.
Williams told OTW that Nawana was pursuing opportunities outside of Johnson & Johnson.
DePuySynthes
Including the Synthes business, worldwide spine sales for the company was down 3% on an operational basis with the U.S. down approximately 6% during the last quarter. Outside the U.S., sales grew approximately 1% operationally.
Dominic Caruso, Johnson & Johnson’s CFO told analysts on October 16 that since the closing of the deal that united DePuy and Synthes in mid-June, “Our first priority is no disruption to customers. But the updates that we’re getting tell us that things are moving along just fine. We’re integrating obviously the spine businesses, because they’re the two businesses that we had that were similar. So that’s where the bulk of the integration is occurring.”
“And so far so good. We’re going to take this carefully. We’re going to be measured in the way we do this so that there’s very little disruption if any, and we’re confident that’s the right way to do it for the long term. The leaders are intact. We’re very pleased to have the Synthes leadership team join Johnson & Johnson, and as you all know, Michel Orsinger, the previous CEO of Synthes now leads our entire combined orthopedics business.”
Max Reinhardt
Reinhardt began his career with Johnson & Johnson at DePuy Spine in 2002 as director of sales and marketing in the UK. In 2006, he relocated to the U.S. as vice president, U.S. sales for DePuy Spine, then in early 2011, assumed the position of vice president, worldwide marketing for DePuySpine. Earlier this year, he was appointed to lead the combined DePuySynthes Spine Global Marketing organization.
He earned his Higher National Diploma at Sparsholt College of Agriculture in the UK with a degree in fish farming and fisheries management and his Master of Science degree in marketing from the University of Hull, also in the UK. He started his career in sales, marketing and general management roles for medical device companies including Steris and Olympus.