Arlington’s Advantia Health is making more changes to its C-suite less than a year after tapping a new chief to shepherd the company through a major expansion period.
The outpatient OB-GYN group has appointed a trio of new executives to its leadership team, including Angela Wayne as chief operating officer, Scott Moody as chief financial officer and Chika Duru as general counsel, Advantia told the Washington Business Journal.
The new additions bring “important subject matter expertise which completes Advantia’s senior leadership at this critical time,” Advantia CEO Vincent Bradley said in a statement.
Wayne joins the women’s outpatient provider from Acton, Massachusetts-based Adult and Pediatric Dermatology PC, where she was COO, after serving in the same role for more than 10 years with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's affiliated physicians group in Boston.
Throughout her career, she’s “focused on operationalizing health care systems to improve patient and provider experiences and outcomes,” Wayne said in a statement. Now she’ll handle advancing coordinated care models and integrating Advantia’s holdings as the local company grows its footprint across the country, Bradley said.
Moody most recently served as CFO at New York urgent care and telehealth provider PM Pediatrics. He previously worked in media, holding a CFO post with DEFY Media; CFO and COO roles at Bonten Media Group, now part of Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc.; and jobs at CBS and NBC Universal.
With Advantia, Moody plans to “help further innovative care models, like value-based care, that ultimately drive better health outcomes,” he said in a statement.
Duru steps into the general counsel position after holding the same title for more than eight years with CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield’s Community Health Plan District of Columbia. Prior to that, he was an attorney adviser for the Department of Health and Human Services and a litigation associate in New York law firm White & Case LLP’s D.C. office.
“Chika Duru has an unparalleled understanding of legal issues in the health care industry and will be a strong asset to help safeguard our company, our providers and our patients,” Bradley said.
The hires come on the heels of an exodus from those slots around the same time.
- Kathleen Kaluhiokalani, Advantia’s COO since May 2020, left less than a year later in March 2021 to serve as president of care delivery for British biotech Eleusis, for which she’s based in Florida, according to her LinkedIn profile.
- Nathan Barbour, who preceded Moody as CFO, also left Advantia in March, after less than two years in the position. He’d first joined the Arlington group as chief growth officer in December 2018 from Evolent Health, before he shifted to CFO in August 2019, per his LinkedIn. He's now CFO of Chicago-based health benefits platform HealthJoy.
- Farinaz Tehrani, who was chief legal officer for Advantia until March, is now senior vice president, chief legal officer and corporate secretary for Alexandria government contractor VSE Corp.
The company did not share more about the departures. But we know all three left Advantia within a couple months of Bradley assuming the CEO position in January. He’d succeeded co-founder Sean Glass, who stepped down from the top seat and remains on its board of directors.
Then in April, the company hired Dr. Meera Garcia, an obstetrics and gynecology physician with two decades of clinical management experience, as its new chief medical officer. She succeeded Dr. Lisa Shah, who left in November 2020 to serve as chief medical officer of West Coast precision health startup Twin.
Brandie Kalinowski, listed on Advantia’s website as its senior vice president of human resources, is the only member of the six-person executive team who’s not new this year; she started with the organization in July 2020, after stints with Arlington cloud management startup DivvyCloud Corp., which during that time sold to Boston’s Rapid7 Inc., as well as Etsy and Advisory Board Co.
The changes come as Advantia continues its rapid expansion, including the 2020 opening of Liv, its flagship health clinic on U Street in Northwest D.C., and a flurry of acquisitions — of OB-GYN practices in the D.C. area and in the Midwest, and of District telehealth startup Pacify Health. The company heads into 2022 eyeing more acquisitions and organic growth, Bradley told us earlier this year. It also has dozens of positions open across Greater Washington.
Advantia raised $45 million in January 2020, bringing its total funding to more than $110 million. It counts more than 700 employees and about 200 providers across 50 offices.
