Ex-Stryker CEO Stephen MacMillan Joins Hologic

Previously disgraced CEO of Stryker Corporation has now been named new president and CEO of Bedford, Mass.-based Hologic Inc., a company that makes medical devices for women’s health. Stephen MacMillan will take over the post immediately, replacing Jack Cumming, who served as Hologic’s CEO from 2001 to 2009, and who was brought back in July this year to help turn the company around.

It was in February last year that MacMillan left Stryker following an internal romantic relationship ultimately deemed inappropriate by the board. Following his departure, MacMillan joined sBiomed, a small startup in Orem, Utah that then consisted of only a dozen employees and one product. Some called it a step down from the Kalamazoo, Mich.-based, $8.3 billion giant Stryker, but it was in Orem that that MacMillan got back in the medtech game.

Some experts speculate that MacMillian will prep Hologic for sale, but the executive says he has different plans.

“My mission is to grow the business, it’s not to sell it,” MacMillan told Bloomberg in response to rumors of a company sale. “It’s probably too early to commit to any kind of a timeline.”

“We believe the announcement might take some steam out of the ‘Hologic for sale’ thesis over the nearer-term—as MacMillan will be perceived as an execution-oriented CEO, suggesting a more protracted turnaround attempt is in store—and at the end of the day Hologic’s businesses face a number of macro challenges that will not be a ‘quick fix’ for any leader,” said Leerink Swann analysts Richard Newitter and Ravi Misra.

MacMillan currently serves on the board of directors of Alere Inc. He has previously served on the boards of directors of Texas Instruments, the Greater Kalamazoo United Way and AdvaMed, and was a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Roundtable on Value & Science-Driven Health Care. In 2010, MacMillan was also appointed by the U.S. Commerce Secretary to a two-year term on the U.S. Manufacturing Council, a group which advised the administration on ideas to create more U.S. manufacturing jobs.

He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Davidson College in Davidson, N.C., and is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s advanced management program (Boston, Mass).

In addition to MacMillan’s appointment, Hologic also added Jonathan Christodoro and Samuel Merksamer to its board as independent directors. These appointments were part of a deal with activist investor Carl Icahn. Icahn, who disclosed a 12.5 percent stake in the company in late November, had said he would consider discussing with Hologic’s management the possibility of board representation and ways to improve shareholder value. In return for the appointment of Christodoro and Merksamer, who are managing directors of Icahn Capital LP, a unit of Icahn Enterprises LP, Icahn has agreed to vote the shares he controls in support of Hologic’s slate of director nominees at the company’s 2014 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.