Suiter

Phillip Suiter has been named CEO at Aegis Health Group, a privately held, Nashville-based company specializing in the development and execution of revenue growth strategies for hospitals.

As CEO, Suiter will be responsible for providing strategic leadership for the company by working with the board and other management to establish long-range goals, strategies, plans, and policies. He will also be responsible for meeting and exceeding revenue and profit targets, creating maximum shareholder value.

Suiter most recently served as president and CEO at Artemis Health Group. He holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing and master’s degree in management from Murray State University.

Denley appointed interim president at Austin Peay

Denley

Tennessee Board of Regents Chancellor John Morgan has named Tristan Denley, TBR vice chancellor of Academic Affairs and former provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at Austin Peay State University, to serve as interim president of APSU.

Denley, who will maintain dual responsibilities as TBR’s vice chancellor during the interim period, will provide leadership to the campus until a new president is named and is available to assume the executive role. Current APSU President Tim Hall leaves the campus after this week to take over as president of Mercy College in New York.

Denley was named vice chancellor at the TBR last July after serving as provost and vice president for academic affairs and professor of mathematics at Austin Peay State University, where he developed initiatives to improve student learning, most notably for students who need help with math, reading and writing. He earned national recognition for designing and implementing the Degree Compass software program using predictive analytics to increase student retention in college by helping them select courses they need and would most likely complete.

Denley joined APSU in 2009 after leaving the University of Mississippi as chair of Mathematics and senior fellow of the Residential College Program. Originally from Penzance, England, he earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from Trinity College Cambridge, completed advanced studies in mathematics from the University of Cambridge, and earned his bachelor’s degree in pure and applied mathematics from the University of Exeter.

The TBR began the search for Hall’s replacement in February. Four finalists were identified by the search advisory committee last month and visited campus between April 28 and May 5. They are Bradley Cook, provost and executive vice president and professor of history at Southern Utah University; Jerome Gilbert, provost and executive vice president at Mississippi State University; Randall Hanna, chancellor of the Florida College System and Division of Florida Colleges; and Alisa White, provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at the University of Texas at Tyler.

Morgan is in the process of evaluating each candidate in preparation to make a recommendation to the Board for the new president in a couple of weeks.

Pandharipande will lead anesthesiology critical care

Pandharipande

Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Pratik Pandharipande, M.D., MSCI, professor of Anesthesiology and Surgery, has been named chief of the Division of Anesthesiology Critical Care Medicine, succeeding C. Lee Parmley, M.D., J.D., who was named chief of staff of Vanderbilt University Hospital in March.

Pandharipande, a Vanderbilt faculty member since 2001, is an internationally recognized National Institutes of Health-funded investigator in the area of delirium and sedation, and his studies conducted with fellow Vanderbilt researchers have significantly impacted the care of critically ill patients in intensive care units throughout the world.

Pandharipande received his medical degree from the University of Nagpur in India. After completing a research assistantship in surgical oncology at the University of Pittsburgh, he completed an anesthesiology residency at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, N.J. He then completed a fellowship in Critical Care Anesthesia in 2001 at VUMC. In 2005, Pandharipande completed a Master in Science and Clinical Investigation degree at Vanderbilt.

His clinical practice is divided between VUMC and the intensive care unit at the Veterans Affairs Tennessee Valley Healthcare System’s Nashville campus.

VUMC’s Jones set to transition into new role

Jones

Pam Jones, DNP, MSN, R.N., chief nursing officer for Vanderbilt University Hospital, will succeed Bonnie Pilon, Ph.D., as senior associate dean of Clinical and Community Partnerships for the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing.

She will begin this fall to coincide with the start of the 2014-2015 academic year and provide a time of overlap with Pilon to ensure a smooth transition.

Jones has served in nursing leadership for VUH since 2008, responsible for all inpatient nursing services, Emergency Department, LifeFlight, respiratory therapy, social services and case management.

She has taught in VUSN’s health care leadership program for several years and previously worked under Pilon in the school’s faculty practice arm, helping put together the proposal that resulted in Vine Hill Community Clinic becoming a Federally Qualified Health Center. Jones also worked early in her nursing career at Vanderbilt as a staff nurse and unit coordinator.

Prior to joining Vanderbilt, Jones served in several leadership positions for other area hospitals, including chief executive officer for the Baptist Women’s Pavilion Hospital and chief operating officer for Tennessee Christian Medical Center.

She earned her bachelor’s and master’s in Nursing and Doctor of Nursing Practice degrees from VUSN.

TriStar Health names orthopaedics administrator

McIntosh

TriStar Health has named Bubba McIntosh, FACHE, as the division’s new orthopaedics service line administrator. McIntosh will oversee key strategic initiatives across all of TriStar’s facilities in three states to drive strategies and new technologies that support patient quality and growth.

McIntosh has over 25 years of experience in health care leadership and service line development and is the former executive director of St. Thomas Health’s orthopaedic division. Prior to that, he held several key leadership roles in system service line development and hospital operations.

Crye-Leike promotes chief information strategy officer

Sodhi

The nation’s 5th largest real estate company, Crye-Leike, REALTORS has promoted Gurtej Sodhi to chief information strategy officer.

Sodhi has served in several roles with Crye-Leike for more than 20 years, most recently as chief information officer and executive vice president.

He will continue to manage and lead Crye-Leike’s information technology division.

Spickard chosen as Pinnacle office leader

Spickard

Vanessa Spickard has joined Pinnacle Financial Partners as a senior vice president and office leader for Pinnacle’s West Baddour office in Lebanon.

Carol Ann Griffin, who served as office leader and financial advisor for Pinnacle’s West Baddour location for seven years, will devote all of her time to her financial advisor role.

Spickard has 12 years of financial services experience. She most recently served as branch manager of SunTrust Bank’s Mt. Juliet Financial Center. She earned her associate’s degree from Volunteer State Community College.

Mathis joins LBMC as govt. contract specialist

Lattimore Black Morgan & Cain, PC, one of the Southeast’s largest accounting and business consulting firms, has added Theresa L. Mathis, in its Security & Risk Services Practice in the Brentwood (Nashville) office.

Mathis

Mathis has joined the firm as a government contract specialist working with government contracts, proposals, risk services and quality control. She most recently was with Brandon Technology Consulting, Inc., where she was the chief operations officer.

She is a graduate of the Strafford University achieving her AAS in Computer Information Systems.

Also, Jason Riddle has joined the firm as practice leader for LBMC’s Managed Security Services affiliate, where he will be specializing on the growth and expansion of LBMC’s state-of-the-art managed security solutions for the healthcare, financial services, retail and business service providers industries.

Riddle most recently was with Clearwater Compliance, where he served as vice president of operations delivery.

Williams to lead Main Street program

The Department of Economic and Community Development has named Nancy Williams as Tennessee Main Street Program director. The initiative provides assistance to communities in revitalizing downtown and central business districts.

Williams

Williams brings more than 30 years of experience in communication, community development, historic preservation and association management to TNECD’s Rural Development team. Most recently, she was Main Street Program director at the Heritage Foundation of Franklin & Williamson County, which included serving as director of the Downtown Franklin Association.

A graduate of Middle Tennessee State University, Williams’ role as Main Street Program Director for Downtown Franklin has helped Franklin achieve national recognition. In May 2012, Franklin was ranked No. 4 on Livability.com’s Best Places to Visit for Historic Preservation. Recently, Travel + Leisure Magazine named Franklin eighth best town in the nation and in April 2014, Garden & Gun magazine named Franklin the “Best Southern Town” following an online readers’ poll.

Williams replaces Todd Morgan who is leaving state government to become director of Preservation Field Services for Knox Heritage and the East Tennessee Preservation Alliance.

Barnett elected TIPLA board vice president

Stites & Harbison, PLLC attorney Rebecca Barnett has been elected vice president of the board of directors for the Tennessee Intellectual Property Law Association.

Barnett

Barnett has been involved with the statewide professional organization for multiple years and previously served as treasurer of the TIPLA board of directors.

Barnett is a registered patent attorney with the Stites & Harbison Intellectual Property & Technology Service Group, serving clients from the firm’s Memphis and Nashville offices. Her practice is focused primarily on developing and maintaining domestic and international patent portfolios in the biological, chemical and mechanical arts.

She earned her J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law and her bachelor of engineering in biomedical engineering from the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering.