Name: Julie Sawyer Montgomery
New title: CEO, Danaher
Previous title: Executive vice president, diagnostics, Danaher
Danaher has named Julie Sawyer Montgomery as its next president and CEO, effective Oct. 1, when current chief executive Rainer Blair will retire, the company said Monday.
Sawyer Montgomery most recently was executive vice president for diagnostics, a business she helped grow from about $6 billion in revenue in 2017 to about $11 billion today. During that time, operating profit also roughly tripled.
Sawyer Montgomery led the company’s $9.9 billion acquisition of Masimo, which closed in June, as well as the pending acquisition of StatLab. She joined Danaher in 2017 to head commercial operations and R&D for Beckman Coulter Diagnostics and became its president in 2020. Danaher acquired Beckman Coulter in 2011.
Sawyer Montgomery has nearly 25 years of experience in healthcare, commercial operations and R&D.
While the company’s statement was upbeat on Sawyer Montgomery’s success leading the diagnostics operation and a commercial overhaul at Beckman Counter Diagnostics, her appointment as CEO does not signal a shift in strategy more in favor of diagnostics, J.P. Morgan analyst Casey Woodring said in a note to clients.
“Management indicated that it feels what Montgomery has done in leveraging the power of the [Danaher] platform in Diagnostics can be applied effectively to other areas of the business,” Woodring wrote.
Danaher also operates biotechnology and life sciences segments, in addition to diagnostics.
The analyst noted that Sawyer Montgomery has been at Danaher “long enough to understand the company’s culture and operational rigor, while the Diagnostics business she has been running has arguably been the best performing segment within [Danaher] since she took the helm.”
Blair’s departure, after six years as CEO, is part of a longstanding succession process, Woodring added.
Blair will become a senior adviser to the company until March 31, 2027, to help with the transition.
