SAN DIEGO, CA–(Marketwired – August 18, 2015) – NuVasive, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUVA), a leading medical device company focused on transforming spine surgery with minimally disruptive, procedurally-integrated solutions, today announced that Johnson Lai has been appointed Chief Information Officer, effective August 31, 2015. In this role, Mr. Lai will be responsible for advancing the Company’s information technology systems, processes and procedures into a competitive advantage.
Gregory T. Lucier, NuVasive’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said, “We are pleased to announce the appointment of Johnson Lai as we look to enhance and scale our IT capabilities worldwide. Bringing his extensive global IT leadership and medical technology experience to this newly created role, Johnson will help us execute our strategic goals, integrate systems and scale our business to deliver an outstanding customer experience that differentiates us in the market. As the complexities of our business increase, elevating the leadership role for IT to my leadership team ensures we are placing the strategic emphasis needed on our systems.”
In line with the Company’s previously announced leadership appointments, the addition of Mr. Lai as CIO represents another step forward as NuVasive looks to create a world-class leadership team to drive the Company’s next phase of growth and success as the innovation pioneer in spine.
Mr. Lai has more than 20 years of IT leadership experience and brings to the role extensive expertise in advancement of enterprise IT initiatives. Most recently, he was Vice President of IT at Thermo Fisher Scientific where he was responsible for providing the IT leadership to the Laboratory Products business group, as well as being an executive member of the integration management team that governed the integration of Life Technologies into Thermo Fisher Scientific. In that capacity, Mr. Lai was responsible for driving processes that created a combined IT vision and successfully executing global programs that achieved the targeted revenue and cost synergy objectives. Additionally, he provided IT leadership for Thermo Fisher Scientific’s corporate functions with a business centric approach, including the support of mergers and acquisitions, among other responsibilities. Previously, as a senior IT leader at Life Technologies, Mr. Lai was responsible for delivering critical IT projects, including a global ERP, e-commerce and IT integration of companies acquired. Prior to that, Mr. Lai was a global IT leader for Abbott Vascular where he led the deployment of a single instance global ERP system and further matured the IT infrastructure and data centers to world-class levels. Mr. Lai has a Bachelor of Science in Managerial Economics from the University of California at Davis and a Master of Business Administration with an emphasis in MIS, Accounting & Finance from the University of California at Davis.
About NuVasive
NuVasive is an innovative global medical device company that is changing spine surgery with minimally disruptive surgical products and procedurally-integrated solutions for the spine. NuVasive has emerged from a small startup to become the #3 player in the $9 billion global spine market and remains focused on market share-taking strategies as the Company continues on its path to become the industry’s leading spine company. NuVasive offers a comprehensive spine portfolio of more than 90 unique products developed to improve spine surgery and patient outcomes. The Company’s principal procedural solution is its Maximum Access Surgery, or MAS®, platform for lateral spine fusion. MAS was designed to provide safer, reproducible, and clinically proven outcomes, and is a highly differentiated solution with fully integrated neuromonitoring, customizable exposure, and a broad offering of application-specific implants and fixation devices designed to address a variety of pathologies.
