Omar Ishrak New CEO–Medtronics

Omar Ishrak this month took over as CEO of the pacemaker company Medtronics.

Ishrak spent 16 years at GE Healthcare, the world’s biggest maker of medical imaging equipment. He ran the largest portion of the Chalfont St. Giles, England-based business, which develops X-ray machines and MRI, CT, ultrasound and PET scanners, with 20,000 employees in 120 countries.

The ultrasound division under Ishrak rose to $1.8 billion last year from about $400 million a decade ago. Most recently, he led an effort to bolster efficiency and new products, with 80 slated for 2010 and 2011. Those achievements showed Ishrak’s leadership in research and development allocation as he increased profitability, wrote Vertical Research Partners co-founder Jeffrey Sprague, who follows GE and called the appointment “a loss for GE, a win for Medtronic.”

He has a Bachelor of Science degree and doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of London, King’s College.

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