Soon: Adreima's Frank Grant

Updated: Sept. 16, 2013 - Amplion announced Grant had joined the clinical communications firm as chief sales and marketing officer. - Ed.

Nashville-based Frank Grant, recently Cisco's chief for North American healthcare sales, is leaving the tech giant to drive sales growth for Adreima, a privately held revenue-cycle and reimbursement company in Phoenix.

Grant said he's joining the now-$26 million annual revenue company as chief sales and marketing officer, a new position, just as Adreima gains traction through nationwide acquisitions, diversification and aggressive sales -- meaning organic growth of at least 20 percent annually. Grant's LinkedIn profile is here.

"I really like to take things that are small and growing," he told VNC as he wrapped-up his 11 year career at Cisco. He'll be an Adreima shareholder, he said. In his rear-view mirror: Cisco, the giant with $42 Billion annualized net sales revenue and about $40 Billion in cash, equivalents and investments on hand, as-of its recent financial report.

Connie Perez

Beginning March 7, Grant will report directly to CEO Connie Perez, he said. Adreima is majority-owned by Waud Capital Partners, the Chicago-based private equity firm. Waud's portfolio is weighted toward healthcare and medical products. In September, as evidence of the company's ambitions as a consolidator of both Medicaid and commercially-oriented firms, Adreima announced its acquisition of Florida-based Hospital Inpatient Services. Adreima has more than 300 employees and more than 70 contracts in 10 states.

Grant was recruited for Adreima by Paul Frankenberg, founder of Nashville-based healthcare-only FOCUS Search Partners. Frankenberg recently spun his business back out of a nearly decade-long joint venture with KraftCPAs.

The move satisfies Grant's long-standing yearning for a leadership role in a healthcare operating company during the next phase of his career, Grant said. (Grant comments on Nashville's healthcare leadership opportunity in VNC's earlier report.)

No word yet from Grant regarding whether he'll continue his limited Angel-investment activities. Already well-traveled during 12 years with Cisco, Grant will remain a road warrior, but he and family will continue to live in Davidson County.

Grant's immediate Adriema priorities are setting sales and marketing priorities, evaluating the sales cycle and customer-integration processes to ensure consistency and teaming with colleagues plotting a course to support corporate goals for organic and acquisitions-driven growth and profitability.

Cisco's healthcare business has been the company's fastest-growing vertical the past few years, Grant said, but he declined to provide specifics, citing Cisco policy. (Online information indicates the Cisco healthcare vertical passed the $1 Billion mark by at least 2007.) Grant said his recent duties including adapting TelePresence for healthcare; introducing to the sector Cisco's NurseConnect, Biomed NAC and WebEx for healthcare; and, working with counterparts at Epic, Cerner, McKesson, AllScripts and GE to integrate Cisco products into those vendors' software suites.

Adreima provides eligibility and revenue-cycle management services for U.S. hospitals. Services include advocacy in reimbursement matters, plus revenue cycle management, denials management, post-payment recovery, and clinical auditing services. Founded in 1990 as Advanced Reimbursement Management LLC, the company changed its name to Adreima six months ago.

Prior to Cisco, Grant held sales roles with Hitachi Data Systems and IBM. He also did a two-year stint as an investment officer with SunTrust Bank. Grant served several years as a member of the board of directors of the Nashville Technology Council. He majored in German and economics as a Vanderbilt University undergraduate and earned his MBA at Vanderbilt's Owen Graduate School of Management. VNC