Arizona healthcare leadership moves illustrated in a HealthOp-branded executive boardroom design

Arizona Healthcare Leadership Moves: Succession Lessons for Employers

Arizona healthcare leadership is entering a consequential transition period. Banner Health is preparing to replace the founding CEO of its Alzheimer’s institute while preserving research continuity, and a former Tucson chief nursing officer is moving into a broader chief clinical officer position in Nebraska.

Taken together, the announcements are more than a list of executive moves. They show how healthcare organizations can protect institutional knowledge, define interim authority and reconsider the scope of senior clinical leadership before beginning a search.

Last reviewed September 14, 2026.

The Arizona healthcare leadership moves at a glance

Eric M. Reiman, MD: Banner Health announced that the founding CEO of Banner Alzheimer’s Institute will step down on October 1 after 38 years with the system. He will remain a senior adviser and collaborator.
Corey Casper, MD: Banner’s senior vice president and chief research officer will provide interim executive oversight while the organization conducts a national search.
Jessica Langbaum, PhD: The Banner Alzheimer’s Institute senior director will become director of the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium in October.
Rebecca Bleich, MBA, BSN, RN-P: The recent chief nursing officer of Northwest Medical Center in Tucson will become chief clinical officer of Mary Lanning Healthcare in Nebraska on October 5.

Banner is using a layered transition instead of a single replacement

Replacing the founder of a research-intensive healthcare organization is rarely a one-person handoff. The outgoing leader may hold scientific credibility, donor relationships, university partnerships and institutional history that cannot be transferred through a job description.

Banner’s plan separates those responsibilities. Dr. Reiman will leave the CEO role while continuing to advise and collaborate with Banner Alzheimer’s Institute and Banner Sun Health Research Institute. Dr. Casper will provide interim executive oversight, and Dr. Langbaum will take on the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium directorship. Banner will then use a national search to identify the institute’s next leader.

That structure creates several continuity points while preserving room for a new executive to shape the role. It also reduces the risk of asking an interim leader to absorb every scientific, operational and partnership responsibility at once.

Founder succession requires a different executive-search strategy

A founder transition can tempt a board to search for a replica of the departing executive. That is usually the wrong starting point. The better question is what the organization needs in its next chapter and which parts of the founder’s contribution must be preserved through other people, governance structures or advisory relationships.

For a healthcare research organization, the leadership profile may need to combine several capabilities:

Scientific or clinical credibility with researchers, physicians and academic partners
Operational leadership across research, clinical programs and administration
Experience managing public, private and philanthropic partnerships
The ability to raise funds and communicate a complex mission
A clear approach to developing internal leaders and sustaining culture

Organizations should define those requirements before evaluating internal and external candidates. Otherwise, familiarity with the previous leader can become an informal scorecard that does not reflect the future mandate.

Rebecca Bleich’s move shows how senior clinical roles are expanding

Mary Lanning Healthcare’s announcement describes Bleich’s new chief clinical officer role as broader than a traditional nursing post. Her responsibilities will include nursing and clinical operations as well as respiratory care, rehabilitation, pharmacy, laboratory services, compliance, strategy and financial and patient-care goals.

That move illustrates a wider role-design decision facing hospitals: should the organization recruit a chief nursing officer focused primarily on nursing practice and workforce leadership, or a chief clinical officer with responsibility across multiple nonphysician clinical departments?

Neither model is automatically better. The right structure depends on the hospital’s size, service mix, reporting relationships and the authority assigned to other executives. A broader title without clearly delegated decision rights can create confusion. A narrowly defined role can also fall short when the organization needs one leader to integrate multiple clinical functions.

Northwest Medical Center had not publicly named a successor in the sources reviewed as of September 14. If the Tucson hospital opens a search, the first step should be deciding whether it wants to replace the previous CNO role as it existed or redesign it around its current operational needs.

Five actions for healthcare boards and executive teams

Write the next mandate before the job description. Define the outcomes the new leader must deliver during the first 12 to 24 months.
Map continuity risk. Identify key relationships, decisions and institutional knowledge that could be lost during the transition.
Give the interim leader explicit authority. Employees and partners should know which decisions the interim executive can make and which remain with the board or another leader.
Score internal and external candidates against the same criteria. Internal candidates bring context and trust. External candidates may bring capabilities needed for the next phase. A consistent scorecard makes the tradeoffs visible.
Plan the first 100 days before selection. Stakeholder introductions, listening sessions, operational priorities and communication milestones should be built into the search and onboarding process.

The bottom line for Arizona healthcare employers

These leadership moves reinforce a simple principle: succession is an organizational design decision before it is a recruiting decision. Banner’s layered transition protects continuity around a founder’s departure, while Bleich’s move shows why hospitals must clarify the difference between nursing leadership and broader clinical operations before entering the market.

HealthOp helps Arizona healthcare organizations define hard-to-fill leadership needs, reach qualified candidates and manage focused searches from role design through placement. Learn more about HealthOp’s direct-to-hire recruiting services or review our Arizona guide to hiring a medical-group CEO.