Sarah Ladd Eames is a senior member of the Board and CEO Advisory Group, as well as the Health Services and Global Life Sciences Practices at Russell Reynolds Associates. She specializes in succession planning and recruiting CEOs, senior executive leaders, and board members for healthcare services, health plans, pharmaceutical, and diagnostics companies. Eames serves a diverse group of clients comprised of Fortune 500, mid-cap, and emerging growth companies in the United States and Europe. She has recruited for multisite for-profit and private equity healthcare services companies, managed care organizations, and integrated delivery systems. Based in New York, she offers clients a broad industry perspective, strategic insights, a consultative approach, and rigorous assessment of candidates. Eames also co-founded the firm’s CEO Roundtable for Healthcare CEOs.
Eames possesses more than 25 years of diverse healthcare services and board of director experience in both the public and private sectors, including time with Trinity Health. Prior to joining RRA, Eames held roles at Allied Healthcare International, and also held roles at American Hospital Supply Corporation, Apria Healthcare Group, Baxter International, and Johnson & Johnson.
Eames received her Bachelor of Arts in economics from Northwestern University, Phi Beta Kappa, and her Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Irvine. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York and the Advisory Board of the Smithsonian Libraries, and is a member of the Economic Club of New York.
Areas of expertise
Health Services and Global Life Sciences, Succession planning and recruiting.
Group Overview
Healthcare leaders are redefining the future of the industry. Russell Reynolds partners with healthcare organizations to advise on leadership issues and build top teams who can address these issues by integrating cutting-edge technologies, creating new revenue streams, redesigning interactions with end-users, and leading with purpose.
Lead with Purpose
Healthcare organizations continue to improve health equity—from facilitating affordability and accessibility, to moving the dial on sustainability and DE&I. Russell Reynolds connects you to diverse leaders and those with a solid track record of driving tangible enterprise-wide change.
Cultivate a Patient-Centric Culture
People want more say in their healthcare decisions than ever before. Patient-centric thinking must now flow across your entire business strategy and culture; it’s not enough for it to be the domain of your marketing and sales team. Russell Reynolds helps you identify, nurture and retain leaders who can deftly pivot to this new reality.
Anticipate a Transforming Landscape
Record-breaking IPOs, large-scale M&A deals, and PE/VC capital have rapidly transformed the healthcare industry. Russell Reynolds helps leaders proactively adapt—whether that’s updating business models, re-thinking organizational cultures or identifying future-ready next-gen leaders.
Power Next-Gen HealthTech
New technologies, business models, and new entrants are transforming healthcare. Russell Reynolds understands the cross-pollination of leadership between technology and healthcare players and can introduce mission-driven, out-of-industry executives who will help you stay ahead of the game.
Accelerate Digital Transformation
As healthcare organizations take steps to stay on the right side of digital transformation, competition is heating up for digital talent. Russell Reynolds draws on their vast understanding of the tech talent ecosystem to identify the leaders you need to unleash digital-enabled growth.
35% - RRA’s proprietary analysis of F1000 Healthcare CEOs highlights that 35% are appointed externally. To better prepare for the future, organizations need to prioritize CEO succession planning and development.
8% - RRA’s proprietary analysis of F1000 Healthcare CEOs highlights that only 8% of CEOs are female. It is essential for organizations to intentionally integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion practices into CEO succession and next-generation processes for gender equality.
Unlock innovation across healthcare
Our healthcare experts have extensive experience across the industry, finding and developing visionary leaders in:
Biotechnology
Healthcare Services
Medical Devices and Diagnostics
Pharmaceuticals
Public Health Systems
Firm Overview
For more than 50 years, Russell Reynolds Associates has been committed to their purpose to improve the way the world is led. Russell Reynolds firm’s history is one of excellence, partnership, and meticulous execution.
Purpose-led, right from the beginning.
In 1966, Russell S. Reynolds, Jr. left a career in banking to join a boutique US search firm. Companies globally were in a period of transition, with economies shifting and advances in science, technology, and engineering creating challenges and opportunities that called for leaders with new kinds of skills. Russ fell in love with the industry and eventually felt compelled to launch an executive search firm of his own. He raised investments from family and friends, and together Russ and a partner, Lee Getz, opened the first location of Russell Reynolds Associates on Madison Avenue in New York City in 1969.
From the beginning, RRA was a dynamic firm with a culture of mutual respect and strong ethics, and over the next several years, the firm began to gain a reputation in the market for their depth and breadth of specialized expertise as well as their high-touch client approach. This momentum led to incredible growth – first in the US and then internationally. By 1977 RRA was already one of the Big Six in the executive search space, and in the 1990s the firm became the fastest-growing of the major executive search firms. By 2000 Russell Reynolds had 35 offices around the world.
Russell Reynolds’ growth has continued into the 21st century. Today RRA has 47 offices in major cities globally, advising some of the world’s largest and most complex organizations on their most pressing leadership challenges across industries, functions, and geographies.
While the needs of RRA’s clients have evolved since they started, the fundamental challenge they face remains: the need for new types of leaders with the skills to shape what’s next, tapping into the opportunities brought by disruptive changes in the market and technology.
Across RRA’s history, they have remained committed to being a redefiner – to having their fingers on the pulse and to helping their clients stay ahead of the curve by finding and developing future-ready leaders.
Russell Reynolds Associates is a global leadership advisory firm. Their 520+ consultants in 47 offices work with public, private and nonprofit organizations across all industries and regions. Russell helps their clients build teams of transformational leaders who can meet today’s challenges and anticipate the digital, economic and political trends that are reshaping the global business environment. From helping boards with their structure, culture and effectiveness to identifying, assessing and defining the best leadership for organizations, Russell’s teams bring their decades of expertise to help clients address their most complex leadership issues. Russell exists to improve the way the world is led.
