Two closely watched deputies in technology announced they are resigning from their roles within days of each other.
Fidji Simo, CEO of AGI Deployment at OpenAI and the No. 2 executive in the company, will leave her full-time role and shift to a part-time advisory position, she told the company July 9. Sumit Rana, president of Epic — the EHR vendor whose software anchors the digital record at most of the country’s largest health systems — will step down Aug. 14 after more than two decades with the company. Neither is leaving over strategy or performance. Both cited health and family.
Ms. Simo’s exit follows a three-month medical leave that began after what she described as a severe exacerbation of a chronic illness she has lived with for seven years.
“Over the last seven years, I’ve spent countless hours in doctors’ offices, dealing with symptoms, treatments, insurance, uncertainty, and all the invisible work that comes with being a patient. Like millions of others living with chronic illness, I’ve experienced firsthand how difficult healthcare can be to navigate, even when you have every possible advantage,” she wrote in her July 9 statement.
She framed the decision as one she should have made sooner, recalling that Facebook once offered her a full year of medical leave and that she declined without pausing to consider it. “At the time, Zuck told me I should play the long game,” she wrote. “I wish I had listened.”
For AI leaders in healthcare, the more telling part of Ms. Simo’s note is where she is focused next. She called curing disease “the most important thing AI could accomplish,” and said the invisible work of being a patient convinced her that AI’s biggest openings lie in everyday human problems, health chief among them. She will continue advising OpenAI while working with two research efforts focused on neuroimmune conditions, Chronicle Bio and Complex Disorders Alliance. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and the company board offered the part-time arrangement, she said.
Ms. Simo sat at the center of OpenAI’s commercial future. Hired to accelerate ChatGPT’s growth, she brought advertising to the chatbot and added consumer features, drawing on prior stints as CEO of Instacart and a senior Meta executive, according to The Wall Street Journal. She was charged with maturing OpenAI’s business model ahead of a potential IPO, Bloomberg reported. The company filed to go public last month at an $852 billion valuation from its March round.
Her exit removes that operator at a consequential moment, though Mr. Altman framed the loss personally. “I am really sad about this and very grateful for all Fidji has done for OpenAI, and even grateful for her friendship and who she is as a person,” he wrote. “We all wish her the best for a speedy recovery. This sucks.”
At Epic, Mr. Rana’s departure carries sharper implications for the health IT market. He joined the Verona, Wis.-based company in 1998 as a software developer and rose to president in 2024, a tenure that made him the most visible internal candidate to eventually succeed founder and CEO Judy Faulkner, who is 82. His exit leaves that succession question more open at the dominant EHR vendor.
He is leaving for family. “My father passed away, and it’s been a difficult time for our family,” Mr. Rana wrote in a July 3 email to employees shared with Becker’s. His mother lives in India, and he said the change will let him support her and be more present for his wife and children. He called Epic “the best thing that ever happened to me” and said the company’s “best days are still ahead.”
Epic is not naming a new president. Instead, Ms. Faulkner said four leaders will absorb additional responsibilities: Seth Howard, executive vice president of research and development, and Mark Lipsky, Erv Walter and Garrett Adams, each a senior vice president of R&D. “Over our nearly 50-year history, Epic has excelled at identifying and growing strong leaders from within,” she said. The company declined interviews or to detail the new responsibilities.
That approach — distributing a departing leader’s portfolio across a mentored bench rather than backfilling the title — is worth watching for executives who negotiate roadmaps, contracts and escalations with Epic. It signals continuity in the near term and, for now, no single successor stepping into Mr. Rana’s seat.
The two exits are not connected, and the companies are different in mission. Both land against a backdrop of unusual calm at the top. U.S. companies announced 782 CEO exits through May, down 24% from a year earlier, as boards favor stability over change, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Hospitals were an exception, with chief executive exits up 25% year-to-date.
Consistent attention tracks changes in the corner office. Second-in-commands draw less notice, yet they are often the load-bearing figures on a leadership team — the operators who carry the product roadmap, hold the board and customer relationships, and, more often than not, form the bench a successor is eventually drawn from. Ms. Simo was building toward OpenAI’s IPO; Mr. Rana was the name most often floated to one day succeed Ms. Faulkner. Their exits may never register in a CEO turnover count but can subtly reshape a company all the same.
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