Northgate appoints new CEO

We’ve just spotted news that Northgate Information Solutions has appointed a Group CEO to replace Chris Stone, who announced his decision to leave the firm in September after twelve years at the helm (see here). He’s being replaced by Adel Al-Saleh, who joins from healthcare technology firm IMS Health where he held various senior positions including president of EMEA. Before that, he spent 19 years at IBM. Al-Saleh must know that he has some pretty big shoes to fill, but we don’t expect him to be in them for all that long. As we said in September, the chances are that Northgate’s backers KKR (like any other PE house) will be looking for an exit soon and Al-Saleh’s appointment may well be part of their ‘preparation for exit’.