Name: Mark Hirschhorn
Previous title: CEO, TapestryHealth
New title: Chief financial officer, Amwell
The telehealth vendor announced Hirschhorn’s appointment after former CFO Robert Shepardson said last week he would resign effective Friday, according to a securities filing. Shepardson’s decision to step down did not involve any disagreements with the company, according to Amwell. He has been the financial head of the company since 2021.
Hirschhorn will oversee Amwell’s financial operations. He will receive an annual base salary of $485,000 and other compensation, including a $500,000 bonus for the fiscal 2024 calendar year and a long-term incentive award that could earn $5 million, according to a securities filing.
He comes to Amwell from telemedicine provider TapestryHealth, where he served as CEO for over two years.
Before Tapestry, Hirschhorn had abruptly resigned from executive roles at two telehealth companies.
He stepped down from Teladoc after working as both COO and CFO in January 2019 amid allegations of sexual misconduct and insider trading.
A late 2018 report from the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation (renamed the Foundation for Financial Journalism) said Hirschhorn had an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate and consequently fed her stock tips. The report, and Hirschhorn’s resignation shortly after, caused Teladoc’s stock price to dip and prompted a class-action lawsuit from shareholders against Hirschhorn and then-CEO Jason Gorevic. The case was ultimately dismissed in 2021.
Two years later, Hirschhorn resigned from his role as president and COO at virtual behavioral health company Talkspace following an internal review regarding his conduct at an offsite company event. Additional details were not disclosed.
Amwell’s stock price has suffered since it went public in 2020 at the height of the pandemic-era boom in virtual care.
The company implemented a reverse stock split in July, consolidating its shares to boost its stock price, to avoid being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange for failing to meet the minimum share price.
Still, Amwell has made recent progress narrowing its losses. During its second quarter earnings in August, Amwell boosted its adjusted earnings outlook for the year and said it was targeting 2026 to break even on adjusted EBITDA.
Amwell will report its third quarter results on Oct. 30.
