The next step for Partners HealthCare

From A business perspective, Partners needs a new face, a new voice, and most of all, a new attitude. That's why Kate Walsh's name comes up as a potential candidate to succeed Gary Gottlieb, Partners's outgoing CEO. Walsh, the current president and CEO of Boston Medical Center, is known as a fearless and independent leader who is passionately committed to BMC's mission — serving the city's most needy. Choosing someone like that to head the state's largest health care network would send a powerful message about Partners's reconfigured priorities. It would also be precedent-setting. The Partners's CEO job has always been held by a male physician — and Walsh is neither.