By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

BOSTON (Reuters) – NextGen Healthcare (NASDAQ:) Inc said on Monday it has hired healthcare information technology veteran David Sides as its chief executive officer, three months after his predecessor left.

Sides joins the Atlanta-headquartered developer and marketer of healthcare information systems from Teladoc (NYSE:) Health Inc, a telemedicine and virtual healthcare company, where he was chief operating officer and has worked since 2019. This week, he will assume the role of president.

NextGen (valued at $1 billion) is in the final stages a bitter proxy battle where the board and founder are facing off.

Sides was previously a senior vice-president for global consulting at Cerner (NASDAQ) during 17 years of his career.

Jeffrey Margolis, NextGen’s chairman, stated in a statement, that Sides was an ideal candidate. The company has now a powerful management team, which defines what leadership looks like. This includes continued stability in operations, customer delivery and enhanced strategic industry knowledge. He is also a skilled and experienced leader who will be the CEO.

Rusty Frantz was fired in June, after six years of service as NextGen CEO and President. Sides will replace him.

Sides, who joins NextGen’s list of nine nominees for the seat on NextGen’s board, will be running.

The company’s nominees and Sheldon Razin the founder will be elected by shareholders on October 13. Razin (who has been a director of NextGen since 1974) is not among the nominees.

Razin has criticised NextGen’s poor financial performance. NextGen’s stock prices have dropped 16.17% in January and closed trading Friday at $15.29. The has gained 16.73% during the same time.