The Cardiologist's Advocate^™.

Northgate™ represents cardiologists across interventional, electrophysiology, advanced heart failure, non-invasive, structural, adult congenital, and cardiac imaging. Bespoke representation and permanent placement. Personal, from first private call to signed offer.

We represent the cardiologist.

Most firms in this category work for the hospital or the group. They are paid by the buyer to fill the cath-lab call schedule, the EP block, the heart-failure clinic. Fast. We invert that. Northgate™ works for the cardiologist, who is the rarer asset and the one whose career carries the longest tail.

Cardiology is not one specialty. An interventional cardiologist coming off a STEMI call rotation has a different life than a non-invasive cardiologist building a structural-imaging program. The decisions a senior electrophysiologist makes about a device-clinic split are not the decisions an advanced heart failure cardiologist makes about MCS volume. We treat the sub-discipline as the primary unit of the conversation, not the line on the board certificate.

A partner leads the conversation from the first private call to the signed offer. Your name does not leave this office without your written sign-off. Not in a pitch. Not on a shortlist.

The first conversation is private. There is no obligation on either side.

The work within cardiology.

We are deliberate about the sub-discipline. The market for an interventional cardiologist with STEMI program leadership experience is not the market for a cardiac imager building a structural program, and the offer terms reflect that. The seven sub-disciplines below are where the bulk of our cardiology work has lived.

Interventional Cardiology: STEMI program leadership, complex coronary intervention, CTO, and high-risk PCI. Volume, call structure, and lab block time are the primary recruitment levers.
Electrophysiology: Complex ablation, device implantation, and EP lab leadership. Group economics on devices and the split with the device clinic decide most conversations.
Advanced Heart Failure: Cardiogenic shock teams, durable MCS programs, and transplant cardiology. UNOS allocation experience and shock-team integration matter more than headcount.
Non-invasive Cardiology: General cardiology, prevention, and outpatient consultative practice. The work that anchors a stable referral base and a sustainable late-career arc.
Structural Heart: TAVR, MitraClip, TriClip, and structural imaging. A small and growing universe; program-level leadership roles drive most of the search activity.
Adult Congenital Heart: ACHD-board-certified physicians. A rare sub-discipline; institutional commitment to ACHD volume tends to define whether the conversation goes anywhere.
Cardiac Imaging: Advanced echo, cardiac MRI, and cardiac CT. Often a path to structural-program leadership; the imaging volume and reading model decide fit.

The cardiologist we represent.

We are most useful to cardiologists who are seven to twenty years into practice, board-certified in their primary sub-discipline, and at a real inflection point. A practice that has matured to the point where the next move has to be the right one. A program-leadership track that is opening or closing somewhere else. A family decision that is shaping geography. A non-compete that is finally running out.

The conversation tends to work less well for trainees, for physicians who are exploring without a real reason to move, and for searches where the institution is unwilling to discuss the operating reality of the role before the candidate is on a plane.

Tenure: Seven to twenty years post-fellowship, with at least four years at the current institution. Earlier-career physicians better served elsewhere.
Sub-discipline depth: A clear primary sub-discipline with procedural volume to match. Mixed practices are workable but rarely the right fit for program leadership conversations.
Leadership trajectory: Either an existing program-leadership role or a clear path to one. Service-line director, division chief, lab director, fellowship program director.
Geography of the next move: A short list of regions that work for the household, not a national reset. The household is part of the equation from the first call.
Reason for the conversation: A specific reason this season, not general curiosity. The reason itself often shapes the right next role.

What we are seeing.

Cardiology compensation has bifurcated. Interventional, EP, and structural seats at high-volume programs are clearing well above the MGMA median; non-invasive and imaging-heavy roles continue to compress against employed-model wRVU schedules. The most useful number is rarely the headline base. The recruitment lever is almost always the call structure, the lab block, or the partnership-track economics.

Interventional, employed: Base packages clearing $700K to $850K at large IDNs for STEMI-call coverage; full comp materially higher with wRVU and procedural quality bonus.
Electrophysiology, private: Senior EP partner-track comp running well above academic equivalents, with device-clinic economics often the larger lever than the base.
Advanced Heart Failure: Protected non-clinical time and MCS volume drive offers more than dollars; shock-team integration is increasingly a written term.
Structural Heart: Program-leadership packages now routinely include structural-imaging block time, lab time guarantee, and a written volume-growth plan.
Non-invasive & Imaging: Compensation more compressed; the conversation tends to move on quality of practice, schedule, and outpatient-only models.
Outside income: On the table for senior cardiologists in private and PE-backed groups; less common but increasingly written into academic offers for named-program leaders.

More detail in The 2026 Compensation Notes, the firm’s annual specialty-by-specialty supplement on offers we have seen close.

Read the Cardiology notes

The rooms we work in.

The institutions that engage Northgate™ for cardiology searches. Each has hired at this level before, knows what the seat costs when it is wrong, and comes to the firm precisely because the conversation stays quiet.

i Academic Medical Centers
ii Integrated Delivery Networks
iii Quaternary Cardiac Programs
iv Heart & Vascular Institutes
v Cardiology Private Groups
vi PE-Backed Cardiology Platforms
vii Children’s Hospitals (ACHD)
viii Faculty Practice Plans

When you are ready to make a move,
you need the right people in your corner.

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