Cliff Illig

Cliff W. Illig, vice chairman of the board and co-founder of Cerner, focuses on growing and expanding Cerner’s market-oriented business units, key strategic relationships and priority corporate initiatives.

Illig previously served as chief operating officer until October 1998 and as president until March 1999. Illig’s keen business sense was instrumental in the company’s initial public stock offering in 1986, secondary public offering in 1995 and three two-for-one stock splits in the 1990s.

Illig served as the initial force behind Cerner’s internal operations, including its leading-edge communication and information systems technology, client service methodologies, and sales and marketing strategies.

He recognized early on that the ability to communicate and share information within the enterprise is as essential to Cerner as it is to any of its clients. Under Illig’s leadership, Cerner set a standard for the use of enterprise-wide technology to achieve seamless communication and information sharing throughout the organization.

He also played a key role in the design of the Cerner Millennium® architecture, which uses advanced technologies to automate the process of managing health along the full continuum of care. Cerner Millennium collects clinical data as a by-product of the care process for use in electronic medical records and for benchmarking outcomes. The Cerner Millennium architecture also enables Cerner clients to benefit from a seamless flow of clinical information across multiple clinical disciplines and among geographically diverse locations.

Currently, Illig serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the Heart of America Council of Boy Scouts of America. In addition, he and Cerner Chairman and CEO Neal Patterson, along with others, are co-owners of Kansas City’s Major League Soccer franchise, Sporting KC. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Stowers Institute.

In 1991, the Ernst & Young accounting firm honored Illig and Patterson as Entrepreneurs of the Year. Prior to co-founding Cerner in 1979, he was a system consultant and manager with Arthur Andersen & Co. in Kansas City, Mo. He is a graduate of the University of Kansas with a degree in accounting and business administration.