Mr Martin joins WorldHeart from Edwards Lifesciences where he was president of the North American region and corporate vice president since 2004.
Previously, Mr Martin was with Cordis, a Johnson and Johnson company, where he served as senior vice president of international and prior to that, vice president of sales and marketing.
Michael Estes, chair of board of directors at WorldHeart, said: “Alex’s extensive background in medical technologies and long-standing relationships within the cardiovascular community will be particularly valuable as WorldHeart brings its Levacor technology into the clinical arena and continues to advance its unique ‘mag-lev’ technology platform. The board of directors is also very pleased that Jal Jassawalla will continue in his key role as executive vice president of WorldHeart.”