Steve Valdiserri is a Michigan-based healthcare and technology leader known for transforming complex systems into clear, actionable operations. With more than a decade of experience in value-based care, healthcare analytics and healthcare technology, he has focused his career on execution, discipline and measurable results.
Steve began his career with a strong, sports-driven foundation in structure and leadership. He earned his business degree from DePauw University, where he was a four-year varsity football letterman and senior captain. The lessons he learned from team sports – responsibility, preparation and consistency – continue to guide his work today.
In 2015, Steve joined VillageMD as one of the first employees. Over nearly ten years, he helped build the organization from the ground up. He started as a manager and rose to senior leadership roles, including Vice President of Value-Based Strategies. His work has focused on patient engagement operations, attribution management, and scaling value-based care models in complex healthcare systems.
After leaving VillageMD, Steve founded a boutique consulting practice, working with healthcare and technology companies navigating growth, operational stresses and regulatory complexities. Today he is a founding partner of Avanti Strategy Group, where he helps organizations connect strategies to actual financial and operational results while building infrastructure for execution.
Steve holds an executive certification from Harvard Medical School in AI in Healthcare. He believes that technology only works when the fundamentals are solid. Outside of work, he is a HYROX competitor and a vocal advocate for discipline, health and the Food Is Medicine movement. Above all, he values being a present husband and father.
Steve Valdiserri on discipline, data and building healthcare that works
Q: Steve, where did your leadership approach first take shape?
A: Honestly, long before healthcare. It started with football. I grew up in Indianapolis and played at Bishop Chatard and then DePauw University. Being part of a team sport, I noticed that the bar was pretty low when it came to boys taking charge – no one wanted that. So I did it. But I knew I should do this, it couldn’t just be talk. I had to walk the path. This led to me training harder and working harder than anyone else to show that I deserved to be in that leadership position. My command was backed by my work ethic. As a team captain, I learned that leadership is about setting standards every day, not game talk. Either you are prepared or you are not.
Q: How has this impacted your professional career?
A: After college, I went into the healthcare field. I quickly realized that healthcare is one of the most complex systems to work in – there is so much change happening all the time. Organization and preparation are a must. Doing what you say is important in healthcare. What was striking was how often good ideas failed because no one was responsible for implementing them. This problem affects businesses of all sizes and I have invested a lot of time into solving it.
Q: You came to VillageMD very early. How was that experience?
A: Chaotic and Wild West in the best sense. I was one of the first employees in 2015. Nothing has been built yet. No playbooks. No templates. I started as a manager sitting in a conference room with the founders and throwing things against the wall to see if they stuck. He ended up staying for over 9 years and eventually led the national strategy work. We always had to ask ourselves: “How can this actually work in a general practice that looks after patients?”
Q: What lessons have you learned from this time?
A: Just do it. Act. Take action. It won’t be perfect because healthcare is chaotic. Set a vision, take responsibility, get things done and make them happen. This causes the ball to move. Healthcare has a lot of ideas and is definitely not a vision problem – it has always been an implementation problem.
Q: Why did you decide to go and consult for other organizations?
A: My time at VillageMD has given me so much. So much experience with operational rigor, execution discipline and great leadership. I met a lot of great people. After 9 years, I felt like I had given VillageMD everything I had and it had given me everything it had. We had both drained the swamp. So it was time to see what else was out there and bring my skills, knowledge and abilities to the wider industry as I was seeing many of the same problems everywhere. I wanted to help teams slow down, improve the fundamentals, and implement the details.
Q: You now work in health technology and digital health. How do you see this space?
A: It is 100% necessary for AI to become mainstream in healthcare. It won’t fix a broken system or broken processes, but it will improve good ones. The focus must be on solving problems – if your technology or digital health model doesn’t solve a gap or problem, what do you do? Technology must make healthcare easier, not louder. Digital health must focus on expansion, not fragmentation. I’ve talked about it a lot. Their model may be the furthest thing from disrupting primary care.
Q: Discipline seems central to your thinking. Where does this come from today?
A: Discipline is present in every aspect of my life. There is a quote that “discipline can solve 80% of your problems” – that’s a lot. Discipline builds good habits. Good habits become routine. Routine creates the structure for success. One way I stay true to the discipline is by training for HYROX competitions. I train every day – on the one hand, I can count how many times I’ve missed a 4 a.m. workout in the last year. Let’s be honest. Progress is boring – the same thing every day. But it’s repetition, doing the right thing over and over again. This attitude also applies to work. If people want breakthroughs, progress, or growth, they need good habits.
Q: You talked about food is medicine. Why is this important to you?
A: This is a new passion of mine in 2025. I only got into it when I started having a presence on LinkedIn and started following and connecting with a few people in this space. It made sense that I was naturally drawn to it because my wife and I were depleting our food intake. She has completely redesigned our diet, supplements and vitamins and formulated them so that we can both fulfill our respective tasks on a daily basis. However, chronic illness in America is a pandemic – and its cause lies in what we put into our bodies, how we move our bodies, and how we rest our bodies. We can treat the problems in clinics, but we will not solve them. Unless we address this, costs and outcomes will not improve.
Q: How do you define success now?
A: Clarity. Direction. I do what I say, I will do it. Organization. Systems that work. And at home, happiness, peace and the presence of a husband and father.
