Steve Valdiserri on Building Discipline in Modern Healthcare

Steve Valdiserri is a Michigan-based healthcare and technology leader known for turning complex systems into clear, workable operations. With more than a decade of experience across value-based care, healthcare analytics, and health technology, his career has focused on execution, discipline, and measurable results.

Steve began his professional path with a strong foundation in structure and leadership shaped by sports. He graduated from DePauw University with a degree in Economics, where he was a four-year varsity football letterman and senior captain. The lessons from team sport — accountability, preparation, and consistency — still guide his work today.

In 2015, Steve joined VillageMD as one of its first employees. Over nearly ten years, he helped build the organization from the ground up. Starting as a manager, he progressed into senior leadership roles, including Vice President of Value-Based Strategies. His work centered on patient engagement operations, attribution management, and scaling value-based care models across complex healthcare systems.

After leaving VillageMD, Steve launched a boutique advisory practice, partnering with healthcare and technology companies navigating growth, operational strain, and regulatory complexity. He now serves as the founding partner of Avanti Strategy Group, where he helps organizations connect strategy to real financial and operational outcomes while building executional infrastructure.

Steve holds a Harvard Medical School executive certification in AI in Healthcare. He believes technology only works when the basics are sound. Outside work, he is a HYROX competitor and a vocal advocate for discipline, health, and the Food Is Medicine movement. Above all, he prioritizes being a present husband and father.

Steve Valdiserri on Discipline, Data, and Building Healthcare That Works

Q: Steve, where did your approach to leadership first take shape?

A: Long before healthcare, honestly. It started with football. I grew up in Indianapolis and played at Bishop Chatard, then at DePauw University. Being part of a team sport and I noticed the bar was pretty low when it came to guys stepping up to lead – no one wanted to. So I did. But I knew to do that, it couldn’t just be talk. I had to walk the walk. So that led me to train harder and work harder than anyone else so I could show I deserved to be in that leadership position. My command was backed by my work ethic. Being a team captain taught me that leadership is about setting standards daily, not before game speeches. You either show up prepared or you don’t.

Q: How did that translate into your professional career?

A: After college, I moved into healthcare operations. I quickly realized healthcare is one of the most complex systems you can work in – there is so much change all the time. Being organized and prepared is a must. Doing what you say you will do has a lot of meaning in healthcare. What stood out was how often good ideas failed because no one was accountable to the execution. That problem follows organizations at every size and something I’ve invested a lot of time in to solve..

Q: You joined VillageMD very early. What was that experience like?

A: Chaotic and wild west in the best way. I was one of the first employees in 2015. Nothing was built yet. No playbooks. No templates. I started as a manager sitting in a conference room with the founders, throwing stuff against the wall to see if it would stick. Ended up staying over 9 years, eventually leading national strategy work. We always had to ask ourselves, “How can this actually work in a primary care practice that is serving patients?”

Q: What lessons stayed with you from that time?

A: Just do. Act. Take action. It’s not going to be perfect because healthcare is messy. Set a vision, taking accountability, get stuff done, and execute. That will move the ball. Healthcare has plenty of ideas and definitely doesn’t have a vision problem – it’s always been an execution problem.

Q: Why did you decide to leave and start advising other organizations?

A: My time at VillageMD gave me so much. So much exposure to operational rigor, execution discipline, and great leadership. I met a lot of great people. After 9 years, I felt that I had given everything I had to VillageMD and it had given everything it had to me. We had both drained the swamp. So it was time to see what else was out there and take my skills, knowledge, and capabilities to the broader industry because I saw a lot of the same issues everywhere. I wanted to help teams slow down, fix the basics, and execute on the details.

Q: You now work with healthtech and digital health. How do you view that space?

A: It’s 100% necessary for AI to start making its mark on healthcare. It won’t fix a broken system or broken processes but it will amplify good ones. The focus has to be on solving problems – if your tech or digital health model is not solving a gap or problem, what are you doing? Technology has to make healthcare simpler, not louder. Digital health needs to focus on augmenting, not fragmenting. I’ve talked a lot about this. Disrupting primary care more should be the furthest thing from your model.

Q: Discipline seems central to your thinking. Where does that come from today?

A: Discipline is in every aspect of my life. A quote out there that “discipline can solve 80% of your problems” – that’s a lot. Discipline forms good habits. Good habits become routine. Routine creates the structure for success. One way I stay rooted in discipline is with my training for HYROX competitions. I train daily – can count on one hand how many times I’ve missed a 4am workout in the last year. Let’s be real. the progress is boring – same thing every day. But it’s repetition, doing the right thing over and over. That mindset applies to work too. If people want breakthroughs or advancement or growth…What they need are good habits.

Q: You’ve spoken about Food Is Medicine. Why does that matter to you?

A: This is a new passion of mine in 2025. I only got into it when I started making a presence on LinkedIn and started following and engaging with a few folks in the space. It made sense that I naturally was drawn to it because my wife and I are all over our nutritional intake. She has completely reshaped and formulated our diet, supplements, and vitamins to an optimal state for us both to perform daily in our respective roles. That said, chronic disease in America is a pandemic – and at the root of it is what we are putting in our bodies, how we are moving our bodies and how we are resting our bodies. We can treat the conditions inside clinics but we won’t solve it. Until we address that, costs and outcomes won’t improve.

Q: How do you define success now?

A: Clarity. Direction. Doing what I say I will do. Organization. Systems that work. And at home, happiness, peace, and being a present husband and dad.