DGTL Voices with Ed Marx - Leadership Evolution and Mentorship (ft Justin Oppenheimer)

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

On this episode of DGTL Voices, Ed interviews Justin Oppenheimer, EVP of Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS). They discuss Justin's personal journey, including his athletic background, pivotal life lessons, and the importance of family values. Justin shares insights on his career at HSS, the evolution of leadership, and the impact of technology and AI in healthcare. The conversation emphasizes the significance of helping others and finding one's purpose in life.

Thanks for tuning to Digital Voices podcast, where we chat digital transformation challenges and opportunities across healthcare and life sciences. And now, your host, Ed Marcos. Hey, Ed, Ed, thank you for listening to Digital Voices. Thanks to all of you, we are number four in the world under technology. It's because of you and great guests like my friend Justin Oppenheimer, EVP for hospital special surgery. Justin, welcome to Digital Voices. Thanks for having me. This is going to be awesome.

We were connecting over dinner not too long ago, and you were actually about to do your, was it your first triathlon, or you were about to do a triathlon? Yeah, unlike you, I can count the number of triathlons on one hand. So I did a sprint triathlon a couple weeks ago. Yeah, how did it go? I finished. Yeah, that, yay.

I finished. No, it was good. It was good. It's amazing. It's such a good activity. I'm glad we could bond over that one. You're going to have to teach me the ways, though. I don't know.

It's great that you do it, you know, because we serve in health care. We should be examples for other people, and so you're out there. That's the thing. Next, you'll have to get hospital for special surgery. You'll have to have your kit, as they call it, be HSS. That would be pretty awesome. I'd wear that kid. I love that.

Good to know. We'll have to talk to our marketing person about that. We actually did that at Texas Health when I was at Texas Health. So we had a team and we all got these really nice kits. They're actually quite nice. And that way, it was like an advertisement in a way, right? We're out there on their course and people are like, oh, yeah, that makes total sense. They're from our local health care system and they're out there exercising.

It was great, great advertising as long as we finish, though, right? Got to finish. The most important question that people have on our podcast that they like to hear answers to is what songs are on your playlist. So what kind of music do you like to listen to? Oh, man. Maybe two answers to that. The first is I have a lot of Ben Rector and like Eric Church that has listened to this summer.

I put that in the category of middle-aged man who wants to think positive thoughts on life. And then my tribe playlist, I want to know your tribe playlists. I want to know your try playlist is I got a lot of like JZ M&M, M, Lincoln Park, things that will convince you to work harder. So yeah.

That's good. I like that. For me on the try, it's don't stop me now by Queen. Excellent. And start me up by the Stones. And when I come around by, it's just spaced,

when I come around by the punk band. When I come around. Yeah. Okay. I'm embarrassed now. And that's when you're going from, you know, either the swim to the bike or the bike to the run, you just got to keep around that turn.

Yeah, when I come around, that's going to kill me. I cannot believe I'm missing. They're still around today. Obviously, all my music is like from the 80s. They're still around today. Green Day. Green Day.

There it is. Wow, Green Day. Good stuff. All right. What about life message or mantra? Are there words that sort of guide you, Justin? So for me, I'm always thinking about, you know, why are we here and what is it that we're all meant to do? You know, I've evolved my life message a couple of times.

So I think I believe in always evolving. Yes. As a key message. Last year, my life message was I'm here to help people help people. So, you know, whether that's helping support all of the amazing healthcare workers that we work with. that actually do the real helping or even helping my kids and teaching them how to help others. That was my most recent mantra.

I love that. And I think it's great, yeah, every year or season of life, right? Is your kids grow older or you take different positions at work? Yeah, that's great. So let's talk about you. Like, who are you? What is your story? Tell us about your life growing up.

Like, where were you born? Yeah. So I was born and raised in the Boston area. So for all of your fans who hate Boston sports fans, that's a big part of who I was growing up, who I still am. So I'm a big Boston sports person. I had a mother and father who were both still living

and big parts of my life and upbringing. And I'm one of two boys. And so my brother is also a huge part of my life. I actually talked to all three of them yesterday. And, you know, I think family and the values that my parents raised me on, you know, hard work, humility, giving back to others, giving in service to others. That's sort of the foundational background to who I am as a person.

Yeah, that's very cool. And you're married and you have kids of your own. Married, been together for over 20 years, and we have three amazing children, two of who started school today. Yeah, that is so cool. What a fun time of life. Hey, was there a pivotal moment in life that fundamentally changed your trajectory? As a kid, athletics really defined who I was.

You know, everyone can think back to, you know, their awkward days in adolescence and trying to find who you are as a person. I was one of those people who I basically eat, breeds, and sleep sports and playing sports. And I only went to school really at those early days so that I could go to sports after school. And, you know, what happened to me, interestingly, in high school is I had three different times. during high school where I had orthopedic surgery. And I had to stop what I was doing, take a pretty big dent in who I identified with

as myself as a person. And I'm not sure I realized it at the time because at the time I just thought it was miserable and how could this happen to me again and again? How do you get back to doing it? But looking back, it taught me a lot about life. It taught me a lot about how to persevere through challenges and it taught me how to not make one thing

and one thing only, your whole identity. Yeah. No, and it taught me how to lead actually from behind. You know, if you're playing sports, but then you've got to sit out and be part of the team a couple times over. How do you actually help that team without actually being out there? And it's a lot of different life lessons.

I think a lot comes from team sports in general for everyone who push that on our kids as well just for the life lessons. But for me, believe it or not, back in those days, That was a big, just sort of turning point in who I was with a person. Yeah, no, that's profound. Justin, what was your sport of choice?

I imagine you were a multi-sport athlete, but what was your favorite? Back in those days, I played both basketball and then soccer. And, you know, you have, it's funny. There was probably an age, probably a middle school where I thought I actually was going in the NBA, but let's be real, I was not even going to play in college. So that was a, again, it was a good turning point. But those are my favorites. now I'm just moving to Travis stay healthy. Yeah. No, that's that's awesome. What was your primary

catalyst to choose healthcare as a career? So I could go back to the orthopedics point. I do, you know, since we'll get to it, it'll work at a Musclell Special Organization. But actually, it was my mom. And so my mother professionally, she was a speech pathologist. So she was always in the health sciences. But also when I was in middle school, my, mother had cancer. And, you know, just watching and observing the experience of what a family and a patient can go through and how important health care was to our lives, God willing, she actually survived a rare form of cancer, but it was because of an amazing healthcare organization and the science behind it. I think that that really later in life pushed me to think about

how do you give back, how do you help people have those kinds of same experiences? Yeah, that's Cool. Once you landed, and we will unpack hospital for special surgery in a bit, but once you landed there, you've been there for a long time and you've really grown through multiple roles. I mean, now you're the EVP. Share more about your career there specifically at HSF. Well, HSS is a special place, and we can talk about that. In terms of my journey there, I mean, it really has been an amazing and fortunate journey. I believe in everything in careers. there's always a little bit of luck to it. In my case, it was lucky to have found the place,

very grateful that I found an amazing mentor and set of mentors who've helped me grow over time. You talk a little bit about that. I think that's had the most influence. But you also find luck, you know, people leaving roles at certain times and certain openings and organizational needs that happen to fit my strength.

So I think a lot of it was that. But definitely, definitely mentor in leadership. Lou Shapiro was that, I know you've had him on before. He was my boss for about a decade and really pushed me and challenged me in different ways and where it's always given me different opportunities. And now Dr. Brian Kelly, the last two years and sort of same thing. Always sort of itching my need to be curious to learn new things and, you know, willing to put me in different spots.

So I have to credit the people who have helped me grow and in an organization that's willing to sort of take a risk on someone like that. Yeah, those are great insights for other leaders from other organizations, you know, thinking about how do you retain great talent? Well, you got to do what they did for Justin at HSS. Yeah, like you said, you had some great leader. It's true, though, right? Otherwise, a person's going to look for another opportunity someplace else.

And you've been very blessed for sure. So, Justin, super cool roles. I mean, strategy, EVP, operating officer. Tell us about one of the cool roles that you've had. So I actually think one of the best roles I've ever had at HSS was one of the ones earlier in my career. HSS, like many healthcare organizations, is organized into what are called like clinical or medical service lines. You can think about oncology, cardiology, orthopedics, those are each called service lines for HSS.

Ours are joint replacement, spine, sports, etc. And the service line role at HSS was really both the strategy and operations role. But most importantly, it was there to help partner with and support our physicians and our medical staff. And sometimes I joke that I was raised by the physicians at HSS, kind of like Mowgli in jungle book you're like raised by the wolves and that was really my introduction to health care and it was just so valuable and so much fun because every day you're there to help a doctor or set of doctors with their own set of issues or problems or needs you know by help again helping them help them help others and uh at least for me it was a it was a super meaningful part of my career

but also just a great learning experience as someone who had never, you know, been a doctor or a clinician myself. I'd love to hear from you two or three keys to your leadership evolution. And the couple I already picked up on, so I'm going to make you think double, you know, twice as hard now.

Yeah. The couple I've already is you've always been curious. So you've remained, you've had this sense of curiosity. And you are a very teachable person. You're very open to construct. of criticism and mentoring. What are some other keys?

Because, you know, people are listening are going to be like, I want to be like Justin. So, you know, give us the gold. Yeah. I don't have all the answers to that, how to evolve in leadership.

Because again, another theme will be, I think every individual has their own journey and is their own person. But there are some, like, you know, some themes just to, you know, step back from it.

Early in career, and I think this goes for a lot people in business, that evolution of being the doer to being a leader, right? So many people get to where they are in their careers because they were really good at some specialty area or really good at actually doing things. And then as you evolve in a leader, you have to, step back and you actually have to build teams and mentor people and make sure that they're the right place. So I think that's a big evolution for everyone. And if I think about the second evolution and, you know, this, everyone has their own styles. But for me, it was an evolution of continuing

moving from sort of the telling people what needed to be done and how to do it to more of a, what's called a distributed leadership model where you're really just putting the right people in the right places and you're outlining the vision, but you're having the team step up and do what teams do best. And I think that's, you know, the next level of evolution that I've been through and excited for whatever the next one brings me after that. Yeah. No, that's really cool. So we have skirted around HSS quite a bit. I want to talk a little bit about HSS because while I certainly know about it, I think most the world knows about it, maybe there's someone out there listening that doesn't have as much insight.

Can you share a bit about the history, mission, and vision of HSS? Sure. And I'll try to do the one-minute version and not the video that infomercial. But there's a lot of pride that comes with the blue box that represents HSS. So HSS Hospital for Special Surgery is a over 160-year-old academic medical delivery system focused solely on muscle skull health. You asked about the history. The history is interesting. So in 1863, it was founded during the Civil War times, and it was really put there to help

injured soldiers as well as take care of impoverished citizens of the country. And it's evolved a lot over that 160-year history, but the entire time it has stayed solely focused on musculoskeletal health. And so what a lot of people know it for is orthopedic surgery. People come from over 100 countries in all 50 states to have orthopedic surgery. We get a lot of notoriety for famous athletes and celebrities. I think we had in one month last year, both Tiger Woods and the Dalai Lama had surgery at HSS, both of which are in the public domain.

So, you know, it's a really special place because of the medical staff and the clinical staff that work there. And it's stayed focused on one thing and one thing only, which I think makes it a little bit of. you know, a novelty in the healthcare space and is also probably core to why it's so great at what it does. Yeah, it is an amazing organization. I think you forgot one other famous patient.

I think in 2015 had a left meniscus knee tear, repair, some Team USA triathlet or something. Well, I wanted you to put that out there because we're not trying to break HIPAA here. I want you to disclose that first, but yes, and we have your signed jerseys all over the walls. So right up there next to, we'll put it up there next to Tiger and Kevin Durant. No, it is a great organization.

When I needed surgery, it was the place that I went for sure and would go again. Hopefully, won't need it. You all do more than just surgery, though. Can you, you know, as you were explaining a little bit about HSS, can you build that out a little bit more? It's not just, you know, for cutting. Absolutely. And I think that's also a really important evolution of the organization. over the last decade and especially as we look at the future.

We think of Musclestal Health as the entire spectrum, from wellness to injury prevention, diagnostics, non-operative care, the best surgical care when you need it, and then beyond that, performance and longevity. And if you think about the way the world's moving and this last even five, ten years that we've been in, everyone's so focused on health span and how can we live healthier lives, longer. You know, musculos skull health, the bones and the joints and our balance and our strength is the core to all of that. It's the number one condition in the world. It's, you know, one out of two Americans has some sort of musculoskelet condition or disorder in its life. And if you

think about all the pain and discomfort and how that leads to heart disease and diabetes and depression, if you can keep moving in a good way, you know, you'll stay healthier. So that's, that's our vision, make the world healthier by making sure that everyone moves better. And that's where that's what we do every day. And that's where we're headed into the future. Yeah, I love that. How has digital and AI, you know, technology in general changed HSS? You know, you've been there for a few years now. What sort of changes have you observed? So I'm a prescriber to the fact that AI and digital is, is changing healthcare. And it's not a question of if, it's not even a question of it, you know, how we're going to do it. It is a question a little bit about like,

how are those changes going to happen at what point in time. And so what we've observed at HSS and I've sort of seen in talking to people like you and others out there in the space is right now we're in this period of great operational efficiency and administrative sort of areas for AI to take real hold. We're enabling people to do work. work faster and more accurately. We're enabling clinicians to spend more times with their patients rather than clicking into a computer. Everything we can do with ambient listening, just as an example, is allowing doctors and patients

to have more human interactions. I think the really most interesting thing about the application of AI on clinical care is just that. When is the world going to be ready for a computer? to take care of your health. And the answer is now, but how far will that go, how fast? And I think that's partially how receptive patients and consumers are to getting that information without a doctor and how receptive clinicians are to letting that happen.

And I think it will take some time. I think it's always a person and a machine that needs to be in healthcare. I do think we're getting to a point where you'll be able to get a pretty accurate diagnosis at some point in time, you know, leveraging data and AI. And I actually think it's parts of the world that have lower access to quality care. Someone like you, you could go to HSS. I live in the New York Tri-State area. I can get the best of any health care at the drop of a hat. But there are parts of the world where there's really not as great access to good health care. And I actually think the the AI impact in those areas on the clinical side will be greatest first. And then we'll see how

that goes and how it evolves into the rest of our communities. Yeah, that's well said. And of course, you've all been blessed with having great tech digital AI leaders like Dr. Seed Broad and Jamie Nelson for a long tenure before that. So that always helps as well. Super grateful for both of them. And I think you should have people like a sheish on your show to talk about AI. You'd be way better suited than I ever would be. Well, it's always good to hear the operations perspective as well, because, you know, it's, as you know, it's the magic of the clinical ops and tech working together that, you know, does the wondrous miracles we all know about. I want to sort of head back into leadership a bit. What was the moment where your vulnerability became your greatest

strength. Oh, man. I think honestly, again, I go back to my early days in a career at HSS, and I did not know a thing about health care and approached every one of those discussions with the complete humility that that's where I was coming from. And, you know, being able to talk to someone and say, look, let me ask you questions. Let me go try to solve it for you or a health. find the team that can get you the right answer, but just know that I'm coming to you out of a place of, you know, admiration for what you do, never even able to be able to be or do what you do.

And, you know, I'm just here to help. And I think entering every conversation like that from the very beginning did me a lot of good and frankly is something that have to carry forward every single day. Yeah. No, I love that. And what is one thing your parents forced you to do? Like it sounds like you have great parents

and it's great that they're still alive, but there had to be something that they forced you to do and you probably rolled your eyes a bit, you and your brothers. But now that you look back, you're like, dang, I'm so happy they made me do it. You probably do it to your kids as well. Well, the easier answer would be chores,

especially since I just put a chore sheet up on our kids' door last night. But actually, the more meaningful one is actually through our local church, my parents sent me on two separate, week-long service trips in my probably teenage years. One was to Biloxi, Mississippi, the other was to a poor part in rural South Dakota. And I think at that age, I'm sure I was wondering why I was taking a week of my life to not be with my closest friends and to go on those activities. But in retrospect, really seeing what the world is like for its goods and bads and seeing how you could help people,

even one family in each trip was really meaningful. And it is something that my wife and I are trying to figure out how in today's day and age we do that with our children in a way that can be as meaningful for them. So I'd say service for sure. Yeah. Well, that's a great example. Yeah, we took our, we call it vacation with a purpose.

We did that for many years where we would be part vacation with part mission or service orientation. And I think it really helped with the development of our kids. And it was great for us, too, to go through that continuously. How do you recharge your batteries and remain fresh? I mean, you're like, you got a heavy role there at HSS and your family guy and you got brothers and, you know, all the different things in life. But how do you stay balanced or healthy?

I mean, probably no different than you with all your triathlon training. I exercise pretty regularly. And it is that morning ritual and routine that wakes me up and gives me energy for the So movement is my medicine. Yeah, no, I love it. Justin, this has been a great conversation. We talked a lot about everything from your tribe playlist. That's a first for digital voices after 300 episodes.

We need to make a specific triathlon playlist. And then you're defining moments, you know, around athletics and, you know, realize your identity couldn't be there, had to be somewhere else. But it taught you resilience, taught you more about who you really were and taught you how to lead from behind. We talked about the catalyst for your career. with your mom having cancer and getting through that. And then once you landed at HSS, you know, you were given great opportunities and responsibilities and you remain curious and teachable and continue to evolve your leadership and again, helping others.

And so that's why you've flourished the way that you have. What did we miss? Or is there anything you want to double down on? I'll give you the last word. Oh, my goodness. That was such an amazing summary of such a short period of time. I don't think that we missed anything. You know, it's interesting.

I was actually reflecting on what in her summary. My takeaway from hearing that back is just this belief that everybody out there has a purpose. And everybody out there can contribute in their own way to whatever it is they're doing. It could be the world of technology. It could be the world of healthcare, but it could be as a teacher or as a fireman or as a politician. I mean, literally, there is no right answer. and I think other than, you know, one finding for themselves. And I think we're all on that journey.

We're all on that journey for our whole lives. But, you know, just giving people the faith and optimism that they're there for a reason and that they can find it and make it their own is sort of the message that I heard when you summarized our talk today. So play that one back for everyone. All right, Justin, you're an awesome leader, awesome man serving out an awesome organization. Thanks for being our guest on Digital Voices. Well, thanks for having me.

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