Episode 276: David Dennis, CEO, Eckerd Connects, Gameness: Land o…

This week, we interviewed Karen Davis. Karen is a seasoned executive coach, speaker, and author with over 25 years of leadership experience in the B2B tech sector. She brings nearly two decades of coaching mastery to high-performing executives, entrepreneurs, and fellow coaches. Karen is the co-author of How to Get the Most Out of Coaching: A Client’s Guide for Optimizing the Coaching Experience, a go-to resource for making coaching more effective and transformational.  Known for her intuitive and heart-centered approach, Karen helps leaders uncover blind spots, reclaim clarity, and make bold, aligned decisions. She lives and works near Boulder, Colorado, drawing inspiration from nature, travel, andher vibrant family—including her life partner, adult children, and her beloved dogs, Jax and Pepper. Learn more at KarenDavisCoaching.com

This week, we interviewed Jeremy Laynor, the Senior Vice President of Sales at Providence Medical Technology. We discussed his book The Point Guard Approach. Jeremy offers some insight into what it takes to be a leader at work and at home. Jeremy has a strong track record of success in medical device sales leadership, with specific experience in the spinal implant market. He most recently served as Vice President of Sales at Paradigm Spine, where he was instrumental in growing their commercial effort since 2013. Jeremy held sales leadership positions at Medtronic and previously at Salient Surgical, where he helped the market development of their advanced energy platform to the standard of care for many common orthopedic and spine procedures. He began his healthcare career with Cardinal Health, where he specialized in cultivating national sales teams for new pharmaceutical, biotech, or medical technologies. Jeremy graduated from Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania, where he played point guard for the men’s basketball team. He is a husband and proud father of four children, and the family currently lives in Dallas, Texas.

This week, we interviewed Nathan King. Nathan is a consultant who helps leadership teams achieve powerful execution for organizational growth. After leading a healthcare services business unit from $25M to $100M in revenue at Shearwater Health, Nathan launched a consulting practice dedicated to turning strategic intent into sustained organizational outcomes.  With over two decades of experience in high-growth publicly traded and PE-backed companies, Nathan specializes in two key areas: guiding organizational transformations and helping leaders build high-performing teams through executive coaching and facilitating leadership-team development. Nathan holds an MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia and resides in Nashville, TN.

This week, we interviewed David Dennis. David is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Eckerd Connects, one of the nation’s largest nonprofits providing workforce development, Job Corps, juvenile justice, and child welfare services across the country. We talked about his book Gameness: Land on your Feet, not on your feelings. He has earned certifications as a licensed professional counselor, marriage and family therapist, and childcare administrator. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Oklahoma Baptist University and a master’s degree in marriage and family counseling from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He and his wife Becky live in Clearwater, Florida. They have five grown children.

This week, we interviewed Lori Chmura, the Chief Executive Officer and Board Director at Nyra Medical, an innovative medical device company developing a next-generation transcatheter mitral valve repair technology. Before joining Nyra Medical, she served as Chief Executive Officer, and Board Director at Soundbite Medical Solutions and Dune Medical Devices, where she led the restructuring of both businesses resulting in a cross-border licensing deal at one company, and an acquisition of the other. In addition, Lori brings leadership experience in several large multi-national medical device companies, including positions with Medtronic, Covidien and Johnson and Johnson, where she led the growth of the businesses in the United States and globally. Lori previously served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors at Bluestem Medical. She has also served on the Board of Directors, Audit Committee and Deal Team at OpSens Medical (TSX- OPS), which was acquired by Haemonetics (NYSE-HAE) in 2023, and on the Board of Standard Molecular. Ms. Chmura holds an MBA from Duke University and received her Bachelor of Science in nursing from Southern Connecticut State University.

This week, we interviewed Laura Stoltenberg. Laura is the President and Chief Executive Officer at Cryosa. Laura brings nearly three decades of experience in strategy, business development, and global general management. She has a passion for developing and commercializing novel products to improve the standard of care. Most recently, Laura was Sector Chief Executive at Halma PLC, responsible for $1B in revenue. While at Medtronic, she served as Vice President and General Manager at Medtronic Diabetes and built a new business focused on Type 2 patients. Laura served as Chief Commercial Officer at Exact Sciences Corporation, where she was responsible for developing the global commercial strategy prior to FDA approval. Earlier in her career, she held escalating commercial and leadership roles at General Electric, including leading GE Healthcare’s global bone densitometry business and completing a number of acquisitions. Laura earned an MBA at Columbia Business School and bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering and management at Bucknell University.

This week, we interviewed Chuck Brynelsen. Chuck is currently the Chair of the Board of Directors at Envoy Medical; he serves on the board of Alebra Technologies and is a Venture Partner at SpringRock Ventures. Previously, Chuck served as a Senior Vice President of Abbot Vascular; Chuck Brynelsen led an organization focused on reducing cardiovascular disease's global impact. Chuck was previously the Global President of Early Technologies for Medtronic and President of Early Technologies for Covidien. Chuck has also spent seven years as CEO of Intrapace, a start-up medical device company treating obesity. Before Intrapace, Check spent 24 years at Medtronic in various regional, business unit, and corporate leadership roles. The company went from a $250 million pacemaker company to a diversified medical technology enterprise with over $10 billion in revenues.

This week, we interviewed John Hironimus. John is the CEO of Origami Surgical, an accomplished medical device executive with a track record of successfully commercializing novel medical devices. He has focused on scaling new technologies and applications to benefit patients, clinicians, and providers. His 25 years of experience span numerous areas of healthcare. An entrepreneur at heart, his passion is building world-class teams who relentlessly focus on improving patient care.   John began his career with United States Surgical Corporation, helping surgeons provide advanced procedures to their patients. He then built the domestic and international commercial team for Salient Surgical Technologies, culminating in a successful acquisition by Medtronic in 2011. Under his leadership, the business grew from $40M in revenue to over $350M. John has most recently led commercial teams at Outset Medical and Dilon Technologies.    John graduated from Indiana University, earning a Public Financial Management degree.

This week, we revisit our interview with Keith Grossman. He currently serves as Chairman of Nevro Corp. (NVRO), Vice-Chairman of Alcon, Inc. (ALC), and Lead Director of Outset Medical, Inc. (OM). Previously, Keith was the CEO and President of Nevro. Keith has over 40 years of experience in the medical device field. He served most recently, and for the second time, as the President, Chief Executive Officer, and director of Thoratec Corporation, leading up to its 2015 sale to St. Jude Medical.   Before Thoratec, he served as President, Chief Executive Officer, and director of Conceptus, a women’s health medical device company, leading up to its sale to Bayer Healthcare. Before Conceptus, Keith served as managing director of TPG (Texas Pacific Group), a private equity firm, and was a member of its healthcare investment team. Prior to TPG, Keith served as Thoratec’s President, Chief Executive Officer, and director for the first ten years of its growth as a commercial company.  Keith was chronicled in the book “Executive Intelligence: What All Great Leaders Have”, was named among the “Business Leaders to Watch” and the “40 Under 40” lists in the Bay Area and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by his Medical Device CEO peers. Keith received a B.S. in life sciences from The Ohio State University and an M.B.A. from Pepperdine University.

This week, we welcome back Chuck Bolton. Chuck is a six-time bestselling author and executive coach to CEO's. As founder of The Bolton Group LLC, he provides leadership coaching and consulting in the medtech and healthtech sectors. We discuss Chuck's new book The CEO's AI Playbook and how a leader can lead with vision and purpose in the age of AI.He addresses how to build an AI-ready culture that puts humans first. Through The Reinvention Solution LLC, Chuck delivers Gen AI education and consulting to B2B clients. His acclaimed Gen Ai for CEOs and Gen Ai for Boards crash courses are essential learning for senior executives and board members seeking to create value through AI.