Podcast Summary: Investing in Innovation at Mount Sinai Ventures with Nina Williams

Podcast: Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Host: Scott Becker
Guest: Nina Williams, Associate Director, Mount Sinai Ventures
Date: October 2, 2025

Main Theme / Purpose

This episode explores how Mount Sinai Ventures—a division of Mount Sinai Health System—drives innovation through investments in early-stage healthcare startups and the expansion of ambulatory care facilities. Associate Director Nina Williams provides insights into her role, strategic investment focus areas, partnership models, and emerging healthcare trends. She also shares career advice for aspiring healthcare leaders and discusses the system's evolving leadership and strategic priorities.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Introduction to Mount Sinai Ventures

• Mount Sinai Ventures is the corporate venture arm of Mount Sinai Health System, operating since 2008 and based in New York, spanning eight hospitals.
• The department focuses on:
  • Portfolio investments in early-stage health companies that show strong clinical or financial promise.
  • Corporate development via ambulatory joint ventures, expanding Mount Sinai’s footprint with facilities like ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), urgent care, and endoscopy sites.
• Nina emphasizes that the medical school’s excellence in research and innovation drives the system’s forward-thinking approach.
  “At the core and kind of mecca of the work that we do is our med school. And so I feel like it really drives the work that we think to in terms of forward thinking.” (00:53)

2. Role and Daily Responsibilities

• Nina splits her time between:
  • Evaluating and supporting early-stage investments—with a requirement that any technology or solution be championed internally by Mount Sinai clinicians or operators.
  • Managing and expanding ambulatory facilities—Mount Sinai Ventures partners with outside organizations (like Merit Healthcare) for expertise and market intelligence in building and managing ASCs.
• Partnership example: Merit Healthcare was selected to help rapidly expand ASC capabilities and keep Mount Sinai competitive with peers like HSS and Northwell.
  “We realized pretty quickly in order to stand up this work in an effective way, we needed a partner that could help us tackle kind of block and tackle the work in real time.” (03:17)

3. Investment Approach and Collaboration

• Mount Sinai Ventures does not typically act as a lead investor and prefers syndicating investments with other academic medical centers (AMCs) and venture capital partners to de-risk deals.
• Brent Stackhouse (Managing Director) launched the Strategic Ventures Group, a consortium of 64 health system investors nationwide, sharing knowledge, best practices, and investment opportunities monthly.
  “It’s always a lot easier to have a lot of other folks that may look like us, like other AMCs sitting on the cap table with us.” (04:34)
• The group emphasizes collaboration between systems, allowing deals that aren’t a fit for Mount Sinai to find homes with other health systems.

4. Focus Areas and Strategic Evolution

• Historic investment themes: Revenue cycle management, food as medicine, digital health, clinical trials.
• Mount Sinai is currently undergoing a major leadership transition (new CEO, CFO, Chief Health Information Officer, Chief Clinical Innovation Officer) and is re-evaluating strategic investment priorities.
• Operational leaders’ perspectives will shape future investments.
  “Understanding what the operators are focused on is really what drives what we are tackling at this point.” (06:52)

5. Current Trends in Healthcare Investment

• Ambulatory Expansion: Continued ASC growth, shifting more care out of hospital settings.
• Cardiac and Spine Care: Watch for procedures migrating from hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) to ASC networks.
• Recent projects: Peak Point Midtown West, a multi-specialty ASC partnership with Merit Healthcare, is cited as a key example.
  “Cardiac care moving from the HOPD in traditional hospital settings to the ASC networks is something we’re keeping a pulse on as well as spine…We just built a multispecial specialty ASC in the Columbus Circle area.” (10:47)

6. Advice for Emerging Healthcare Leaders

• Nina’s path: Entered Mount Sinai through the Public Health graduate program and DEI administrative fellowship.
• Key advice:
  • Network actively: Attend conferences, engage with the industry, and share your work.
  • Immerse yourself in different markets.
  • Visibility matters: Opportunities (including investment deal flow) come from connection and energetic engagement.
    “I think my advice to emerging leaders would be: get out there as much as they can. Get immersed in as many markets that they can…Folks are really excited to hear about the work that they’re tackling.” (08:47)
    “There’s only so much work and growth one can have just sitting in their office in front of their computer without talking to people and hearing different ideas.” (09:21, Scott Becker)

7. Leadership, Collaboration & Community Engagement

• Pride in Mount Sinai’s role in healthcare innovation, especially around:
  • Combining financial investment with shared governance by engaging physician syndicates in ASC projects.
  • Engagement with independent and voluntary physicians as a growth priority for the new CFO.
    “We not only share in terms of our monetary risk with them, but also the governance models, having them at the table of helping us think through what these strategic decisions should be is really important.” (10:14)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On de-risking investments:
  “It’s always a lot easier to have a lot of other folks that may look like us, like other AMCs sitting on the cap table with us.” — Nina Williams (04:34)

• On operational focus:
  “Understanding what the operators are focused on is really what drives what we are tackling at this point.” — Nina Williams (06:52)

• On career growth:
  “My advice to emerging leaders would be: get out there as much as they can. Get immersed in as many markets that they can…Folks are really excited to hear about the work that they’re tackling.” — Nina Williams (08:47)

• On the importance of networking:
  “There’s only so much work and growth one can have just sitting in their office in front of their computer without talking to people and hearing different ideas.” — Scott Becker (09:21)

• On collaborative governance:
  “We not only share in terms of our monetary risk with them, but also the governance models, having them at the table of helping us think through what these strategic decisions should be is really important.” — Nina Williams (10:14)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:39 – Nina Williams introduces her background and Mount Sinai Ventures’ mission.
• 02:11 – Daily responsibilities (early-stage investments and ambulatory facility expansion).
• 04:29 – Mount Sinai Ventures’ investment approach and collaborations.
• 06:20 – Discussion of key investment areas (revenue cycle, food as medicine, etc.).
• 07:42 – Nina’s career advice for emerging leaders in healthcare.
• 10:11 – Reflections on leadership, engaging physicians, trends (shift of cardiac/spine care to ASCs).

Conclusion

Nina Williams offers a compelling look into how Mount Sinai Ventures is bridging the worlds of clinical excellence and entrepreneurial innovation—by investing alongside like-minded institutions and focusing on ambulatory expansion while keeping an eye on key trends like the shift of complex procedures into outpatient settings. She emphasizes the importance of collaboration, both across health systems and internally, and encourages emerging leaders to seek out connections and new experiences as a core strategy for growth.