DGTL Voices with Ed Marx

Episode: The Journey of a Tech CEO (ft. Stephanie Trunzo)

Date: October 1, 2025
Guest: Stephanie Trunzo, CEO of Merge
Host: Ed Marx

Episode Overview

This episode of DGTL Voices explores the personal and professional journey of Stephanie Trunzo, CEO of Merge. Host Ed Marx dives into Stephanie’s upbringing, her path into tech and healthcare, her leadership philosophies, and her advocacy for women in leadership roles. The conversation also examines the mission and vision of Merge, the evolving dynamics in healthcare and marketing, and Stephanie's practical life and career advice, offering listeners a blend of inspiration, actionable insight, and candid moments.

Key Discussion Points

Stephanie’s Background and Influences

• Growing up Italian-American in Rural Pennsylvania

  • Raised in a family of educators and entrepreneurs; early life values rooted in curiosity, resilience, and adaptability.
  • Notable family stories: Great-grandfather was a blacksmith turned inventor after emigrating from Italy.
  • “My dad was a high school English teacher, mine actually, which was a partly fun, partly painful experience.” (03:04)

• Connection to Italian Heritage

  • Fond memories and travel advice: Highlights area outside Milan and small villages like Orvieto for authentic Italian experiences.
  • “I really like the area outside of Milan. Orvieto is beautiful.” (03:54)

Journey into Technology and Healthcare

• Early Curiosity and Education

  • Developed a passion for psychology and understanding human motivation.
  • Self-taught HTML during the dotcom boom; attended all-women’s college, then grad school at Carnegie Mellon.
  • “I always was deeply interested in the way that our mind works... and then beginning to see and really see for myself that boom of, of, you know, teaching myself HTML.” (05:06)

• Career Catalyst: The COVID-19 Pandemic

  • Built Oracle’s cloud transformation program; pandemic spurred focus on health, leading to Oracle Health’s launch.
  • “It was taking the understanding of what does it mean to change giant enterprises... combined with the urgency and explosion of learning around the pandemic that resulted in Oracle’s decision to really invest in health.” (07:08)

Leadership and Advocacy for Women

• Personal Experiences of Gender Inequality

  • Subtle but impactful moments, such as rarely encountering female peers in professional settings.
  • “It is simply just the ratio of humans. It’s just math. Like there are not enough of my colleagues or my peers for me to run into.” (09:06)

• Philosophy: “Not Just a Seat–Set the Table”

  • Critiques the expectation that women do extra emotional or logistical labor beyond just showing up.
  • “A seat at the table means that a lot of the labor has already been done... my coffee should be there already just the same as everybody else...” (11:35)

• Call to Action: Stop Talking, Start Hiring

  • Encourages companies to move past discussions and take concrete action by hiring women into leadership.
  • “If you have women in leadership roles, these conversations don’t exist anymore... Or you can take an action that solves it and then stop talking about it.” (12:50)

Career and Leadership Advice

• Advice for Mid-Career Professionals

  • Emphasizes impatience for change and recognition of every human’s inherent value.
  • “We want diversity of inputs, backgrounds, experiences... even as a woman, how are you making sure that everyone has some representation?” (15:01)
  • “Be impatient... There is no room anymore for us to be silent, for us to be quiet.” (15:38)

• Early-Career Advice: “You Are Perfect”

  • Stephanie would tell new graduates to bring their whole selves, viewing their uniqueness as assets.
  • “...Your ideas and your curiosity are things that the world needs, you are perfect. Like whatever your imperfect things are, those are just right, too.” (28:27)

Merge: Mission, Vision and Transformation

• Why Join Merge?

  • Inspired by people-first culture and mission to humanize the "experience layer" between transactional systems and patient experiences.
  • Merge applies consumer industries’ expertise to healthcare, focusing on education, enablement, and operational improvements.
  • “These are good people, kind people who are really... trying to do, which is enjoy our work and have real impact along the way.” (16:39)
  • “There’s this beautiful blend of background in driving consumer born industries... but also highly regulated industries... We still need that same kind of human focus.” (17:38)

• Surprises and Lessons Learned

  • Unexpected persistence of outdated agency models and slow progress towards integrated, holistic digital experiences.
  • “15 years ago we were talking about creating integrated holistic views from marketing through technology... not a ton of progress against that promise.” (20:26)

Healthcare, Social Media & Emerging Generations

• Rethinking Healthcare Marketing

  • Urges a shift from viewing marketing as manipulative to viewing it as educational and empowering.
  • “It is about education, enablement and empowerment... to deliver the right kind of content... so they can make their own empowered decisions.” (21:31)

• Example: Helping Clients Through Change

  • Moves clients away from legacy metrics (like “eyeballs”) to meaningful operational outcomes (like reducing unnecessary appointments via better patient routing).
  • “Can we actually measure—are we improving your operational challenges by managing traffic flow? People are not coming to set up an appointment. They’re coming because their knee hurts and they want to Figure out why their knee hurts.” (23:21)

• Key Finding from Recent Data Study

  • Connection between individual’s sense of financial security and their investment in health and wellness, regardless of age.
  • “...how humans feel about their financial future correlates exactly to how invested they are in their health and wellness journey.” (25:33)

Personal Habits and Energy Management

• Recharge Routine

  • Yoga and physical activity for mental stillness; reading to satisfy curiosity and stimulate thought.
  • “The hardest part of yoga is not the physical part, it is the mental part. Can you be still?” (26:48)
  • “Whatever makes you curious. That’s what I follow, my curiosity and that’s what refuels me a lot of times.” (27:08)

• Final Reflection

  • Emphasizes optimism about current moments in healthcare, balance between refilling and wisely spending one’s energy, and the importance of making an impact.
  • “There is a lot of virtuous stuff that we can accelerate... I would say we’re all finite. So it’s not just about refilling your energy. It’s spending it in the right way.” (30:11)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “There’s a poem called the Desiderata... whether or not it is clear to you, the universe is unfolding as it should.” (01:48, Stephanie Trunzo)
• “We would never say a really well trained AI model takes all of its information from a single data source. Right. We want diversity of data that makes good technology. There is absolutely nothing different about human voices.” (14:24, Stephanie Trunzo)
• “Not a seat at the table, but set the table.” (10:22, Ed Marx summarizing Stephanie’s ethos)
• “You are perfect. Like whatever your imperfect things are, those are just right, too... do it with the confidence that you deserve to be here.” (28:38, Stephanie Trunzo)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:47] – Eclectic musical tastes & yoga as mental practice
• [01:44] – Life mantras: Desiderata and finding peace
• [02:38] – Early life, family, and entrepreneurial roots
• [04:22] – Getting into tech: curiosity, psychology, HTML
• [06:30] – Healthcare pivot: pandemic and Oracle Health
• [08:32] – Experiences with gender inequity
• [10:28] – “Set the table” philosophy explained
• [12:18] – “Stop talking, start hiring women” approach
• [14:07] – Advice for mid-career women (and men): value, diversity, impatience
• [16:34] – Merge’s mission, vision, and why Stephanie joined
• [19:10] – Surprises as a tech leader in an agency world
• [21:15] – Healthcare, social media, and Gen Z habits
• [23:01] – Helping clients with new marketing and operational metrics
• [26:35] – Personal recharge: yoga, curiosity, neuroscience reading
• [28:27] – Commencement advice: You are perfect
• [30:06] – Closing optimism: finite energy, spending it wisely

Tone and Atmosphere

The conversation is candid, sincere, and empowering. Stephanie blends practical wisdom with humor and humility, often looping back to concepts of inclusion, curiosity, and human-centered progress. Ed’s admiration and thoughtful questions ground the episode, inviting listeners to reflect, aspire, and act.

For listeners seeking transformative leadership lessons, actionable equity insights, or inspiration for blending technology, healthcare, and humanity, this episode is a must.