Key points:
- Angelique Weiley Vuilleumier, President and CEO of The Bridge Venturers, LLC, spent many years at Medline Industries and Providence Health & Services before founding her own company.
- Angelique says it was during that time that she saw firsthand how “the healthcare supply chain was complex” and how healthcare supply chain managers, directors, and VPs were overwhelmed with the daily grind.
- Today, her company, The Bridge Venturers, LLC offers specialized one-on-one training and mentoring programs for individuals seeking to advance in the healthcare sector, connects healthcare professionals with mentors, and upends the healthcare industry’s tradition of overlooking individual development.
Angelique Weiley Vuilleumier, President and CEO of The Bridge Venturers, LLC, spent many years at Medline Industries and Providence Health & Services before founding her own company. Angelique says it was during that time that she saw firsthand how “the healthcare supply chain was complex” and how healthcare supply chain managers, directors, and VPs were overwhelmed with the daily grind.
“It wasn’t the tasks, processes, and procedures,” Angelique said. “It was the fact that organizations often overlook aspects like accepted behaviors, team building, organizational culture, individual development, employee engagement, retention, and succession planning.”
So, she set out to be a part of it.
Today, her company, The Bridge Venturers, LLC offers specialized one-on-one training and mentoring programs for individuals seeking to advance in the healthcare sector and connects healthcare professionals with mentors, upending the healthcare industry’s tradition of overlooking individual development.
Angelique recently spoke with The Global Healthcare Magazine about the fragmented healthcare management space, navigating healthcare supply chain complexities, and the impact her proven methodologies will have on the healthcare industry.
GHM: Please walk us through your educational and professional journey.
Angelique: I attended the University of Madison, WI, and transitioned to graduate from Kaplan University with a BS in business administration while working for Datex-Ohmeda in Madison, WI (now GE Healthcare) in the healthcare anesthesia division through college.
My professional journey took a turn when I joined Valent Biosciences, a split-off division of Abbott Laboratories on their agricultural side. There, I managed their international customer service team, procurement, international shipping and brokerage, and order fulfillment. During this time, I also earned certifications in Transportation & Logistics Management and Supply Chain Management from the University of Madison, WI.
In January 2006, I joined Medline Industries as their International Operations Manager. I was responsible for managing their international supply chain team within their international sales division. My role involved overseeing their international customer service team, procurement, sourcing, international shipping and brokerage, order fulfillment, international taxes, and all their international warehouses. This included tasks, such as inventory management, order fulfillment, procurement, and sourcing at all international warehouses.
In the spring of 2010, I moved to the provider side of healthcare and joined Providence Health & Services in Washington as their Director of Supply Chain Operations. My team and I built their first centralized distribution center for Providence, Multicare, Swedish, Central Washington, and Yakima Valley. We successfully transitioned Providence and Swedish to the Logical Unit of Measure, started our own fleet of trucks, and onboarded all sites into distribution.
In 2013, I decided to start my own consulting firm, The Bridge Venturers LLC. The aim was to bridge the gap between tasks/processes and the employees at the organizations I work with.
GHM: Could you please share the origin story of “The Bridge Venturers LLC” and its evolution over the years?
Angelique: I truly felt that I was not an effective leader. I wasn’t leading with excellence, and I wasn’t experiencing the success I had envisioned as a manager or director. During this period, I collaborated with a friend with a master’s degree in psychology. Together, we learned the complexities of building and managing a team and fostering a culture within any organization. We developed several programs to expand our customer base.
As we worked on the methodology of The Bridge Venturers, LLC, we identified a significant gap in organizations today. They tend to focus heavily on tasks, processes, and procedures but often overlook aspects like accepted behaviors, team building, organizational culture, individual development, employee engagement, retention, and succession planning.
Over the next four years, I laid a solid foundation for my organization, developed a leadership program that I commercialized, and began to strategically assist various clients with one-on-one leadership mentoring and testing my programs. In early 2017, I joined Advocate Aurora Health in Chicago as their Regional Director of Supply Chain Operations, overseeing six of their hospitals. Then, I followed a mentor to MedStar Health in Washington DC/Maryland in the spring of 2018 as their AVP of Supply Chain, where I had the opportunity to manage more within the supply chain.
From there, I felt it was important to continue to test and put into practice my own methodologies. I wanted to see if my method would work in rebuilding healthcare supply chains from the ground up, and I tested it twice, leading the rebuilding process myself.
These tests helped me refine my program and develop more components to assist my clients. I continued to learn and enhance the skills I shared with my clients, including marketing, sales, and outreach. This has helped several of my clients not only rebuild their organization but also grow their business.
I used my experiences in rebuilding healthcare supply chains to secure speaking engagements across the country for GHX Summit, Argyle Summits, Vizient Summit, AHVAP Conference, WHSMMA (AHRMM) Conferences, and IDN Summit. It was important for me to share with the world how to build different departments within their healthcare supply chain, including procurement, strategic sourcing & contracting, clinical value analysis, informatics, and operations/logistics methods to engage with physicians and nurses.
Today, The Bridge Venturers, LLC is thriving with podcasts, Q&A sessions online, weekly group calls, and a list of individual clients and organizations that either need support outside their day-to-day schedules or to enhance their career path.
GHM: Could you shed some light on the main services provided by The Bridge Venturers, LLC, and how they tackle the issues encountered by leaders and organizations in the healthcare supply chain?
Angelique: The Bridge Venturers, LLC, offers specialized one-on-one training and mentoring programs for individuals seeking to advance in the healthcare sector. We understand that healthcare supply chain managers, directors, and VPs are overwhelmed with the daily grind. The complexity of the healthcare supply chain shows the numerous positions and how difficult it may be to navigate moving from one to the next.
For instance, consider an employee who begins their career in the hospital operations department, where their duties include receiving, picking, and replenishing inventory. How might they transition to a role such as a buyer in procurement, a contract administrator in strategic sourcing and contracting, or an analyst in decision support or informatics?
This requires focus, cross-training, 1:1 mentoring, and experience not taught in college. Our one-on-one programs are designed for healthcare supply chain workers aspiring for managerial or directorial positions. We guide them through the inner workings of the healthcare supply chain and its organizational impact, helping individuals find their way.
In addition, our corporate consulting program supports healthcare organizations in strengthening their supply chain teams. The supply chain leadership team is buried in daily fires, our team can customize what needs to be done, rebuilt, structured, organized, trained, or focused on. Therefore, we offer team-wide training and mentoring, process management, and project management for complex situations involving other departments.
The healthcare supply chain, arguably the most challenging in the world, demands attention from a wide range of stakeholders, from physicians and nurses to administrators, office personnel, C-Suite members, construction teams, environmental services teams, and food & nutrition teams.
Our services are designed to help teams navigate these demands. Working with suppliers in this sector is particularly challenging due to volume and market share-based pricing. As costs continue to rise, supply chain teams are tasked with reducing them in a difficult financial climate. However, at The Bridge Venturers, LLC, we are committed to helping teams navigate the complexities of the healthcare supply chain and seize opportunities amidst these challenges.
GHM: Please walk us through a typical day as the CEO of your company and share what you find most rewarding about your role.
Angelique: As CEO, my typical day involves addressing queries from current students and clients, rigorously testing my methodologies to ensure their effectiveness, and generously sharing my insights on various platforms and at conferences. I also conduct key weekly meetings, group calls, and sessions, while maintaining connections with important contacts.
I’m committed to continuous improvement in my business, which involves revising scripts, enhancing presentations, creating new videos and free content, creating new testing processes and procedures, and actively seeking LOTS AND LOTS of feedback from the healthcare supply chain community. I frequently network with professionals in the field across the country to learn from their experiences and apply those learnings in my business before sharing them with clients.
What I find most rewarding about my job is the opportunity to help many healthcare professionals advance in their careers. Many have come to me genuinely thanking me for my help and my knowledge. Moreover, I find it rewarding to be part of a community of healthcare professionals who share information and best practices to advance ALL of healthcare, not just one place.
I feel I have more impact this way than just doing something to Band-Aid or doing a process for a health system without the knowledge transfer to their workers. Every health system should have the talent inside their facilities to accomplish what any consultant can do for a large sum of money.
GHM: What challenges did you face in your career journey? How did you tackle them?
Angelique: In my career journey, I faced myself as my largest challenge. I am very hard on myself and strive for excellence in everything I do personally.
The worst person I have worked for or with was my own mindset because it was not good enough usually in my mind. If I want to share it with others, I need to test it first to ensure it works 150%.
I aim for smooth and perfect progress for my clients, even though in business we often say ‘progress, not perfection’. However, I strive to back every step forward with a foundation of perfection.
During my journey, I’ve found that many people prefer to hire me directly rather than as a consultant. However, I believe that I can make a larger impact by helping as many people and health systems as possible, even if it’s temporarily. This presents a challenge because I know some organizations would value having me as a permanent employee. It’s a burden I have to bear.
GHM: What strategies do you employ to build and lead a successful team within The Bridge Venturers?
Angelique: The principles I’ve established for teaching and mentoring in my programs are the same ones I use to build a successful team. My team understands and respects that I’m here to grow with them, mentor them, implement continuous improvement, and problem-solve alongside them. We are also constantly learning and mixing it up.
Why not try a different process, a different approach, something fun or exciting to get the buy-in or influence of others? There’s nothing I would ask my team to do that I wouldn’t do myself.
Currently, Supply Chain Transformation 101 is a vital stepping stone to a well-functioning supply chain. This implies that all supply chain functions, including procurement, inventory management, and contracting, are centrally owned within the supply chain. This can be challenging for both the supply chain team and stakeholders to understand.
There are many strategies that teams need to understand at the ROOT. As leaders, it’s our responsibility to guide them there. My team needs to comprehend these concepts first before we can explain them to stakeholders and clients.
Before we bring stakeholders on board with our goals, I ensure my team fully grasps the concepts. This applies to clinically integrated supply chain concepts as well. If my team doesn’t understand that change management is the most significant part of any initiative’s workflow puzzle, then everything we do is for nothing. Similarly, negotiating contracts and securing the best industry pricing amount to nothing if not implemented 100% at the bedside.
GHM: Looking ahead, what are the most exciting new services or solutions that The Bridge Venturers is developing to meet the needs of the healthcare supply chain?
Angelique: In 2024 and 2025, The Bridge Venturers, LLC plans to offer additional Q&A sessions free of charge to our customers via the LinkedIn platform. During these sessions, clients can ask us any question about a project, process, procedure, or initiative they are working on. We provide our ideas and suggestions, and also use these sessions as networking opportunities for others to share their ideas, all at no cost.
Also, we are working hard to build more programs around clinically integrated supply chains and Supply Chain Transformation 101, both of which are crucial concepts for any organization. As we expand our capacity, we plan to offer more one-on-one sessions and build more virtual training for healthcare supply chain professionals.
Our primary goal is to train and mentor as many people as possible to advance in the healthcare supply chain. While we welcome professionals from outside healthcare, we also question why we’re not nurturing our own talent.
GHM: What advice would you offer to budding healthcare leaders who aspire to follow your path?
Angelique: My primary advice to those eager to ascend the healthcare supply chain corporate ladder as fast as possible is “do the work”. I’ve done every job in the healthcare supply chain, from the supplier to the provider side and everything in between. This experience allows me to brainstorm effectively because I’ve walked in those shoes. I’m passionate about seeing more people grow in the healthcare supply chain, a rewarding and challenging career.
We’re making a difference in our communities by helping patients, reducing the high cost of healthcare, and bridging partnerships between administration and clinicians as facilitators, connectors, and influencers. Above all, we’re helping to equip the hands that heal every day. Without this, we can’t serve our communities and patients.
So, do the work, problem-solve in real-time, network extensively, and be ready to get your hands dirty. We’re not here to play golf or to go to lunch with suppliers. We’re here to improve upon yesterday and continuously enhance our processes. This requires hard work, and I can attest to the effort I’ve put in over the past 26 years.
GHM: How do you manage to have a perfect work-life balance? What are your hobbies/interests beyond the cabin?
Angelique: Work-life balance, is it really achievable? I’m blessed with a brilliant 6-year-old son, Benjamin, who is my world, along with my incredibly supportive boyfriend, Ante. I believe in showing my son that hard work is beneficial—it builds character and integrity. I don’t overwork, but I invest quality time. We balance work with play, indulging in travel and activities we love.
I’d advise against investing too much time in materialistic pursuits that require time to maintain. Instead, focus on what brings you joy. For us, it’s exploring, traveling, attending festivals, dining out, and being food enthusiasts. I prefer not to be homebound with chores. If that means living in a smaller place and not accumulating possessions that end up unused, I’m content.
In my leisure time, I enjoy scuba diving as a stress and rescue diver. I love to travel, so much so that I bought a travel agency last year to make our frequent travels more affordable. Why not, right? I assist friends and family with their travel plans too. I believe everyone should embrace wanderlust, seeking more to life beyond the daily grind. I also enjoy snowboarding, trying out new restaurants, spending quality time with my family, and hiking. Being outdoors is my daily aspiration—even a simple walk is a pleasure.
GHM: Do you have any insights or advice you’d like to share with our readers?
Angelique: I want everyone involved in today’s healthcare supply chain to realize that we make a significant difference in our communities every day. Our role is not just about being fiscally responsible. It’s about connecting and facilitating initiatives for supplies, services, equipment, and technology, and guiding others through the change management process.
We need to understand the needs of others across hospitals and systems, what works for them, and what doesn’t, for both them and our patients. It’s about building relationships with our suppliers, not just to hold them accountable, but to strategize and improve our partnerships for mutual benefit.
Let’s create five-year roadmaps for continuous improvement of our processes and procedures, and 12-month roadmaps for future initiatives. Let’s break down silos and find innovative ways to collaborate and network. Now is the time for us to get out of the basement, move into the boardroom, and learn ways to step into 2024.
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