2026 Outlook: Talent, AI & the Next Phase of Healthcare Growth

After the circus that was 2020 through 2024, I tried to swear off predictions. I’m wrong at home a lot, but I try not to make a public spectacle of it. Nevertheless, with countless conversations unfolding week over week, talking to folks in our network and finding myself consistently saying the same things about what we’re seeing and what we think, I’d be remiss not to share what we believe is unfolding in the high growth healthcare universe, and what we think 2026 has in store. There are some tailwinds; notably, as we navigated the busiest Q3 and Q4 on record for our firm, a pattern emerged - one from which the underlying signal suggests some health returning to the hiring dynamic in our space. The overwhelming majority of organizations we partnered with in the second half of 2025 had not raised money recently. Hiring decisions seemed to be decoupled from financings, in a way that offset the fact that AI companies dominated the fundraising environment for the first half of the year. Organizations that sat out the fundraising meat grinder for the trailing 12-18 months did something else instead - they found product market fit, grew topline, streamlined operations, and got profitable or quite close to it. That translated to a robust hiring run, that crossed all functional areas of leadership, and we think suggested a corner turned on industry health.

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Growth Spikes. Again. 

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That robust hiring run didn’t take long before a functional tilt emerged, and for the second year in a row we saw an intense uptick in demand for Growth leaders in Q4. That swung right into the new year, and we’re not seeing signs of a slowdown there. We expect the demand for revenue leaders - from the C-suite right on down - to continue for at least another quarter. This is good news and bad news. The good news is that it shows a commitment to grow topline and play offense. The bad news is that everyone is looking for them, and a remarkable number of revenue leaders - particularly in the C-suite - took new roles in the second half of 2025 or were promoted into them, effectively taking them off the market for at least half of this year, if not longer. As compensation increased largely across the board in 2025 (as noted in our 6th Annual Healthcare Executive Compensation Study), we expect to see upward pressure on compensation for this function based on the current supply/demand imbalance. This is already being reflected in base compensation offers, and we expect a continued willingness to make significant investment in A-players that can drive growth.

Compensation On the Rise

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As previously alluded to, we saw meaningful increases in executive compensation across most functional areas of leadership last year. We anticipate those numbers rising again, barring unforeseen volatility (eye roll), as venture capital dollars continue to fund the AI arms race, and other cohorts are able to successfully raise in a softer fundraising environment in 2026. The pace of play is quickening, and with less time to spare, organizations are placing increasing value on off-the-shelf readiness in senior leadership hiring. In many cases, we’re seeing an intentional willingness to pay a premium for talent that enters with little to no learning curve, and we anticipate this compensation trickle-down effect throughout the SVP and VP ranks as those experienced leaders command higher compensation. 

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Digital Transformation, Take Two

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Everyone remember how hip and cool digital transformation was in the mid-teens? Remember how rarely it worked? Us too. This time feels…different. We are witnessing one of the most seismic technological shifts in our lifetime - a wild thought since most of us grew up playing outside because computers weren't a thing. AI adoption at the enterprise level has effectively been billed as mandatory to survive, and the pace at which the tech is evolving is dizzying. The result is an entirely new roster of opportunities that champion and lead the execution of AI transformation inside organizations of all shapes and sizes. The difference this time is that many of these initiatives appear to sit much more visibly among the top priorities, with substantial investments being made in the departments that the selected leaders will run. We expect a continued flood of “transformation” roles like these, not limited to larger legacy healthcare organizations, but throughout growth stage companies too. We anticipate different flavors, with some seeking more technical/product orientations, and others focused more on business-side emphasis. As this is a new role in nearly all the companies considering it, we’re seeing a lot of wrestling with how to compensate appropriately. So far, it’s been a bit all over the map, but we expect these transformation leaders to end up among the most highly compensated this year, and for there to be a more understood “market rate” for them as 2026 unfolds.

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Big Tech Takes on Healthcare: Part Deux

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The last time Big Tech made a run at entering the healthcare space, it failed. At the risk of sounding repetitive, this time feels different. Whether it’s OpenAI or Anthropic, the originators of the AI wave and others are coming for healthcare again, and with what feels like virtually bottomless resources and arguably much better timing, it’s hard to see it not having an impact on the healthcare startup ecosystem. What does this mean for talent? Depends. If you’re qualified for the Healthcare Product Lead at Anthropic, a cool $500K+ base salary plus all the bells and whistles to go build their healthcare offering could be fun. It probably also means that late-movers will have an incredibly uphill climb to compete, resulting in faster company extinctions and more talent movement into either scaled startups, or the big players. Ostensibly, it could create a new cohort of potential acquirers, leading to liquidity for well-positioned first movers in the space. What we hope it also does is lay the groundwork to address the looming talent shortage in our ecosystem.

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Talent Shortages Left & Right

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There are some incredibly interesting dynamics at play that are creating talent gaps that must be addressed for scale. We’ve talked about the dearth of growth leaders already, but there are two other areas - one obvious and the other perhaps less so - that warrant attention. 

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The first is AI technical and product talent. The reality is that in the volume needed to supply the proliferation of healthcare AI companies with the requisite talent, as well as the aforementioned roles in enterprise transformation, the current industry pool isn’t deep enough. Layer on the cost of Silicon Valley tech labor coming from outside of healthcare and the regulatory environment that tends to turn many of them off, and we’ve got a problem. The one upside here to the Big Tech entrants into the space is that they may well help solve for some of the shortage, as they baptise a new wave of tech workers, converting them to the mission of saving healthcare. That will take time though, and until then, the shortage is likely to make for a very competitive market for talent, driving up compensation along the way.

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The second area is one that has crept up on us more slowly - Operations. There’s an in-between zone that’s creating a substantial need for scaling operators - think companies that have reached $40M in ARR and need to get to the next big inflection point. It’s not quite venture, not quite private equity, and a bit of a toss-up as to who is going to grab it and go. For many venture stage operators, these companies are entering uncharted waters, but haven’t quite reached the stage when traditional PE operators want to come back and dive in. That messy middle is an opportunity zone for operators who can lead through it. There’s still venture style upside on equity, but the business has been de-risked to some degree, and timeline to exit should be shorter. Similarly, if more established PE operators are willing to flex, they could be well positioned to accelerate a company past that mark, to $100M and beyond. There are a lot of companies sitting in, or approaching that band, so we expect substantial demand for COO/GM types as the year wears on. This is an acute need, and one we’re watching closely, as it also has meaningful implications for downstream liquidity, and that’s critical for the overall health of the space.

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2021 All Over Again

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The comedown after the runaway valuation era of 2021 has been painful, but there’s signs that our collective memory is short. Some of the valuations relative to revenue attained in 2025 are inexplicable, and have the potential to yet again render employee equity worthless. If follow-on rounds can’t get done, or down rounds pop again, we wouldn’t expect people to wait around as long this time to see what happens. The amount of underwater equity from the ‘21/’22 cycle was remarkable, and had a lasting impact on executive talent movement, as well as willingness to take risks. There needs to be a believably attainable brass ring at the end of all the work for the capable leaders trying to solve these big problems, and while we don’t know what we don’t know about the AI Revolution, we’re hoping cooler heads prevail when it comes to pricing. In the meantime, the massive influx of capital is providing substantial dry powder for talent, and building up to what we expect will be one of the more competitive years for executive hiring in our space in quite some time. We are consistently seeing a willingness on candidates’ part to overweight equity, especially for AI companies, and there’s a belief that this could be a generational wealth creation moment. 

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With both tailwinds and challenges ahead, it’s an incredibly exciting time to be in healthcare, and a welcome change from some of the more recent years when uncertainty reigned. The convergence of AI companies with scaling tech enabled services and services organizations, along with a softening fundraising environment is a recipe for a busy year, and one ripe with opportunity for leaders thinking about their next chapter. The space is maturing, but there’s still a great deal of work to do, and the pace of play is faster than ever. Companies that prioritize talent, are willing to compete for it, and then foster a platform where those leaders can do their best work are well-positioned to win.

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