The 60 Second Podcast

Davide Viola, CEO of Health First Network and Chairman of CEO Mastermind

• Matt McCoy

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Davide Viola isn’t just leading Canada’s largest health and wellness retail network—he’s helping business leaders scale with discipline and clarity. On this 60 Second Podcast, he shares the most common mistake scaling founders and execs make: lacking a structured management operating system. Davide breaks it down into three pillars—strategy, operations, and people—and explains how discipline, clarity, and psychology build the foundation for sustainable growth.

Miss this episode and you might just miss the one system that changes your business forever.



Matt McCoy: What’s one mistake scaling executives and founders repeat—and how would you fix it in 60 seconds?

Davide Viola:
 Simply put, many of them lack a management operating system. With failure rates as high as 90%, and over 70% of Fortune 1000 executives failing within 18 months, it's very clear—they don’t have a disciplined operating system.

I’d look at three core pillars: strategy, structure, and people.

Strategy: Finance, operations, sales, marketing, and a 10x innovation mindset. Start by implementing just a couple of key metrics. If you’ve got 80 KPIs, nothing gets done. Focus on what I call the critical number—the one or two metrics that become the bellwether for success.

Operations: I love value stream mapping. How do we get from point A to B using the least time, money, and people? Optimize for impact and efficiency.

People: The part most leaders miss. As leaders, we have a fiduciary responsibility to put the right people in the right seats, doing the things they love, and pointing them in the direction they want to go. Using psychology and science—that’s how you build a dream team.

Wrap it all in a disciplined management operating system—that’s what most companies lack. And that’s the first thing I’d install.