Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amber Walsh on Industry Insights, Fresh Perspectives, and Inspiration from the McGuireWoods Healthcare PE Conference 5-23-25
Fri, 23 May 2025
In this episode, Amber Walsh, Partner and Executive Committee Member at McGuireWoods, joins Scott Becker to share insights from the firm’s annual Healthcare Private Equity Conference, from industry trends and “measured optimism” to lessons in perspective from astronaut Anousheh Ansari and keynote speaker Lance Armstrong.
Chapter 1: What insights does Amber Walsh share from the Healthcare Private Equity Conference?
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by Amber Walsh. Amber is on the executive committee at McGuire Woods. She lives at the intersection of business and healthcare and law, private equity. She's an absolutely brilliant lawyer and person.
Amber, you had the experience last week of helping to chair the 21st Annual McGuire Woods Healthcare Private Equity Conference. Maybe you'll share with us today a few different highlights and thoughts that come out of your thinking and what you're seeing at the conference and in general.
Yeah, thank you, Scott. This is one of my favorite events that I get to help organize along with several of our other partners, Holly Buckley, Jeff Cockrell, yourself, Bart Walker, lots of people at the firm involved in this. But it's one of my favorite things that I get to participate in every year. We started the planning. Really, we've already chosen the dates for next year.
Chapter 2: What themes emerged from the conference discussions?
But really, the intensive content planning, about nine months out. And we grew from a first luncheon for a couple of hours to a two-day conference with nearly 1,000 attendees. And it's been in that format for several years. What I love about the conference is it takes some different forms every year. in terms of what the focus is and what the vibe is.
And very much in the same way that we talk about JP Morgan reflecting the vibe of the healthcare private equity industry every year in January, our conference does the same thing where you're able to get investors, healthcare company executives, those of us who serve the industry as lawyers, bankers, etc.,
all together to share our independent perspectives of what we're seeing in the market, but where we think things are going as well. And I would say that the overall characterization of what people are feeling is similar to what I've expressed to you over the past several months is measured optimism. That's a phrase that we continue to hear along with some other different themes.
But I love this opportunity to get together, kind of take temperature. And yes, our own feelings influence each other's feelings. That's just very natural. But I came away relatively positive on the investment community standpoint, but really thankful to have the opportunity for new perspectives. So in addition to measured optimism, for me, new perspectives was a theme that
settled on me throughout the conference including through our two keynoters one of whom you were able to moderate really in a wonderful dialogue thank you and take a moment sort of on what you sort of saw what you're sort of thinking i know we're talking about uh
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Chapter 3: Who is Anousheh Ansari and what unique perspective does she offer?
Anousheh Ansari, who's this astronaut, CEO of XPRIZE, which is a fasting organization, entrepreneur, investor, advocate for women entrepreneurs. I mean, what a remarkable, remarkable person. Talk a little bit about some of the thoughts that you saw, some of the things you saw, et cetera, et cetera.
Yeah, absolutely. So Anousheh gave a really interesting perspective. She has literally had a view of that very few humans on this planet have had, which is from space. She left the atmosphere. She didn't just do a suborbital mission that you're now seeing in some of the space exploration. She was able to see the Earth in a completely different perspective. And there are so few people
who will ever get the opportunity to do that. And it was remarkable to hear her. It really is a metaphor for the different types of perspectives that I also kept thinking about as the two-day conference went along. Her perspective of being there and looking at the earth for the first time. And despite what she had been told her entire life, and we're all told that
Was she expected to see more delineation and lines and clear borders? You don't see that from space. Now, all of us have seen pictures of the Earth from space. That's one thing that while most of us will never experience it in person, yes, of course, we've seen satellite images.
Chapter 4: How does Anousheh Ansari's experience relate to healthcare investing?
But hearing her talk about that very impactful moment and that immediate shift in perspective, and when it comes from someone who herself immigrated when she was very young, as a young teenager from Iran, not speaking English, coming to the United States, going through the educational system and university system and what she grew into.
When you hear about that first moment from her lens, looking back at the earth, realizing the lack of borders, all of the possibility of And everything that she went through herself to get to that point, it was just remarkable and quite uplifting at a moment where we all need to be thinking about things beyond ourselves and our little microcosms.
It was a really great, uplifting moment in the midst of talking about healthcare investing. And you would not think that those two concepts would align terribly closely, but they really do because everyone needs inspiration like that and a little bit of perspective shift. And I think everyone appreciated hearing that from her.
No, we couldn't agree more. She was absolutely phenomenally inspiring. She doesn't keep a high social media profile. You guys found her as a keynote speaker. She was remarkable. She also led the Women's Leadership Breakfast Conference. speak where you got a chance to moderate with her and just fantastic.
And Amber, tell us what else is on your mind coming out of the conference and why conferences like this, not just ours, but anybody's conferences can be so uplifting and so motivating. Talk a little bit about that.
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Chapter 5: Why are conferences like this important for inspiration and motivation?
Yeah, this actually is one of the things we always encourage our young attorneys as they are first starting to come out of the office, come out of their individual teams and client matters and projects and step into the realm of conference attendance. We always encourage them to dive in, listen. Don't be multitasking and focusing on your own client needs at that moment.
You are there to hear new perspectives. There is no point in going to any gathering of professionals, be it in this case, healthcare private equity. Sometimes you have a gathering of healthcare lawyers when you go to your conference of CIOs or hospital executives, whatever it is, you are not there to hear the same thing and to have your own thoughts echoed back to you.
You're there to hear new perspectives. That's the value of those sorts of gatherings. But it's not natural sometimes. We really have to encourage people to experience and listen and ask questions about And I'll give you a perfect example. I'll give you two examples from the conference. One is the perspective of the, what we were calling the Titans of industry.
That wasn't the official panel name, but you had, you know, remarkable hospital executives like JP Gallagher, you had healthcare futurists giving all of these different perspectives of where they sit in the industry. And it's, Some of it is reflective of one another, but much of it is not. They have different viewpoints.
And it's really the whole point of being there is to take those in and then take it back to your own organization and figure out what is meaningful to you that you can implement in your investment strategy, the way you run your teams, etc. The other example I'll give is Lance Armstrong's was our first day keynote moderated by our partner, Holly Buckley.
And just listening to his different perspective on his story, including not just the part with Oprah and the scandal and all that piece that was interesting, but just his perspective on who he is as an athlete and how he defined himself early on as a swimmer and a triathlete, excuse me, less of a cyclist.
These shifts in perspective are so interesting and the whole point of attending conferences like this, in my view.
Yeah, no, 100%. We did a separate discussion on this about Lance Armstrong earlier. And this is a concept that we talk about is that People that are somewhat flawed or that have had their scars are often the most interesting and explosive keynote speakers as you watch them try and evolve and figure themselves out, whether we've had over the past years.
People like Rick Pitino, who went through a famous downfall and then came back to lead St. John's. Lance Armstrong, who's now has tried to reposition himself, rehabilitate himself. I mean, sometimes these people that are flawed, as we all are, are often the most interesting keynotes because they're just, it's fascinating to see somebody who's had their problems be very real.
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