Managing Partner Courtney Lada, of Quick Leonard Kieffer, led the recent recruitment of Venkat Bhamidipati to Providence St. Joseph Health as the system’s next executive vice president and chief financial officer, a role he assumed on July 31, 2017. Headquartered in Renton, Washington, Providence St. Joseph Health operates across seven states and encompasses 50 hospitals, 829 clinics, and 14 supportive housing facilities; 23,000 physicians and 106,000 caregivers; two health plans with 1.9 million covered lives; $21 billion in revenue and $3.1 billion in community benefit; 30 million admits/visits; and 90 non-acute services. As a member of Providence St. Joseph Health’s senior-most management team, Venkat is accountable for setting strategic direction and leading efforts to achieve the operating principles and delivery of the operational transformation plan. He oversees finance, treasury (including investment management, debt management, and cash management), and financial reporting, in an effort to maintain a AA credit rating and the highest level of financial and compliance integrity, and is accountable for system-wide strategic planning and other processes that are used by the president/CEO and the board to establish Providence’s overall direction and policies.
Before joining Providence, Venkat served as the managing director for business development and mergers and acquisitions at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Washington, with responsibility for the development and execution of strategic partnerships, mergers, and acquisitions within the Intelligent Cloud segment of Microsoft, a $35 billion division. He engaged with several large-scale global customers and external partners to identify areas of collaboration and to commercialize new business opportunities, including completing a multi-billion dollar deal with a major auto company to use Microsoft products for its cars’ internal operating and navigation systems.
Venkat had a very successful 13-year tenure with Microsoft, where he also served as the chief financial officer of the Worldwide Enterprise Group and as the chief financial officer for operations and technology. He previously served as the senior director of finance and group controller for Exodus Communications in Santa Clara, California, and as a controller for Hitachi Data Systems, also in Santa Clara. Venkat began his career with Coopers & Lybrand in India as a manager in the audit assurance practice.
Venkat is originally from India, where he earned a master’s degree in commerce and accounting at Osmania University before completing an MBA in finance and marketing at Indiana University in Bloomington. Venkat and his wife are the parents of two college-aged children; together, they have been active in a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing about socio-economic change in India, primarily through education, and they enjoy traveling, having visited 80 countries.
