Michael Ricciardi: The Playmaker Behind Innovare

Michael Ricciardi measures success in small things.

“Focus on the details,” he says. “If you win the details, you win big.”

It is advice he has lived. In August 2010, he and his partners launched a small media company with what he calls a novel idea: raise money for hospitals. Signing the first one took the better part of a year. They had two hospitals in 2011 and maybe five in 2012.

“Skip over all the small business grunt work in the middle,” Ricciardi says, “we’re approaching 400 hospitals across the country.”

From the ballfield to Pfizer

Ricciardi grew up playing baseball and played at St. John’s University. He later ran a golf store with his brother for years. Richie Hosein, who hosts the series, says their friendship goes back to the St. John’s days.

Ricciardi went on to Pfizer, where he spent about eight years and where he and Hosein worked together. Then he crossed paths with what he calls “a good father and son team”: Mark Lieberman, who had spent decades building Interspace Airport Advertising before its 2006 sale to Clear Channel Outdoor, and his son Nick Lieberman, who had priced securities on JP Morgan’s commercial mortgage trading desk. Together they started Innovare Medical Media.

The idea was simple. Hospitals have busy lobbies, waiting rooms and cafeterias. Innovare would put media there and share the revenue with the hospital.

Hosein, who spent his own early career in healthcare, sees why that matters. “When you raise their revenue,” he says, “they can give back to your healthcare and invest back into your healthcare.”

Eight months for one hospital

The early years were slow. “It’s been a grind,” Ricciardi says. Innovare started in August 2010 and took eight or nine months to sign its first hospital.

Growth came one hospital at a time: two in 2011, maybe five in 2012. Today, he says, the company is approaching 400 hospitals across the country. The company also works with medical office buildings and urgent care centers.

The most recent published count is lower. In May, co-founder and president Nick Lieberman told Billboard Insider that Innovare had long-term agreements with nearly 250 hospitals plus about 100 other healthcare venues, such as urgent care centers and medical office buildings. The company has announced more installs since, including seven Northwell Health facilities in Connecticut and New York this month.

For hospitals, the appeal is new money that doesn’t come from patients. Ricciardi calls it “unrelated business income” raised through a strategic media platform. “It’s been a home run,” he says. “It’s a no-brainer for healthcare.”

A charger in the waiting room

Innovare’s best-known product starts with the patient experience. The company places digital charging stations in busy waiting areas, cafeterias and main lobbies.

Ricciardi explains why. Patients and families often arrive at the hospital unexpectedly. “They don’t even have their phone charger,” he says, “and everybody’s so connected to their devices these days.” A simple place to plug in lets them stay in touch with family.

Each station and screen also carries advertising. For brands, Ricciardi says, it reaches “a strategic niche target audience” with long dwell time and high visibility in a hospital’s busiest spaces. For the hospital, it is revenue.

The Novant Health deal

Asked about his biggest deal, Ricciardi points to a recent partnership with Novant Health, the North Carolina health system.

Big systems usually start small, he says, often with a test at two or three hospitals. Novant grew from there. “Now we’re with over 20 of their hospitals throughout the states of North and South Carolina,” he says. “It’s just been a wonderful partnership.”

Innovare’s Novant Health page lists the partnership as starting in 2025, with 24 hospitals and venues and 33 charging screens.

Stick-to-itiveness

Innovare runs on a set of what it calls core vitals. “It’s all about being better,” Ricciardi says. One of them is a word the team coined: stick-to-itiveness.

“The ability to have some grind and hustle, never giving up, is really important when you’re on that journey,” he says.

On the hard days, he leans on the same lesson he gives the teams he has coached, including his own kids. “It’s all about the process,” he says. “Once you have a good defined plan, you commit to that process. Don’t worry so much about the outcomes when you’re going through it.”

He traces that mindset to sports. In baseball, one bad at-bat doesn’t end a game. In golf, now his game of choice, one bad shot doesn’t define the round.

For anyone who wants to start a business, his advice is blunt. People overthink it, he says. “Paralysis by analysis.” The first thing to do “is just take that step.”

Enjoy every moment

Asked for one piece of advice for the world, Ricciardi doesn’t talk about business.

“Make sure you enjoy every moment,” he says. “Live life while you got it. Life’s a precious gift.” He tells his kids the same thing: “You got to be grateful, and have a little grit while you do it.”

Hosein is betting on what comes next. “See his company going places,” he says. “Hopefully the next is the Nasdaq and we go IPO.”

Ricciardi’s answer: “I’m in.”

Michael Ricciardi is co-founder and partner for strategy and business development at Innovare Medical Media. Learn more at innovaremedia.com or connect on LinkedIn. Interviewed by Richie Hosein for 1NFLUENC3 Media. Watch the full interview and read more stories at 1NFLUENC3.COM. More from the Healthcare desk.