Davide V.

President & CEO | Fortune 500 trained expert strategist and executive enabling start-ups to billion-dollar brands to differentiate, compete, grow and scale predictably in any market condition.

I believe the future will be shaped by leaders who understand people, build durable systems & use AI to amplify positive impact.

I am a Fortune 500–trained CEO with 25+ years leading complex organizations across CPG, retail, and healthcare in Canada and the U.S.

I have led national organizations, nine-figure P&Ls & enterprise transformations through turnaround, scale & modernization, delivering sustained margin expansion, growth & organizational resilience.

I have also lived the personal cost of leadership done without systems. The tension between performance and health, ambition and family, scale and sanity is not a personal failing. It is a systems failure.

As a CEO, I align strategy, operations & talent into a coherent operating rhythm. I remove hidden friction that drives burnout & inefficiency, install decision clarity & accountability, and build governance cadence that boards can trust.

My work is grounded in execution, not theory. I connect dots others miss and translate complexity into systems teams can actually run. The result is calm, predictable execution at scale.

Despite my experience & training, I operate with a beginner’s discipline. Business is my NHL. I never stop training, studying the game, refining fundamentals, and adapting to faster play. I keep investing in learning across leadership, systems design, AI, governance & human performance. 

Sustained advantage comes from continuous improvement. Compounding is a moat.

ManagementOS® is the outcome of my Executive MBA thesis & years of real-world application as a CEO. It is my trademarked executive operating system for North America, documented to formalize how I think, lead & differentiate as an operator. It replaces heroics & ad-hoc decision-making with repeatable operating rhythms across strategy, operations & talent. ManagementOS® is not a commercial pitch. It is the protected expression of my leadership craft, and I apply the same discipline to my own brand.

Strong leadership today requires fiduciary responsibility not just for the P&L, but for durability, operating rhythm & human sustainability. That is the lens I bring to every organization I lead and every board I serve.

CONNECT
I share frameworks, systems thinking, & executive insights through my newsletter. If you’re a CEO, founder, board member, or executive operator navigating complexity at scale and value disciplined thinking over noise, I’m glad to connect and exchange perspectives.

Davide Viola, MBA
Dad | Hubby | Son | Loyal Friend
CEO | Fortune 500–Trained Exec
ManagementOS® - Intellectual Property

Chief Executive Officer

► President and Chief Executive Officer reporting to a board represented by each province across Canada
► Canada's largest network of retail health and wellness operators representing over 9 figure sales in the growing category of natural health and wellness.
► Founded in 1999, Health First Network, is a national network of 140+ independent health and wellness stores offering supplements, organics, gluten-free foods, natural health & beauty aids, as well as sales, marketing, retail flyer, category management, and distribution services.
►  The focus will include growing retail member sales across all vendors, increase retail traffic and revenue through collaborative vendor partnerships and best-in-class marketing to drive demand generation.
►  Responsibilities include sales, marketing, business development, category management, finance, operations, warehouse, procurement, new product development, and vendor/partner relations.
►  Hybrid retail/CPG model
►  Coast to coast representation across English and French Canada

HFN Board Position Open!

Most people don’t realize how much health retailers shape the natural health industry and impact the broader healthcare landscape.

Behind thousands of products, brands, and wellness trends are passionate managers and store owners serving their communities every day.

Across Canada, we serve 164 retailers, and growing, who work together through Health First Network to compete, innovate, and grow in an increasingly complex market.

And like any organization navigating change, strong governance matters.

For the first time in years, we are opening nominations for our Board of Directors.

Health First Network is a 27-year-old organization that today ranks in the top 1% of companies in North America by revenue.

Our Board operates with a full governance structure and fiduciary oversight, quarterly meetings, and two committees (Audit & Risk, Governance & HR).
 
This is a volunteer role, but it is not passive.  
Expect to engage 10-14 hours per quarter.

Board members bring experience, perspective, and leadership to help guide the direction of a national organization serving hundreds of entrepreneurs/intrapreneurs and tens of millions of customers.

We are particularly interested in candidates with strengths in areas such as:

• retail leadership
• natural health and wellness
• governance and strategy
• change management
• marketing, technology, and digital transformation
• supply chain and operations

If you care about the future of independent natural health retail, this is a rare opportunity to help shape it.

Applications are open now.

DM me "HFN Board" and I will send you the link to apply.

Nominations close soon.

If you know someone who would be a strong contributor, please feel free to share this post or tag them below.

The next chapter of independent health retail will be shaped by the leaders willing to step forward.

Davide Viola, MBA

CEO | Fortune 500–Trained Operator | Operating Systems for Scale, AI Leverage & Leadership Health | ManagementOS® | TEDx Texas

Do we all need vitamin supplements?

It’s one of the most common questions in health today.

The honest answer is: it depends.

A healthy diet should always be the foundation. 
Healthy, whole, unprocessed, and real.

Whole foods provide vitamins along with fibre, phytonutrients, antioxidants, and thousands of beneficial compounds that supplements simply can’t replicate.

But modern reality is more complicated.

Busy lifestyles, soil depletion, food processing, aging, and dietary restrictions mean many people don’t consistently reach optimal nutrient intake through diet alone.

That’s where supplementation can play a powerful role.

Not as a replacement for good food.

But as an overlay for optimization.

Think of it this way:

Food builds the foundation.
Supplements help strengthen the structure.

When used intelligently, high-quality supplements can help support immunity, energy, cognitive function, sleep, and overall resilience, especially when addressing specific deficiencies or life-stage needs.

But one thing is equally important:

Quality and guidance matter. A lot.

Not all supplements are created equal, and more isn’t always better.

Mega-dosing nutrients without understanding your needs can sometimes do more harm than good.

And the human expertise and intelligence are critical.  
That’s why working with your local knowledgeable practitioners and trusted natural health retailers can make such a difference.  

Our retailers help people navigate the overwhelming number of choices and focus on what actually supports their health goals.

At the end of the day, the goal isn’t pills or powders.

It’s better health outcomes.

Start with real food.
Support your body intelligently.
And make informed choices.

If you’re curious about how supplementation might support your health journey, you can find a Health First store near you here:

https://lnkd.in/gzdsQnvm

Do you believe diet alone is enough today, or can supplements play an important role in optimizing health?

#Nutrition #PreventiveHealth #Supplements #NaturalHealth #HealthFirst

Open article: Find Your Store | Health First Network | Member Stores by healthfirstnetwork.ca

Find Your Store | Health First Network | Member Stores

I've realized over time that most companies do not fail because of bad strategy.

They fail because of friction.

Not the obvious kind.

The quiet kind that builds up over time.

The meeting after the meeting.
The approvals that require five signatures.
The report nobody reads, but everyone still produces.

Individually these things feel small.

But stack enough of them together and you create something dangerous.

Organizational drag.

And like investments, it compounds over time.

Drag slows decisions.
It frustrates your best people.
And it quietly drains energy from teams who would rather be solving real problems.

The tricky part is that friction almost always starts with good intentions.

Processes are added for control.
Systems are introduced for visibility.
Meetings are scheduled for alignment.

Then the layers keep stacking.

And suddenly the company is moving more slowly than the market around it.

One quote that always sticks with me comes from Jack Welch.

When the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.

That line has stayed with me for years because it forces a simple but uncomfortable question.

Are we actually moving as fast internally as the world around us?

Great leaders do not just think about strategy.

They constantly ask a different question.

Where is the friction inside the system?

Where do decisions stall?
Where does accountability blur?
Where are we creating work instead of enabling it?

Remove friction, and something interesting happens.

You usually do not need more motivation.

People simply move faster.
Personally, I love speed but can't be reckless either.

Ideas travel further.
Execution improves.
Momentum returns.

Through books, mentors, and observing great operators over the years, I have learned that strong organizations are rarely built by adding more layers.

They are built by removing the ones that slow people down.

In a world now moving at AI speed, the companies that win will not always be the biggest.

They will be the ones with the least internal resistance.

This is something I am constantly trying to balance at HFN.

Empowering individuals while also building systems that accelerate good decisions instead of replacing them.

Where have you seen unnecessary friction slow organizations down?

#Leadership #Strategy #Execution #OrganizationalDesign

Corporate turnarounds rarely fail because of a lack of ideas.

They fail because the system around those ideas doesn’t change.

A recent story in Entrepreneur highlighted a turnaround led by Saina Babaee at Siemens Energy.

What stood out wasn’t a bold strategy announcement.

It was a leadership shift.

Instead of pushing solutions from the top, she asked the people closest to the work to identify the real roadblocks.

At first, there was skepticism.

That’s normal in organizations where change is often announced but rarely owned.

But something powerful happened once the team was invited into the problem-solving process.

Ownership began to replace resistance.

And when ownership increases, performance usually follows.

Targets were hit.
Momentum returned.
And the team rediscovered something many organizations slowly lose over time: belief in the work they’re doing.

What this story reinforces is an important leadership truth.

Sustainable transformation rarely comes from a single strategy decision.

It comes from aligning three things that too often operate in silos:

People.
Processes.
And the systems that connect them.

When those elements are aligned, organizations move faster, not because leaders push harder, but because friction disappears.

That’s when innovation actually becomes possible.

Entrepreneurship isn’t just about starting companies.

Sometimes it’s about rebuilding the operating environment inside them.

Where have you seen leadership successfully turn skepticism into ownership?

#Leadership #Entrepreneurship #OrganizationalDesign #Teamwork

Open article: How a Corporate Turnaround Taught Me True Entrepreneurship | Entrepreneur by entrepreneur.com

How a Corporate Turnaround Taught Me True Entrepreneurship | Entrepreneur

Custom AI talent engines that actually work for how recruitment happens today.

20 years in Talent Acquisition. Started in recruitment across UK, Europe, Middle East, and US. Built teams, opened markets, ran agencies. Constantly understanding how AI can reshape the industry.

Here's what I've learned:

Generic AI tools create more work than they save. $50K tech stacks that need a dedicated person just to manage them. Per-seat contracts that burn budget while recruiters ignore the tools. It's noise.

What actually works: 

Custom talent engines built for your specific hiring challenges. Not another dashboard. Not another Chrome extension. Systems that blend the best pieces of tech to solve the exact problem you're facing in your talent market.

For internal talent teams:
Identify and engage the hardest-to-reach candidates 10x faster. Beat your competition in talent markets where everyone's fishing in the same pond.

For recruitment agencies:
Win more clients by showing capabilities competitors can't match. Fill hard roles faster. Unlock revenue streams hiding in your existing database.

The future isn't multimillion-dollar tech stacks. It's lean teams with killer systems. AI baked into growth strategy, not bolted on top.

If you're tired of tools that don't understand how talent actually moves, and you need something built for your specific reality, let's talk.

I run monthly webinars with 50+ agency leaders and talent VPs breaking down what's actually working in 2026. Real operators, real results, zero vendor pitches.

DM me or comment on my posts. I respond to everyone.

Mike McGloin

Had a chat with Luis Cruz, Head of Talent at Liquid AI, this week.

IMO, one of the best Talent Leaders in the U.S. right now. He’s properly thinking about how tech and AI are going to fundamentally change the role recruiters play inside internal functions.

He’s only been in the seat at Liquid for a few months and has already started building. Specific agents inside Claude that have improved pretty much every metric across the board. It’s allowed them to hire key talent at real pace.

His take:
Tech-focused companies like Liquid are going to flex their internal engineering muscle to build tools for TA. And the recruiters coming in will need to know how to build and operate those systems.

My take:
I agree. The internal TA function is absolutely going to become more technical. The bar is rising. Where I think this gets interesting is that not every company will have the bandwidth or internal expertise to build these systems properly, especially when product and revenue always take priority. It reminds me of big in-house marketing teams screaming for employer brand campaigns while product deadlines took over.

That creates a gap. This is where the Talent Engineer comes in.

And it’s where Fuze operates.

Building custom engines that lift an entire TA function. Sniper-level precision on the right candidates. Systems that compound over time.

This will be table stakes within 6 months for recruitment agencies and internal TA teams.

The ones who treat this as a fundamental growth lever, not a side experiment, are the ones who win.

Excited to be right at the sharp end of it and seeing how quickly this space is moving.

Custom AI Talent Engines | Founder @ Fuze

Any internal Talent Acquisition teams in AI or technical recruitment that can properly crack GitHub and Google Scholar as a core part of their candidate acquisition strategy are going to have a huge advantage in 2026.

If you are basing the strength of your search on typing “Machine Learning Engineer at DeepMind” into LinkedIn Recruiter and then hoping they have strong C++ experience, you are shooting in the dark.

Cross reference that search with their GitHub and Scholar profiles and now you have real intelligence on whether they are worth spending your time chasing.

The real cost, IMO, is spending hundreds of hours each quarter pursuing candidates who fundamentally cannot do the job.

Cost for AI labs
Engineering teams spending hours every month interviewing and not shipping product.

Cost for recruiters
Promising targeted shortlists to AI labs, getting candidates into process, and watching them fail technical tests. Losing placements. Fracturing Relationships. 

We have been working with a large Exec Search firm in NY and have started to crack that code. It has significantly reduced time to hire and dramatically improved interview-to-placement ratios.

Not going to lie, this has probably taken close to 500 hours and a few sleepless nights. Eugene Asem is a legend at Fuze who has been deep in the weeds figuring this out.

If you are curious what this actually looks like in practice, I can send over some info.

I’ve been speaking with Edmund Blogg at RecruitHub since the start of the year.

They’ve built a seriously strong customer base. Some of the best agencies and leaders in the industry IMO (shout out to my golfing mate Stuart Mitchell at Hampton North).

Early conversations....What are you building? What are we building? Is there actual crossover?

RecruitHub spend a lot of time analysing what makes agencies better. And for the last 9 months, AI and tech has been top of mind. 

Tools being trialled. Subscriptions stacked. Promises made.

The pattern is familiar.

- Tools are only as good as the recruiter using them.
- They require behaviour change.
- They’re not built for a specific niche.
- Adoption fades.

So instead of adding another logo to the tech stack, we’ve been building properly. (shout out to the tech providers part of RecruitHub network that are offering value long term)

This is one of the products Fuze has been developing...designed to democratise information, data and timing for recruiters, so they can have conversations with the correct fee-controlling decision makers in very specific industry niches with very little disruption on how they work.

Built with live agency feedback. Iterated quickly. Then customised further for the agencies who actually want to go deeper.

It’s not complicated. With how fast tech is moving, any decent team that understands data and workflows should be able to stitch something intelligent together within 24 hours.

What doesn’t make sense is spending $$$$$ a month across six different tools per head and calling it innovation.

This is where I think the industry is heading. I’ll share more next week on what we’ve built and looking for proper feedback on how to make it sharper.

Another piece of magic from Eugene Asem, who is fast becoming one of the best Talent Engineers in the industry at Fuze.

Without giving too much away, the Exec Search firm we’re working with is on multi year retainers with some of the most progressive tech companies in the world. 

They are only interested in the top 1% of talent. They asked a question....

“If you could find the engineers competing in global engineering competitions, that would be insanely helpful.”

Mission accomplished.

We got to work and integrated that signal into our engines. The challenge is that most competitors only operate under usernames, with no obvious link to their real profiles.

We now have a mapped universe of researchers, software engineers and members of technical staff who have crushed these competitions, with systems set up to track future events as well. 

Also really good junior talent who are wizards and future leaders. (probably a few in there who will have billion $ startups in the next year or two)

This took A LOT of work over the course of 3 weeks, but we got there and now have that strategy locked and loaded.

What’s interesting is that a lot of this talent has dormant or very light LinkedIn profiles, which means they suddenly have access to a completely untapped network of candidates from other recruiters.

One thing we’re hearing consistently from clients is that this level of talent is getting flooded with outreach. Some are receiving 50+ InMails.

LinkedIn is still an incredibly powerful sourcing platform. That is not changing anytime soon.

But when you combine it with signals like this and start building alternative routes into the market, that is when you really start to move the dial.

It’s also a good example of why I believe custom plays will always win over plug and play tools.

Recruiters who have been deep in a market for years often know exactly where great talent hides and how those ecosystems actually work.

Our job is to harness that knowledge and turn it into systems that becomes a fundamental part of growth.

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