A little over a decade ago, Matt Buder Shapiro '12 left his 9 to 5 in advertising to start his own company - which he'd eventually relocate to his hometown near Cleveland, Ohio.
That first venture, MedPilot, aimed to improve the healthcare experience of providers and patients alike. The company grew to over 40 employees in six years.
Covid changed the landscape.
It rendered some of MedPilot's offerings, like medical bills and surveys, irrelevant.
During that time, the company took on Vytalize Health as a pilot customer.
With that came the opportunity to work with Vytalize and expand their engagement offering into the clinical realm.
Things went so well that Vytalize Health acquired MedPilot about four years ago.
Since then, and under Buder Shapiro's leadership as Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Growth, Vytalize Health ranked No. 1 on the 2024 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in America.
We sat with Buder Shapiro to talk career, college, and new fatherhood.
SO, HOW DID YOU GET HERE?
MATT BUDER SHAPIRO: I grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, outside of Cleveland. I love skiing and snowboarding - and the outdoors is definitely what drew me to University of Vermont. I also love the entrepreneurial environment at Vermont. I've been an entrepreneur since I was little. I love building businesses, and it really accelerated my career path and getting myself involved in the field.
I actually had a couple of good friends of mine from Cleveland, so I got lucky. I had a few people that paved the way before me. They were older and had talked about how great of an experience it was. I came [to UVM] for a visit and I fell in love after one weekend. I'm like, "This is the one." It's actually the only school I applied to.
I believe in mentorship as by far the most important part of the journey. I would've never gotten off the block if I didn't have mentors on every step of the way.
My first mentors definitely were my family. My big sister is unbelievable. She took a lot of time to help me coach me and everything to get me into college. She also helped me write better and communicate better to get into the business world. My big sister - definitely number one. And my family, my parents were all unbelievable mentors to me.
When I was in Vermont, I really wanted a job in marketing as an internship. I met another friend in Vermont [named Rachel] and I was telling her how I was obsessed with advertising, how I really wanted to get into industry, just randomly sitting in a lecture hall. She happened to have a father in that space, and she offered for me to meet with him.
His name's Philip Alexander. Rachel's like, "My dad's nice, he'll talk to you, he'll help you out." I met with him and I'll never forget: he looked at my resume, and he's like, "You have no experience. Let's change that. It's going to be hard to get a job with no experience." He gave me an internship at a marketing firm. Because of that firm, I was able to get another internship on Madison Avenue out of college.
Right off the bat, just that one interaction at University of Vermont and Phil Alexander, who ran the biggest marketing firm in my hometown, just helping me out, just out of the kindness of his heart, got me going.
I've been very fortunate to have people like Phil on every step of the journey.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR JOURNEY INTO ENTREPRENEURSHIP.
MBS: A friend from University of Vermont reached out to me and I was at the time working in advertising. I spent a few years on Madison Avenue at a firm called Digitas - and it was a dream job.
I had binge watched Mad Men all senior year of college and was ready to go hit the advertising world. I was working in politics after that for a very brief amount of time, which is a big passion of mine.
Then an old buddy from the University of Vermont called me up and pitched me an idea to start a company [what would become MedPilot]. We went through a few pivots but built a patient engagement and CRM platform together. It was a really, really fun experience. I appreciate University of Vermont for giving me my first co-founder.
WHAT DREW YOU TO THE HEALTH TECH SPACE?
MBS: My father's a physician and I've always looked up to him and all the work he's done. He's been able to make such a difference in so many people's lives.
Unfortunately for me, I'm really bad at science. Being a doctor was out of the cards for me.
But I'd always really respected people in the profession and understand how many people in our country are negatively impacted by our healthcare system.
And even though it makes up about 20% of our GDP, I don't think anyone thinks it's working, whether you're a patient, a doctor, on the insurance side, everyone knows it's pretty broken.
We set out to try to change that and it originated as an idea to work with patients around helping them navigate their healthcare experience. We quickly learned it was tough going patient by patient; that it's not a very scalable solution.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR FIRST PROJECT, MEDPILOT.
MBS: We ended up partnering with healthcare providers to have access to all the patients in the population that they're working with.
We learned there's two sides to the coin.
Patients really can't afford their medical bills, they don't understand their medical bills, and sometimes [those bills are] wrong.
On the other side, healthcare providers are not getting paid and they're not happy about that either.
If there is a way to bridge that and help people better understand their bills, afford their bills, both sides could win. And we set out to do that [with MedPilot]. It was really exciting.
Over six years, we grew to over 40 employees. I moved my company back to Cleveland, Ohio, which is my hometown. So that was really exciting and huge launching pad for us.
We helped over a million patients through improving their healthcare experience.
AFTER MEDPILOT CAME VYTALIZE HEALTH. TELL US ABOUT THAT.
MBS: Vytalize Health got us into an even more interesting space. They work with doctors to help them get compensated for better outcomes at lower costs. They believe that if it's a fee-for-service world, which is how most of healthcare works today: you're going to get a lot of services if you pay for services.
They're trying to switch the incentive model and provide more preventative care and other things that can help doctors and patients have a better experience.
We started working with Vytalize as a pilot customer during Covid. Medical bills and surveys, and some of the things that we were offering before, became irrelevant during Covid.
We had a really cool opportunity to work with Vytalize and expand our engagement offering into the clinical realm. We went from dating to getting married about four years ago.
WHAT DO YOU LOVE MOST ABOUT WHAT YOU DO?
MBS: I really believe in the service we're providing to doctors.
I know how much it can benefit them, the patient, and the overall broader population.
We're able to save many, many millions of dollars by better care at lower costs, and everybody wins. It's truly the triple aim.
My role as Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Growth allows us to work with as many doctors as we possibly can.
I'm really, really proud that over the past four years, under my leadership, we've been the fastest-growing company in the country -- and we've been able to work with a lot of incredible doctors and help a lot of incredible patients have better experiences.
WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU'RE NOT A CMO AT VYTALIZE HEALTH?
MBS: I do spend a lot of time as the CMO of Vytalize. It's a very intense job that I take very, very seriously with the work we're doing.
But in the time I have outside of it, I love spending time with my eight-month-old baby [Jesse]. I am really, really excited. I'm a new father and it's just been the most incredible experience.
My wife [Claudia], Jesse, and I spend as much time as we can walking and hanging out.
We travel together and try to really explore the world with him. We've spent a lot of time in Mexico with him.
We try to break him out of the New York City winter to experience the sunshine. We've taken him to Cleveland and outside New York City - Westport, Connecticut, and the Hudson Valley - anything that lets the little man get some fresh air has been good.
WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR ASPIRING ENTREPRENEURS?
MBS: The most important part, both when you're starting out as well as you develop your career, is networking and building relationships, and whether it's mentors, peers, or people that you're mentoring beneath you.
I really wouldn't have gotten anywhere without that.
I met my first investor of MedPilot - who wrote our biggest check and got us going - at a bar mitzvah. You never know where you'll meet people
So be prepared to always put your best foot forward, be kind to everyone around you. You never know who can help and you never know who you can help.
And I think it's really important to not make networking transactional, because it's not something where you can just -- if you help someone, they'll help you and you'll build your career.
You have to be thoughtful and kind. And if you have the right intentions, it will work out.
Read About More Alumni Lives
UVM Alumni are living rich lives, doing astounding and impactful work in many fields, in communities around Vermont, across the US, and around the world. Here are just a few of the stories we've gotten to share recently:
How I Got Here: Matt Buder Shapiro '12
Lisa Wartenberg Vélez
Jul 16, 2025