Lisa Piercey, MD

Lisa Piercey, MD, MBA is nationally recognized physician executive with extensive public and private sector experience and is the Founder and CEO of Tristela Strategies, a boutique strategic advisory firm for healthcare investors and operators. Dr. Piercey served on Governor Bill Lee’s Cabinet as the 14th Commissioner of Health for the State of Tennessee, managing a $700MM budget and leading over 4,300 employees. One of the most significant contributions to her time in office was her leadership through the COVID-19 response, as Chairman of the Governor’s pandemic task force, where she represented state health officials across national and international media platforms and in
multiple interactions with the White House during two presidential administrations. Also in her role as Tennessee’s health chief, Dr. Piercey provided licensure and regulatory oversight for the state’s 300K health professionals and 1,400+ healthcare facilities. She collaborated with TennCare, the state’s Medicaid agency, as well as legislators and policymakers, to advance pivotal policy and budgetary initiatives, such as rural healthcare access, dental care for the uninsured, and the overhaul of the state’s TANF reserve fund.

Prior to her public service, Dr. Piercey spent over a decade as a senior-level operations executive, providing clinical and administrative leadership in large medical group and health system operations, where she exceled at driving strategies for access to cost-efficient care, particularly in rural, underserved and high-risk populations. As Executive Vice President of West Tennessee Healthcare, the nation’s ninth largest public, not-for-profit health system with over $1B in revenue and 7,000 employees, she had fiduciary responsibility for all of the system’s rural hospitals, behavioral health service lines, and post-acute services and spearheaded the region’s population health initiatives, creating the system’s chronic disease management program with remote patient monitoring, and designing and programming its internationally acclaimed medical fitness center. She also organically grew the state’s largest telepsychiatry network and launched the system’s first medication assisted treatment program, including development of a first-of-its-kind residential MAT program for pregnant and postpartum women.

Throughout her career, Dr. Piercey has been recognized by numerous healthcare, public health, and media organizations for her operational leadership, as well as for her commitment to ensuring clear and actionable public health messaging. Dr. Piercey has served as the National Chairman of the ACHE Management Series Editorial Board and as a member of the American Hospital Association Small and Rural Hospital Governance Council, The Joint Commission Critical Access Hospital Advisory Group, and Association of State and Territorial Health Officials Government Relations Committee. In her personal capacity, she provides governance and oversight in academic settings on the Board of Trustees for Lipscomb University, and as the Chairman of the Lone Oaks Farm Advisory Council for the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture. Dr. Piercey volunteers in the nonprofit sector as a longtime member of the Board of Directors for both TheCO Entrepreneur Development Center and Aspell Recovery Center.

After earning her B.S. in Chemistry from Lipscomb University, Dr. Piercey received her M.D. from East Tennessee State University and an M.B.A. from Bethel University. She is board certified in both General Pediatrics and Child Abuse Pediatrics and continues to actively evaluate children who are suspected victims of abuse and neglect. Dr. Piercey has been on the clinical faculty at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine since 2007 and also serves as adjunct faculty for the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center. She and her husband, David, an industrial safety specialist, are west Tennessee natives and have four children.