Jerry Tillinger

Background

• 30+ years leading medical groups and integrated delivery systems
• Led U.S. Digestive Health (Exton, PA) as CEO from its 2019 formation via merger of three regional GI groups through 2025, growing it into one of the largest GI practices in the U.S. (150+ gastroenterologists, 56 locations)
• Prior CEO role at Lutheran Health Physicians (Fort Wayne, IN)
• MBA/MHA, Georgia State University; BA English, Emory University

Current Focus

• Founding CEO of Evolve Orthopedic Partners (launched August 2025), a physician-led MSO backed by Zenyth Partners
• First deal: OrthoNY partnership, preserving the physician brand while centralizing billing, HR, compliance, marketing, and IT
• Explicit thesis: physician groups want to modernize/expand without losing clinical identity — MSO as the "bridge"

What He Cares About

• Physician-led governance and preserving local clinical autonomy in rollups
• Operational scaling (back-office consolidation) without diluting brand or care quality
• Track record suggests he prizes rapid, replicable partnership models over one-off deals

Recent Moves

• Jumped from GI (digestive health) to orthopedics — signals a specialist-MSO operator willing to move across specialties, not tied to one clinical niche
• Early-stage platform (single practice partner as of launch) — meaningfully earlier in its build-out than USDH was when he joined

Sensitivities

• Very new to Evolve/orthopedics (started August 2025) — may be cautious about over-promising pipeline or comparing too directly to USDH's trajectory
• Zenyth Partners relationship is fresh; he may defer competitive/strategy questions to the sponsor

Questions to Ask

1. What made the GI-to-orthopedics MSO thesis transferable, and what's different this time around?
2. What's the near-term pipeline beyond OrthoNY — is Evolve targeting a specific regional density strategy like USDH did?
3. How is physician equity/governance structured at Evolve versus what you built at U.S. Digestive Health?