Charles N. Martin

Charlie is the Founder and Chairman of Martin Ventures, a Nashville-based investment company founded in 2009. Charlie has more than 50 years of experience operating large, complex healthcare systems.

Early in Charlie’s career, he helped launch General Care Corp. a nursing home firm which changed to an acute hospital company that Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) acquired for $78 million in 1980.

After General Care Corp. was acquired; Charlie joined HCA serving as Executive Vice President and Board Director for ten years. During his tenure, he was responsible for Mergers & Acquisitions, including taking HCA from 140 owned or managed hospitals to over 200 hospitals and held contracts to manage 200 more.

While serving at EVP and Board Director of HCA, Charlie and a number of colleagues agreed to spin out 104 poorly performing hospitals from HCA. This ultimately turned into a healthcare company called, HealthTrust Inc. Charlie served as President, Chief Operating Officer, and Board Director of HealthTrust Inc. He had oversight over the 104 hospitals operations, including increasing the hospital operating margins from low teens to over 20% in one year. After the operating margins were north of 20%, HealthTrust Inc. went public in 1991 and was ultimately acquired by Columbia/HCA.

After HealthTrust Inc., rejoined HCA, Charlie bought the hospital chain Republic Health, ultimately founding a new healthcare system called, OrNda Healthcare Corp. Under Charlie’s leadership, OrNda grew from revenues of $450 million to $3 billion in four years. OrNda became the nation’s third-largest investor-owned hospital chain with 53 hospitals and eventually sold to Tenet Healthcare Corp. in 1997 for $1.7 billion.

After selling OrNda HealthCorp.to Tenet Healthcare Corp., Charlie founded another healthcare system called Vanguard Health Systems. Charlie served as Vanguard’s Founder, Chairman, and CEO for sixteen years. Under his leadership, the hospital chain grew from 0 to 28 hospitals, with $6.5 billion in revenue. Vanguard IPOed in 2011 and in 2013, was acquired by Tenet Healthcare for $4.3 billion.

Additionally, Charlie has also served on numerous Boards of Directors including the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Law and RAND Health, one of the largest independent health research groups in the world.