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Carl Madi

Carl Madi is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Stepful, a New York-based healthcare career training platform that emerged from the Y Combinator Summer 2021 cohort [1][2][12]. He is known for building a program that trains and places allied health and nursing students, and for partnering with health systems to develop internal training pathways for existing staff as well as pipelines of new graduates from the communities those systems serve [3]. Madi has described the persistent shortage of clinical workers in American healthcare as a solvable problem that few companies have chosen to address directly, and has positioned Stepful's business around closing that gap [3].

Before founding Stepful, Madi held operating roles across ride-hailing, on-demand services, and consumer app companies. He worked as an Operations and Logistics Manager and later a Global Strategy and Planning Manager at Uber between 2013 and 2015, then served as General Manager for New and Emerging Markets at Amino Apps from 2017 to 2019 [7][8][6]. He subsequently led the direct-to-consumer business at Handy HQ as General Manager from 2019 to 2021, immediately prior to starting Stepful [5]. Earlier in his career he worked as a consultant at A.T. Kearney from 2010 to 2013 [9].

Madi has said he began developing the idea for Stepful in late 2020 after a lengthy phone call with Tresia, an acquaintance from engineering school who became his co-founder, during which the two discussed the potential to help workers upskill into healthcare jobs [13]. The company started with a single cohort of 10 to 15 students, for whom Madi and his co-founder acted as personal coaches, building Zoom class links themselves, distributing study materials, and, in at least one instance, serving as the students' first practice subjects for blood draws during clinical training [13]. When Stepful applied to Y Combinator, Madi has recounted that the accelerator initially rejected the founders' ability to build the product and gave them three weeks to bring on a technical co-founder [13]. From that first cohort, Madi has said the company scaled to roughly 20,000 monthly active students over four years while working to preserve the same individualized coaching model established at the outset [13].

Madi has framed Stepful's outcomes in terms of graduation and job-placement rates that skeptics did not expect to hold at scale, citing rates in the range of 75 to 80 percent even as enrollment grew into the tens of thousands [13]. In public remarks reflecting on customer feedback, he has pointed to student reviews, including one from an older student returning to school after time away from the workforce, as evidence that the company's emphasis on personalized support has persisted despite its growth [14].

Madi holds an MBA from the Wharton School and has a research analyst background from Stanford University [10][11].

Founded

Insights & ideas

Carl Madi frames Stepful's mission as empowering people, particularly nontraditional students, to change their lives through healthcare careers, citing a customer review from a 43-year-old divorced mother of five as proof the model works [1]. He believes the core value proposition is that Stepful stays with students "at every step of the way," from coaching through job placement, and considers this personalized support central to the company's identity even as it scales [1][2].

He argues that maintaining high graduation rates (75 to 80%) while growing to tens of thousands of students is possible despite widespread skepticism that such support could not scale [2]. Madi traces this belief to Stepful's origin, when he and co-founder Tresia personally coached the first 10 to 15 students, built Zoom links manually, and even served as the first "hands" for students during clinical blood draws [2]. He sees this hands-on, founder-led approach as the template that should persist "no matter how many students" the company serves [2].

Experience

  1. Co-Founder & CEO
    StepfulMay 2021 to Present
  2. General Manager, Direct to Consumer Business
    Handy HQOct 2019 to Apr 2021
  3. General Manager - New and Emerging Markets
    Amino AppsMay 2017 to Mar 2019
  4. Global Strategy and Planning Manager
    UberJan 2015 to Jul 2015
  5. Operations and Logistics Manager
    UberMar 2013 to Jan 2015
  6. Consultant
    A.T. KearneyFeb 2010 to Aug 2013

Education

Media & appearances

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