Savage Angel

Episode 28 - Speak with Andy Moye


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What if the leadership playbook that helped a Colonial militia beat the British at Guilford Courthouse in 1780 is the same one that separates great CEOs from title-holders in 2026 — and every generation in between has been trying (and mostly failing) to learn it from scratch?

In this episode of Savage Angel, Angela sits down with Andy Moye — 8-year Navy pilot who flew planes during 9/11 and the Iraq War, PhD in Health Economics, 20-year healthcare executive, brand-new founder of Glide Path Health, and author of the newly released From Bunker Hill to the Boardroom: Battle-Tested Leadership for Today's Executives.

Andy opens up about the strange advice military officers used to get when they transitioned out ("downplay your service, don't scare the civilians") and why he spent 20 years quietly doing exactly the opposite — leaning into the leadership foundation that made him successful in cancer diagnostics, corporate America, and now cell and gene therapy. His book traces his own family's military line — from two ancestors at the pivotal Battle of Guilford Courthouse in 1780, through the Civil War, to his dad's 25 years in the Army — and pulls out the three leadership pillars that have stood the test of every American conflict.

Then we go full Savage: Andy breaks down why "commander's intent" (the military principle that everyone from the general to the private has to know the objective — in case the top layers die) is the single most under-used framework in modern executive rooms. He explains why "debate, decide, commit" is what separates real leadership teams from the ones where the CFO walks out and quietly tells his team "the boss made a stupid call." And he shares the real reason young leaders stall out: they think the title made them a leader. It didn't.

Plus: how Glide Path Health is using AI to fix the trillion-dollar friction problem in cell and gene therapy — the $500K–$5M curative drugs that are being blocked from patients by bureaucratic bottlenecks — and why "empathy is a superpower" even in the boardroom (yes, Sun Tzu agrees).

What You'll Learn

  • Why the advice to "hide your military background" quietly hurt a whole generation of veterans in corporate America
  • Why the "vision statement" era is dead — and what actually gets people out of bed for your company
  • How to lead a team where three people have completely different purposes (the mission-driven one, the tech nerd, the sales guy who just wants money)
  • What commander's intent is — and why every C-suite needs it more than any strategic plan
  • The debate, decide, commit framework — and why bosses who "vent to the team" submarine their own companies
  • Why A-players hire A-players and B-players hire C-players — and what that means for scaling teams
  • The Zappos story: how giving $12/hour customer service reps unlimited budgets made the company (and why "judge the judgment, not the outcome" works)
  • Empathy as a leadership superpower — even Sun Tzu backs this one
  • Why the title never made anyone a leader — and what actually does
  • What advanced therapeutics (CAR T, gene therapy) are — and how they're already curing sickle cell disease
  • Why the American healthcare system is a trillion-dollar friction machine — and where AI can finally help
  • The moment Andy went from Navy pilot to healthcare CEO to founder — and why the "winding road" was the point

...more
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Savage AngelBy Angela Giles