By Eigen Escario
As featured in CNBC’s “Cities of Success” as one of the nation’s booming economies and cities, Nashville is known as the healthcare capital of the South and known for its culture that cultivates entrepreneurship. For those interested in graduate-level business programs, the city serves as the perfect environment to nurture careers in a diverse array of industries, whether it be at a prestigious firm or a flourishing small business.
Baxter Webb, Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Vanderbilt Business, and Rangaraj “Ranga” Ramanujam, Faculty Director of Health Care Programs at Vanderbilt Business, discuss the viability of Nashville as a beacon for business through factors that come together to form a vibrant, thriving city.
Nashville: The Capital Of Healthcare
As the host of one of the biggest private healthcare firms in the world, HCA, Nashville offers an ecosystem full of innovative start-ups, diverse professional opportunities, and an extensive community of healthcare professionals.
“The idea of combining business and management principles with advancing healthcare is what drew me here,” Ramanujam said. “The fact that you have HCA, who is adopting a corporate approach to healthcare and the largest one in the world headquartered in Nashville that has been around for a long time, means there is history, as well as related benefits and opportunities. So many of the over 600 healthcare-related startups in the city are linked to HCA.”
The academic spheres in Nashville also provide a talent pool that mutually interacts with this vibrant and active scene of healthcare innovation and growth.
“When it comes to healthcare, Nashville has it all. Close to home, you have Vanderbilt University Medical Center—one of the nation’s top academic medical centers—and across the city, there are over 900 healthcare companies,” Ramanujam said. “Industry giants like HCA, CHS, and LifePoint anchor this ecosystem alongside a vibrant array of startups. It’s a dynamic environment where history, innovation, and opportunity converge to make a real impact.”
A Supportive Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
Nashville offers unique advantages for aspiring entrepreneurs, most notably its affordability, abundant talent, and supportive ecosystem which creates a breeding ground for start-ups and a thriving market for big businesses alike.
“Compared to the Bay Area or New York City, the cost of launching a startup here, the access to talent, and the collaborative ecosystem make it really favorable for innovative businesses,” Webb said. “We have startups coming in to recruit students for internships and full-time opportunities… even if you don’t have an idea, you can go work inside an early-stage company.”
With the government invested in the economic success of the city, many resources and infrastructures went into place to make sure Nashville’s business growth remains uninhibited.
“At the state level, the government created an entity called Launch Tennessee, which is a public-private partnership,” Webb said. “Earlier on, Launch Tennessee started TN Invesco, which essentially seeded a bunch of angel funds across the state to invest in early-stage businesses. If you were a group of venture capitalists, you could get matching funds from the state to launch a fund to write checks at the very earliest stages to help launch businesses.”
Since one of the most important questions in relocating for employment is whether or not a city would be a great one to live in, Webb says that Nashville ticks his boxes on that level as well.
“Nashville is a very friendly town. One of the great things is that you can still ask most people to have coffee, and they’ll give you their time and be willing to help,” Webb said. “There are a lot of people that care deeply about this city and want to see it succeed. They pour back into the city in a really healthy, positive way.”
A Southern Hub For Big Firms
As the home to offices for the Big 4 accounting firms – Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG – and Big 5 marketing firms – WPP plc, Omnicom Group, Publicis Groupe, Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG), and Dentsu Inc. – Nashville boasts a competitive yet collaborative matrix that serves as a hub for business in the South.
“You have more and more venture capital firms, consulting offices, and other big players in accounting and marketing relocating or opening offices here, which adds a layer of sophistication to Nashville’s business ecosystem,” Webb said. “Big firms are drawn here because of the collaborative ecosystem and access to skilled talent from schools like Vanderbilt. It’s a city that offers a balance of cost-efficiency and creativity that’s hard to find elsewhere.”
A Dynamic Business Environment
Nashville’s rise as a thriving entrepreneurial hub is no accident — it stems from deliberate efforts by forward-thinking leaders who tackled barriers to growth, such as insufficient capital and talent shortages.
“About 20 years ago, Nashville had some really dynamic political and business leaders that addressed Nashville’s obstacles in the trajectory to become a booming city by pouring capital into startups and attracting talent to the city,” Webb said. “One of those solutions was the formation of the Nashville Technology Council, which specifically targeted talent attraction and recruiting to Nashville.”
The convergence of Nashville’s creative energy and educational excellence exemplifies the “creative class” framework, a concept introduced by Richard Florida, who predicted the city’s emergence as a hub for disruptive innovation decades ago—a prophecy now realized.
“Richard Florida, Distinguished Visiting Professor at Vanderbilt Business, conducted some interesting organizational studies and wrote noteworthy books on what’s called the ‘creative class,’ coined as the New Bohemians,” Webb said. “This demographic, combined with places that have really high education and a supportive ecosystem, lead to the rise of innovative and disruptive businesses—Florida used this model 15-20 years ago to predict that Nashville will become one of these cities, and it has.”
Nashville’s sustained growth as a business hub stems not only from its historic investments but also from ongoing initiatives that continuously invigorate its entrepreneurial ecosystem. These factors, combined with the successful attraction of the best firms in varied industries, supercharged the city’s growth in population, economic growth, and access to opportunities for its residents.
For young professionals graduating from colleges in the area or moving in from other major cities, Nashville is well-equipped to support the next generation of business leaders and entrepreneurs. The unique alignment of these success indicators allows the graduate programs at Vanderbilt Business to prepare students from all over the world for a flourishing career in Nashville and beyond.
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