Ryan Koonce was calm and steady in the operating room.
He’s an expert in hip and knee replacement surgery, who performed nearly 600 joint replacements per year at one point in his career.
The business world was completely different for him. It represented a space that he was less familiar with, one where the language was entirely different from the medical vernacular he was used to.
That became increasingly evident when Koonce started to drift from medicine and dip his toe into business with OrthoSkool, an orthopedic patient education platform he developed and launched in 2019.
“It was very clear that I just didn’t understand the language of business like I should. And I needed to do something about that,” he said.
The Daniels College of Business Executive MBA program served as the dictionary for Koonce, helping him learn the vocabulary of business and shepherding him from surgeon to CEO.
“I used the business school as a launchpad to really do a total career shift,” he said. “I’m still in medicine. I’m just in the business and administrative side of it now. And it was a great switch for me.”
From Orthopedic Surgeon to Entrepreneur
Koonce spent 25 years training and practicing orthopedic surgery, specializing in hip and knee replacements. He would also work as an assistant professor, helping teach the next generation of medical professionals.
In his own surgical practice, Koonce saw a business opportunity that would serve as the foundation for OrthoSkool. Pre-surgery meetings were lasting too long, as patients struggled to understand the rules and requirements of their upcoming operation. He originally started OrthoSkool as a side project, creating an online education hub where his patients could learn about their upcoming surgery, ask questions and reference documents.
This business interest, coupled with a challenging surgical schedule, led Koonce to create an exit plan. He would enroll in the EMBA program at Daniels and gradually sunset his surgical practice, shifting his focus toward entrepreneurship and OrthoSkool.
How the Daniels Executive MBA Helped Fuel a Career Pivot
After 20 years away from the classroom as a student, Koonce found his fit almost immediately.
“I remember that very first quarter coming home and telling my wife, ‘My business school days are my favorite day of the week right now,’” he said.
The program was providing multi-faceted value to Koonce. He was building his business expertise while simultaneously refining his own venture. He didn’t leave OrthoSkool at the classroom door; he brought his experience to class discussions, drew on it to complete assignments and developed it through projects.
“I was getting real-time feedback from professors who are at the forefront of how I should run my business and what features we should have. I mean, you can’t get that anywhere else. And I don’t have to hire them as a consultant. I’m sitting in their class,” he said.
Learning to Lead From the Heart
And while Koonce entered looking to grow the business skills on his resume, he learned more than just marketing and finance. The EMBA taught him crucial lessons in business leadership, specifically showing him how to lead from the heart and not just the head. He looks at situations now with more empathy and understanding.
He would learn more still from his classmates, faculty and the business leaders he met on his global business class trip to Mongolia and South Korea. Some of those business values he picked up have been incorporated into OrthoSkool’s mission.
He graduated from the program in March 2026 and became fully self-employed in July, a first for Koonce.
“I have a full-time job; I just work for myself now. Every day is spent trying to grow this company,” he said. “And I don’t think I could have done it without my education at Daniels.”
What’s Next for OrthoSkool
With Koonce’s full-time focus, OrthoSkool is ready to grow and work with more customers in the surgical space. The company has been building its own platform to house interactive courses on surgical education, allowing patients to return and review them after their surgery.
Unlike generic online resources, OrthoSkool courses are tailored to the specific hospital and surgeon, covering everything from check-in procedures to physical therapy and post-operative protocols. Koonce ultimately wants patients to have easy, constant access to the information they need while freeing up clinical teams to do what they do best.
And he’s already thinking about what comes next. Koonce hopes to incorporate AI tools that could give patients another way to get answers throughout the surgical process, an idea he sharpened while at Daniels.