Doctor Kimberly, PharmD, RPh
The Cost of Blind Spots: A Personal Call to Innovate
I grew up in Mobile County, Alabama, where I first saw how rural communities often navigate healthcare with limited resources and fragmented systems. Despite being surrounded by clinical expertise—my family included both medical and pharmacy professionals—I witnessed the persistent gaps in care that define much of the rural South. These early observations have stayed with me. They reinforced a truth I’ve seen throughout my career: even highly credentialed individuals can fall through the cracks of a broken system. That reality continues to drive my work today—advancing solutions that are not only innovative, but grounded in the lived experiences. For me, transforming healthcare isn’t just a strategy—it’s a long-standing commitment to systems that serve people better.
What I Learned in IHS Still Shapes My Mission
After graduating from Florida A&M University’s College of Pharmacy, I made an unconventional decision: I moved to a remote Indian reservation in northern New Mexico. There was no Wi-Fi. Limited paved roads. And a deep mistrust of the healthcare system that had failed tribal communities time and time again.
At Zia Pueblo and Jemez Pueblo, I served as the acting Medical Director and Pharmacy Director for over two years. There, I developed and implemented the reservation’s first-ever antibiotic stewardship protocol, curbing overprescribing and bringing federal safety guidelines into real-time practice.
I ran anticoagulation, diabetes, and smoking cessation clinics where my patients were often elders who had traveled miles by car or foot—many without appointment systems, reliable transportation, or accessible follow-up care. I designed after-hours medication protocols, staying late to dispense urgent prescriptions so that no one went without critical therapy overnight.
I helped convert manual records into structured dispensing logs, trained tribal health aides on adverse drug reaction recognition, and created medication reconciliation processes to prevent duplicate therapies and contraindications for patients visiting both tribal and non-tribal providers.
I didn’t just work in a clinic—I built care delivery systems in real time, with zero room for error. Every patient interaction was a test of infrastructure, communication, and clinical accuracy. And the stakes were always high.
The FDA: Where Precision Meets Protection
I was later recruited into the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Compliance, where I served as a federal regulator overseeing drug manufacturing plants across the U.S. and internationally. I led facility inspections in complex manufacturing environments—flagging deviations, halting dangerous product lots, and issuing enforcement actions when companies cut corners. My job was to ensure that every product on the shelf was safe, effective, and manufactured to standard. That role gave me rare insight into the supply chain vulnerabilities most Americans never see. It also reinforced a core truth: when science and systems break down, people suffer.
Turning Insight into Scalable Impact
I built my career in the pharmaceutical industry by translating complex science into practical solutions. I started in oncology, helping ensure that breakthrough clinical data could be understood and applied by physicians in real-world settings. Later, I led medical strategy across an entire portfolio of therapies—designing systems to improve how companies engage with clinicians, gather insights, and move evidence into action at scale. My work helped streamline operations, strengthen internal alignment, and improve how treatments reached the people who needed them. Over time, I saw a recurring pattern: innovation doesn’t fail because of weak science—it fails when capital, infrastructure, and execution aren’t aligned. That insight sparked a deeper focus on how strategic investment can accelerate meaningful change in healthcare.
Today, I’m focused on the intersection of health, innovation, and capital. I believe investment is one of the most underleveraged tools in transforming healthcare—not just to fund new ideas, but to build sustainable models, expand access, and deliver measurable outcomes. I bring a fresh perspective, shaped by years in regulated medicine and real-world implementation, to support ventures that are rethinking how care is delivered, financed, and scaled.