Innovation July 27, 2022

Kira Wampler: Driving Change in Healthcare Through Curiosity and Ambition

We spoke with our lead Venture Chair, Kira Wampler, to share her perspective on how Redesign Health is fundamentally changing the care equation by powering innovation at scale.

I joined Redesign Health in February 2020 as the first Venture Chair — a role designed to support Redesign Health’s unique platform for developing, launching, and growing Operating Companies, in addition to leading our amazing team of Venture Chairs. Ultimately, my responsibility is to help our CEOs and Operating Companies reach their highest potential and have the most positive impact on the healthcare system. On any given day, that means I’m helping hire great founders, or I’m supporting those founders with go-to-market strategies, fundraising, hiring, and scaling.

I’ve been in technology and business model transformation since the late 90s, and have been the CEO and CMO of a variety of companies. I’ve found that I particularly love highly complex industries where improving consumers’ experiences through technology creates a direct and dramatic improvement in a person’s life. From small business accounting, payments, payroll and taxes to real estate to transportation, I’ve seen meaningful, positive impact time and again from technology empowering people’s lives.

In mid-2019, I met Brett Shaheen, the CEO and founder of Redesign Health, and I immediately felt as if I’d found a new home to apply my expertise and background to the complex realities of healthcare. Here’s why I love working at Redesign Health:

“You need to bring people with diverse experiences together to have an extreme impact."

1. Redesign Health includes the most wildly intelligent and driven people who are simultaneously the most curious and humble people I’ve ever met.

Redesign Health embodies the definition of a growth mindset. Building 0–1 startups that scale requires our team to possess an uncommon combination of traits: you have to be extremely hungry and ambitious, while also open to feedback from all sources. We’ve grown substantially from when I first joined the team in 2020, from a handful of people to 200+, and that culture continues to be the cornerstone of the company.
2. We believe the only way to create real change in healthcare is at scale.

We aren’t just building one or two companies every couple of years and impacting a few categories within the healthcare system over decades — we’re actually envisioning how we can impact as many people as possible in a highly leverageable way. When I first joined Redesign Health, they had two companies live and maybe four funded. Now, four years after we were founded, we have over thirty companies funded and nearly twenty live. That’s the kind of innovation at scale we’re striving towards, and it requires a fundamental rethinking around what it means to create the strong foundation companies require to grow.
3. Transforming healthcare through innovation at scale requires a wide range of backgrounds and areas of expertise. It’s the ultimate network effect business.

From the beginning, Brett believed healthcare transformation cannot be built by only one kind of individual, solely from a tech executive, investment professional, or healthcare expert. He believes, and I agree, that you need to bring people with diverse experiences together to have an extreme impact. We have a beautiful opportunity to bring together CEOs who come from a wide range of backgrounds: some are tech-oriented, some are product-oriented, others have a background in sales. Some are first-time CEOs, others are in their third executive experience at Redesign Health. Every single one of them brings their blood, sweat, tears, imagination, curiosity and rigor to build great companies with high impact.

Kira Wampler Lead Venture Chair

Kira Wampler is a 20-year product and marketing leader who has successfully led teams and companies through hyper-growth, digital transformation, M&A and category disruption. Kira served as the CEO of Art.com until its exit to Walmart, was the CMO of Lyft and Trulia, and held several leadership roles at Intuit. Kira holds multiple patents across fields including marketing technology and industrial design. She serves on the boards of Candid, a VC-backed high-growth startup focused on oral care, and Doximity (DOCS), the leading digital platform for U.S. medical professionals.

People

All People articles