“Passionately Solving One Problem at a Time”

Kathryn Wilson spent more than two decades in the pharmaceutical advertising business, rising the ranks one rung at a time. After 20 years, she looked around and realized that her entire career had been spent doing the work, making things happen, building relationships, and turning the profits over to a sea of middle-aged men that were in corner offices studying spreadsheets and calculating profit margins. “I wasn’t having fun anymore and I certainly wasn’t optimistic about my future. I was also 8 months pregnant with twins. I thought about changing industries, or just dealing with the status quo and focusing on my family, but I knew in my heart there had to be something more,” says the CEO, Managing Partner at VUE Health, who wrote the business plan while in labor with her now 4 year old girls.

She created a company focused on diverse and interesting senior-level people doing great work, setting boundaries, being partners, not vendors, and having fun. “We are smart, quirky, passionate people that like to solve complex problems and have a great time doing it,” says Kathryn. “We are diverse in background, culture, religion, language and many other areas that make our team a rich tapestry of life.” She adds, “We are fearless in our pursuit of greatness and we are always learning, always evolving and always finding new ways to solve a problem. That passion runs deep at VUE and it is what makes us so special.”

According to Kathryn, inspiration is the crossroads between knowledge and hope. “I spend a lot of time with women at various parts of their career, helping them to understand their value, shaking lose the fears that in order to be successful they have to avoid issues and conversations that make others uncomfortable,” she says. “It is about finding your confidence and your voice. Being the most prepared person in the room and standing in your strength. Early in my career, I was blissfully ignorant to any glass ceiling. Because I didn’t know it was there, I just took my seat at the table.” She adds, “In hind sight, I realize that there were many times that I was probably over stepping societal norms but in this instance, I think it played to my advantage. So now my coaching to women is to be fearless. To not apologize for a feeling, an opinion or for making other’s uncomfortable.”

Withing the pharmaceutical advertising space, Kathryn always starts with a foundation in science. What is going on with the disease, how does it behave, how the body responds, how do the medications work, and why they work. “All that work happens before it crosses my desk. I take that information and layer on human behavior…Why people do the things they do, what motivates them and I create a strategy for the brand to live,” she explains. “It isn’t the creative execution but it is the position and the stage for which the creative must play. And then the creative team goes to work to bring it to life.”

VUE’s next endeavor is one Kathryn has been working on for a bit of time and will be officially launching from the Florida office, which will focus on multi-cultural marketing. For years, companies have been segmenting their audiences, but more important than some of the traditional measures are the cultural and linguistic differences that impact decision-making and knowledge about things like health. “Our office will be based in FL but really serve to be a launching pad for changing how we address the beautifully diverse population in this country. From there, I have plans for a few other offerings that will come in time,” says Kathryn. “But the other big focus of this year is to launch a not for profit that will serve our local communities and help at a grass roots level to reallyhave a positive impact quickly. It’s so important because it is in dealing with real people that we can best serve them.”IE