FDA Veteran Outlines Bold Plans to Increase Diversity in Medtech Industry

On October 5, 2020, MDDI published a Q&A with MedTech Color founder, Kwame Ulmer. In the article, Ulmer, shares more about how MedTech Color, a non-profit organization focused on ensuring people of color enter, remain, and flourish in the medtech industry, is building a community of African Americans, Latinx people, and others who sponsor and mentor people of color who are thinking of entering or leaving the industry.

“We also aim to foster thought leadership and increase visibility around issues that are particularly relevant to people of color in the medtech industry,” Ulmer says. “Because underrepresentation goes far beyond professional inclusion at medtech companies, we are also working to increase diversity in clinical trial enrollment to help ensure medtech innovation benefits all people.”

Having spent 12 years at the FDA, and participated in countless (over 1,000) meetings with MedTech C-Suite executives across the nation, Ulmer shares that only one was African American.

“I joined a $3 billion medical device business and as part of a meeting of the 100 top leaders, I was the sole African American,” says Ulmer. “I’ve religiously attended the world’s largest industry conference each year, where it’s been made apparent our industry lacks the insights of people of color. As a former student at Lincoln University, the oldest of the nation’s historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), I knew there wasn’t a pipeline problem. The accumulation of over a decade of experiences like these, paired with encouragement from a mentor, motivated me to start MedTech Color.”

The concept of MedTech Color was born during a conversation between Ulmer and Michelle McMurry-Heath, CEO of BIO, at the AdvaMed Conference in 2016. Ulmer shares that they discussed his experience of observing few leaders of color in the industry and brainstormed if there was a meaningful way they could build a community that would foster a change in this underrepresentation.

“We want to be known as an organization that elevates, guides and encourages people of color to enter and remain in the medtech industry, because this industry is where life-saving decisions are made, and people of color need to be making more of those decisions,” Ulmer says. “We aim to build community, drive thought leadership and increase the number of people of color in the ecosystem.”

You can read the full article here.