Improving diversity in the med tech industry

On May 4, 2021, DOTMED reported, MedTech Color is on a mission to improve representation of leaders of color in the medical technology industry. It all began at the 2016 AdvaMed Conference, when Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath, CEO of BIO, and medtech veteran Kwame Ulmer started talking about potential ways of building a community that would foster change in the industry and combat the underrepresentation of leaders of color.

Since then, MedTech Color has grown into a much larger effort with stakeholders from big and small companies across the industry. The focus on ensuring people of color enter, remain and flourish within the medtech industry has given rise to a Pitch Competition that offers support to innovators. To learn more, HealthCare Business News checked in with Kwame Ulmer.

Kwame Ulmer: I spent 12 years at the FDA and participated in countless meetings with MedTech C-Suite executives across the nation. Over the years I’ve met with over 1,000 leaders, and only one was an 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. 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.

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