Dr. Clare Kennedy Purvis: Founder of WELL
In this episode, Nora sits down with Dr. Clare Kennedy Purvis, a psychologist, behavioral scientist, and the founder of WELL. Clare has spent her career operating at the intersection of technology and human behavior, having previously led clinical product teams at pioneering digital health companies like Headspace, Lantern, Mindcure, and Violet. In addition to her executive experience, she has advised global organizations ranging from Google to Sanofi on designing and scaling digital health solutions to millions of users worldwide.
Today, Clare is shifting her focus toward a systemic challenge within the industry: while women deliver the vast majority of healthcare, men still hold the overwhelming majority of leadership and executive power. This leadership gap directly restricts clinical innovation and ultimately leads to poorer health outcomes across the board. To address this imbalance, Clare founded the WELL Accelerator to empower women clinician leaders and entrepreneurs, giving them the strategic framework and network necessary to bring innovative health solutions to market faster and drive true systems-level change.
This conversation is about the intersection of behavior change and digital health, the glaring gap between who delivers healthcare and who leads it, and what it takes to create systems-level change for women in the industry so that clinical innovation can truly thrive.
Key Topics:
What drew Clare to the intersection of human behavior and technology early on through the guidance of mentors and the impact of early digital spaces.
The unique creativity required to adapt traditional medical and psychological treatments into effective tools for people's daily lives.
How Clare's early dissertation on Virtual Reality and virtual self-experience became a lightbulb moment for seeing digital environments as psychological training grounds.
Clare's perspective on why expanding a digital health solution to millions requires the exact same core product processes used when building for small, intimate groups.
How healthcare innovators build executive trust and professional credibility by managing resources intelligently and being highly intentional about testing and piloting.
The critical industry void WELL is filling by empowering the women who deliver day-to-day healthcare to step into decision-making and entrepreneurial roles.
What sets the accelerator apart through its intentional focus on cultivating community among women clinician leaders, and the profound ripple effect that shared network creates.
