Ines Voellinger

For years, I was told my empathy was a weakness. It came up more than once, usually paired with my insistence on staying practical and realistic about what actually works. I tried to change. I couldn't, and I'm glad I didn't, because that instinct turned out to be exactly what worked, with every client and in every industry I've ever been in.

Two other things have carried me just as far. The first is integrity. Working in highly regulated, safety-critical environments taught me there's always a right way to do something, and I've never been willing to bend the rules, or myself, to get ahead. I'd give up a promotion before I would, and that has never once felt like a sacrifice.

The second is energy. When I get genuinely excited about an idea, that excitement turns into a vision, and the vision pulls people in. I do my best work surrounded by people with the same curiosity, the ones who want to test, experiment, and build something. Right now I'm aiming all of it at one thing I believe in completely: helping the U.S. move toward real, preventive healthcare. I don't need my part to be big. I need it to count, and I'm giving it everything I have.

The best advice I ever got didn't sound like career advice at the time. I was twenty-seven, and a physician who had treated me for a long stretch looked at me and said, "You should study medicine." I took it seriously. Then I talked myself out of it, certain I was too old to start over.

He was right, and somewhere I knew it. Years later, when I was hungry for something that stretched me again, I started studying medicine in my own time, quietly, because I couldn't not. That detour turned out to be a straight line to where I am now.

What he really taught me, along with a few hard turns since, is to trust my gut and believe in my own vision. For someone who leads with empathy, that instinct is rarely wrong. If I have one regret, it's that I didn't trust it sooner.

My advice is simple: just do it, and stop doubting yourself. I spent seventeen years in automotive, an industry that's male-dominated in every corner, from purchasing to engineering, and women still aren't recognized the way they should be. But here's what I wish more people saw: the way women tend to work is a strength, not a liability. We connect things, and people, that others overlook. We see the whole board.

What gives me the most hope is women building networks and lifting each other up, where everyone pitches in something, a contact, an introduction, a word of encouragement. That is real power.

I felt it firsthand. Two years ago I hired a woman who went on to start her own business writing children's books, and her sheer determination is part of what gave me the courage to go all-in on mine. I hired her, and she ended up inspiring me. So if you have an idea you believe in, don't sit on it alone. Say it out loud, share it, let people in. That's how it becomes real. And if I can be the reason one woman stops doubting herself, that's more than enough for me.

The biggest challenge in my field is also its biggest opportunity, and I think we badly underestimate it: the AI literacy gap. The technology keeps racing ahead while the people it's meant to serve, physicians and patients alike, get left behind. And the gap is widest exactly where health disparities already are, in rural and underserved communities. There's enormous hype right now, and a lot of people hiding behind the word "AI." But no matter how good a tool is, if you can't explain its benefit in plain terms a person can actually understand, it fails. You have to meet people where they are, and you have to earn their trust before anything else.

There's a quieter challenge underneath it. Physicians are so buried in administrative work that they barely have time to look up from the screen and be present with the patient in front of them. People don't leave medicine because they stop caring. They leave because they're exhausted. Used well, AI can give some of that time and attention back.

That's the work I want to do next. Not just helping physicians, but going into communities directly, with plain-language workshops and The Trust Lab, a mobile setup I could take into rural towns where people can see and touch AI tools and wearables for themselves, and ask their own questions in their own words. Familiarity first. Trust first. Everything real follows from that.

A few things are non-negotiable for me. Integrity sits at the foundation; I've never been willing to win by cutting corners. Then comes curiosity, which is really the engine for everything else. I'm endlessly drawn to new ideas, new technology, new ways of solving old problems, and I believe creativity matters just as much in this field as the technical skill does. The best solutions usually come from looking at a problem sideways.

But none of it means much to me unless it serves people. That instinct goes all the way back to my first job at fifteen, in hotel catering and events, where the entire job was making sure the person in front of you felt taken care of. I never lost it. Today I care about working alongside others, lifting them up, and making a real impact, especially for the patients and providers who are too often overlooked. At the end of the day, my measure is simple: is the technology actually serving the human being in front of us? If it isn't, it isn't worth building.