Her Story
About Natalie
Natalie Kennedy has spent over 20 years in the healthcare field, beginning her career on the front lines in patient care as a medical assistant. She has worked in hospitals, community health, and population health, gradually advancing into leadership and healthcare operations. Natalie currently serves as the Manager for Growth Operations for a headache and migraine specialty practice, where she leads an international team dedicated to improving patient access, operational efficiency, and the patient experience. She is also an instructor for medical assisting. Natalie is pursuing her bachelor's degree in healthcare administration and aims to run an ambulatory department and advance to executive leadership in healthcare operations, whether in a larger hospital or startup environment. She attributes her success to her upbringing, her children, resilience, eagerness to learn, and passion for the field. Natalie values integrity, empathy, perseverance, and tenacity in her work. She advises aspiring professionals to never let their current position define their potential, emphasizing initiative, curiosity, and continuous improvement.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Natalie
01What do you attribute your success to?
I definitely have to agree that it's part of how I was raised, just watching my mom raised my sister and myself as a single mom, and going to work every day, and working her way up in healthcare as well. And then my children. But aside from those two things, just resilience and the eagerness to always want to learn, and then just being passionate about the field that I'm in.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would really say never let your current position define your potential. I started out in really entry level as a medical assistant, just taking the initiative to learn new things, always be open to learning new things, and just working your way up into the position that you want. It really just takes the curiosity, the initiative, and always looking for ways to improve.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
One of the primary challenges in my field would be access to care. Patients being undereducated when it comes to healthcare insurance. That's a really big problem particularly in California. Our healthcare isn't great and a lot of patients don't have access. Opportunities for growth are better access to healthcare insurance, more access to specialty care, more access to preventative care. If we can tackle the preventative care and outreach to patients, we would have better health outcomes by outreaching to patients more proactively.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I would say integrity, empathy. Working in healthcare, you definitely have to come from a place of empathy. Perseverance. When you're working in management, you get told no from the higher execs, but having that perseverance and tenacity to keep pushing what you believe in is really important.
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