Dorothy Gemmell
Head of Commercial
Capsule
Digital Health Evangelist
“As a leader, Dorothy Gemmell is inspirational, magnetic and relentless,” says Eric Kinariwala, CEO of Capsule.
Rob Rebak, CEO of Forefront Telecare and former CEO of AbleTo, adds, “Everything Dorothy touches turns to gold. The diversity of her success is also unusually impressive—from big pharma, to digital health, to agency, to EHR, to tech-enabled mental health, to digital/DTC pharmacy.”
That’s right, Dorothy has pretty much done it all, and did so by design with a desire to constantly learn and try something new. Starting her career in sales and marketing at Upjohn/Pharmacia (now Pfizer), at just 25 she was given a chance to be a district manager leading a team of 10 very tenured salespeople, of which the youngest was 40. Then in 1999, she joined WebMD/Medscape when it was basically a 100-person startup and grew the sales team from 15 to 150, and revenue from $22 million to $400 million.
Dorothy then took a sabbatical, but it wasn’t long before Donna Murphy, CEO, Havas Health asked her to run Havas Life New York. While Dorothy had never worked at an agency, nonetheless run one, Murphy said she needed someone who could make the agency more digital. Dorothy’s first step? Simply banning the word “digital” and making all marketing tactics address every channel that a doctor or consumer engaged with.
When Dorothy wanted to move on from media and advertising, she decided to join EMR company Practice Fusion. From there, she was recruited to join AbleTo, a telemedicine company that allowed Dorothy to deal with a new side of the business—payers and employers. She grew business 40% in year one and then doubled revenue after that. And most recently, Dorothy joined digital pharmacy Capsule in New York City and will help take the business national over the next 18 months.
“I’m incredibly proud of the amazing team I’ve built at Capsule and feel energized everyday by our ambitious mission—to build a pharmacy that works for everyone,” Dorothy explains. “I am also proud that I am still strongly connected to my former teams, and enjoy seeing their continued success.”
