Alum finds ways to have a big impact on health and students

“I get to work with clinical and operations teams, understand their challenges, and help them to identify and trial solutions,” says Kerr. “Most of the time, we are looking at new technologies to see if they can improve a particular area of health care. The fact that I get to be part of that process is profound.”

A change of career plans

Growing up in Ontario, Kerr wanted to be a doctor. His mom suggested Dalhousie for his Bachelor of Science degree.

“She said it was far enough away for me to gain independence, but close enough to visit often,” he says. "We went to some of the recruitment events, and I realized that, at Dal, you're less of a number and more of a person compared to other universities I was looking at."

 After graduating, Kerr took a job at Tranquility, a mental health startup that developed a digital cognitive behavioural therapy platform. His goal was to save money for medical school, but his work helping the company grow inspired a change of plans.

“We did a project where we offered the app to Dal’s Faculty of Graduate Studies students,” says Kerr. “It was incredibly rewarding to be part of this project. It made me realize that by bringing new medical technologies to market, I could still make a meaningful impact on people’s lives, just in a different way”

Kerr returned to Dalhousie to earn an MBA. He chose the university in part because he knew the calibre of its programs and professors. He also saw opportunities to gain unique hands-on experience through the Faculty of Management’s Doing Business in Emerging Markets course and the Corporate Residency MBA Pathway.

“Dal was the only university that offered an eight-month residency in the middle of a two-year program, which is a whole academic year,” Kerr says. “Given my interest in health, I knew I could accomplish more and gain more knowledge in that time than I could with a four-month internship at another university.”

Kerr’s internship was with the Nova Scotia Health Innovation Hub, opening the door for his current role. “I wouldn’t have gotten the job without the experience my MBA internship provided me,” he says. “It gave me the know-how to conduct due diligence on companies from both a financial and a competencies perspective. But it also taught me the value of relationship management and navigating complex organizations, which is helpful when working with clinical and operational teams.”

Helping a new generation of students

“The one thing I truly strive for is to have a tangible impact,” Kerr says. “I want to continue growing in my career so that I can give back even more to my community and help others. Those are the values I was raised with and that’s what drives me.”