The President’s Desk

Contributor: Katherine Clark, WG'15
To learn more about Katherine, click here.

Dear Fellow Alumni,

It's hard to believe how quickly the past few years have flown by, and now my term as President is already drawing to a close. As I reflect on my tenure on the WHCMAA board, I'm filled with gratitude for all we’ve accomplished together.

I vividly recall joining the board during the height of the pandemic in 2020, navigating virtual meetings and facing uncertainty about how to best support and engage our alumni community. Together, we strove to strengthen alumni connection, initially with fully virtual networking zoom sessions and content. Never will I forget sending June from breakout room to breakout room during a Zoom happy hour with over 100 participating alumni.

In the following years, there were no doubt growing pains returning to and re-establishing in-person events. Nothing was more special than finally having the opportunity to meet fellow board members in-person at our alumni conference after years of meeting over Zoom. Additionally, developing new relationships with sponsors took significant time and diligence, and year over year we have made progress.

As we discussed at our recent board meeting, we continue to further expand our programming and events, all to foster deeper ties within our association. On that note, please stay tuned for our upcoming membership survey! We want to continue to tailor our offerings, events, content, and networking opportunities to our ever-changing world. Please let us know what we can do to further strengthen our community and provide the most value to you!

Already in 2025, we've seen tremendous engagement at major industry events, starting the year off strong at our flagship JPM event, which continued at networking happy hours at national conferences, including ViVE in Nashville and HIMSS in Las Vegas. We continue to expand our presence by planning alumni happy hours at new industry conferences, including SXSW. As we move into the summer, please be on the lookout for our upcoming happy hours in cities across the country — these events have always been a wonderful opportunity to catch up and create meaningful new connections. If you’d like to host an alumni networking event in your city, please reach out!

Similarly, I want to thank you for continuing to support and mentor our students. We’ve had great participation in organizing coffee chats with students at both the student and alumni conferences – and this year at the student conference this past February at the Sheraton Downtown Philadelphia was no exception! We all are well aware our collective support makes a meaningful difference in shaping the future leaders of healthcare from this program – a key mission of our organization.

I want to take a moment to extend my heartfelt thanks to the remarkable group of board members with whom I’ve served. Your support, collaboration, and passion for the program have made these years personally deeply rewarding:

Though my formal role on the board concludes, stepping away completely would be too difficult — I will definitely stay involved in committee work moving forward! In the meanwhile, I am excited to watch our association continue to flourish under new leadership, as Bryan Bushick takes over the role as President.

To close, I’d like to thank you all for your ongoing support and true dedication to our alumni community – it is truly unparalleled. It has truly been my honor to serve as your President, and I look forward to continuing to contribute to this inspiring alumni community and having the opportunity to meet many more alumni an upcoming conference or event!

Warmest regards, 

Katherine Clark, WG’15
President, Wharton Health Care Management Alumni Association

Contact Katherine at: [email protected]
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