We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dr. Kimmery Newsom. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dr. Kimmery below.

Hi Dr. Kimmery, thanks for joining us today. If you’re open to it, can you talk to us about the best (or worst) investment you’ve made. What’s the backstory and the relevant context behind why you made the investment

The best investment I made as a business owner was to bet on myself. I decided last July to enroll in a business consulting coaching academy called GetLaunched Academy with Dr. Erika Jordan-Thomas. I was nervous because I had not made this type of investment in my business, only in getting degrees. I really don’t take a lot of advice from people and I don’t trust easily. Somehow, with this investment, I felt differently. I was in a place where I needed to make movement towards my goal of making real money in my business. I knew I could not do this alone. It started with a free offering of a mini version of the program called B-School. It was 5 days, in the evening with 2 hour live virtual sessions. The upsell was the business consulting academy. After the 4th day, I was sure I wanted to sign up and still hesitated because I didn’t believe I would make the money to pay the fees. I enrolled. Fast forward 9 months later, I have earned 10 times that amount in my business by executing the frameworks and methods taught in the business academy! And my business is still growing. The lesson I learned is that betting on myself does pay off.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I am an equity strategist, educator, and licensed marriage and family therapist who works with organizations seeking to move beyond performative commitments to equity and toward meaningful, sustainable change. I use my framework to take organizations from awareness to accountability to action.
Through my consulting practice, Kimmery Newsom, LLC, I partner with universities, healthcare organizations, and professional teams to cultivate cultures of belonging, accountability, and equity in practice. My work centers on helping leaders and teams develop the language, relational capacity, and systems awareness necessary to address racial harm, strengthen professional responsibility, and create environments where people can learn, work, and thrive.
I am the creator of the Cultivating Equity in Practice (CEP) framework, a structured approach to equity-centered professional development that supports organizations in moving from awareness to implementation. CEP engagements integrate research, facilitated dialogue, applied case studies, and practical tools that help teams translate equity commitments into everyday professional practice. I am an American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) Approved Supervisor and have extensive experience supervising clinicians and mentoring professionals across healthcare and educational settings.
My professional background bridges clinical practice, higher education, and organizational consultation, allowing me to bring a systemic lens to complex conversations about culture, power, and professional responsibility. I am most proud of the impact that the work I do within organizations has on the team culture.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

The best source of new clients for me has been my own network. I have utilized warm and hot leads to bring in clients to my business. Once they are in as a client, I work to maintain the connection so that we can move toward client renewal.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I was in academia, teaching at the college level for about 8 years and I started to experience burnout. Keep in mind, during this time I was also a therapist with small private practice. Once I started to experience burnout with the academy, I pivoted to full time therapist mode. I was seeing clients and doing consulting in my business. Then, about 4 years after the pivot, I pivoted again. This time I moved from direct client contact to supervisor and program directing, while still maintaining a small number of consulting clients. I had been seeing clients about 20 years at that point and it was time to step away from direct care. I decided that I needed to focus on leadership roles and guiding and teaching the next generation of therapists. Also, I wanted to focus on building my business brand as well as the structures necessary to sustain it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.drspecialk.com
• Instagram: @kimmerynewsomlifecoaching
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/kimmery.newsom
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-kimmery-newsom-phd-lcmft-lmft-s-cfle-09417522
• Other: https://kimmery-newsom-llc.kit.com/c3af5894bd

Image Credits

All the images are mine.