November 11, 2020
Kinetics were essential to her study of pharmacy, but Katrina Jamison (Pharm.D. ’06) graduated from UNC Eshelman with a kinetic energy all her own.
She quickly put a career in motion that advanced her through the hierarchies of retail pharmacy at Walmart to the forefront of corporate pharmaceutical innovation to the threshold of serial entrepreneurship—with no limits in sight.
“The School taught me how to think and lead,” she said. “Walmart taught me about operations and how to run a business…so I learned from the No.1 pharmacy school in the nation and the country’s No.1 retailer.”
“Tar Heel born and Tar Heel bred,” Jamison grew up in an Asheville family of Carolina fans. “I always knew where I was going to school,” she said.
At graduation with a double major in biology and history, but no clear-cut career in sight, she developed nucleotides for the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and analyzed water samples for the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.
“I knew I wanted to go into health care, but couldn’t figure out what my path was going to be,” she said. “By chance I picked up a copy of USA Today and read an article about pharmacists, their impact on health care and what they were doing to improve patients’ lives—and that was it. In pharmacy school I was finally, finally learning something I enjoyed. Not only did it make sense to me, but I was excited to go in and talk about it.”
Jamison served as class president her first and second years and as student body president her third year. Her experiences outside the classroom, in the skills lab and in research partnerships with peers ignited a passion for collaboration.
“I knew I wanted conversation and interaction,” she said. “The School empowers you to say ‘I don’t have all the answers but let’s collaborate and find them.’” Her education and leadership well established, Jamison rapidly advanced in retail pharmacy at Walmart with four promotions in 11 years. But an ambition for greater impact led her to her current position as Senior Director of Operations with Equiscript, LLC, a company that creates and manages 340B home delivery pharmacy programs. Under Jamison’s leadership, Equiscript recently added a non-dispensing pharmacy service through its relationship with PillPack.
“They will mail out the prescriptions and we will do front-end patient care,” she said. With her can-do approach to life and work, Jamison launched an adjunct business, Legend Leaders, through which she shares knowledge and know-how with potential female entrepreneurs.
“I help them develop the mindset, mental focus, ability, confidence and certainty to say, ‘Yes, I can do this,’ and then go on to deliver the business they want to create.” Her second start-up capitalizes on Jamison’s many years as a corporate “road warrior.” She built the backpack company, Determined Bags, on an executive’s need to organize clothing, toiletries, technology and its accompanying tangle of cords for ease at airport security and in the hotel room.
Along with Jamison’s commitments to work and family, she serves her alma mater as a member of the Pharmacy Alumni Association Board, the UNC Board of Visitors and the Alumni Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee—all in gratitude for her experiences at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy.
“What impact do you want to have on this world?” she asks, “because the School is going to prepare you to make it. Go do it. The School will support you.”
Story contributed by the Pharmacy Alumni Association
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