From Colombia to Houston: How International Experience Shapes Leadership and Innovation in Healthcare (ft Dr. Andrea Ramirez Varela)

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
Welcome to DGTL Voices where health care and life science leaders explore the real work behind transformation. This podcast is about people, leadership, and the conversations that move health care forward. Now your host, Ed Marx.

**Ed Marx** (0:18)
Welcome to another edition of DGTL Voices. Super excited because my guest is a pretty awesome person I've gotten to know, Dr. Andrea Ramirez Varela. Andrea, welcome to DGTL Voices.

**Andrea Ramirez Varela** (0:29)
Hello, Ed. Thank you so much for inviting me today. Really excited to be here.

**Ed Marx** (0:33)
We got to meet up a few months ago. I was going to say last year, but not quite last year, a few months ago. And I was just mesmerized by your story, about your leadership, about your personality, just who you are. And I was like, oh man, I have to have Andrea on DGTL Voices and share a bit about what she's doing today, but as what you did a few years ago. So thanks for being our guest. But Andrea, as you know, the most important question we asked in the podcast is what songs are on the playlist? Like what kind of music do you like to listen to?

**Andrea Ramirez Varela** (1:06)
Well, Ed, as you know, I'm Colombian, but I'm also an adoptive Brazilian. So my list of music has lots of Latin flavor. And I listen to music in Spanish, music in Portuguese, and I live here in Houston now. So I'm also incorporating some songs in English. My favorite groups are Bombay Stereo, Adriana Calcañoto, and Tool. And I'm an opera fan, so I do listen to a lot of opera too.

**Ed Marx** (1:36)
Awesome. I'm definitely going to listen to some of this music. So before we jump like too far in, are there words that you live by or words that sort of guide you, like how you live or operate?

**Andrea Ramirez Varela** (1:49)
Yeah, so one of my mantras, and it's the one I use every day, is like everything is already resolved. So sometimes I do not know how things are going to turn out, but I have like a deep trust that in God and the universe that things are going to turn out well. So I repeat that to myself all the time. And also when things don't go well, I remind myself that rejection is protection and redirection. So you have to turn a look for alternatives, but you will end up where you have to be.

**Ed Marx** (2:23)
Yeah, I love that. And you already shared, Andrea, a little bit about yourself in terms of being from Columbia, but also adopted Brazil and obviously in Houston now. Tell us all about yourself, including where were you born and just how you made your whole way over to the United States?

**Andrea Ramirez Varela** (2:40)
Thanks, Ed. Yes, so I'm from Columbia, South America. I was born in Bogota, and I come from a small but loving family. I lived all my life with my mom and my sister. My parents are divorced, and I do have two younger half sisters on my dad's side. So we're four girls. I'm the oldest and I love all my sisters very much. In Columbia, as you can imagine, we do love dancing, music, art, Colombian culture. So I grew up with that. And I finished high school in Cali, you know, the salsa capital in the world. So we enjoy lots of music in my family. And I returned to medical school at Universidad Los Andes in Bogotá. So I really had a wonderful childhood. My mom did encourage us a lot to study and to be excellent. So I guess that reflects on how much I love to study nowadays. And yeah, I'm a constant learner because of all those experiences.

**Ed Marx** (3:39)
Yeah, that's awesome. And so events can make you down to Houston. How did that transpire?

**Andrea Ramirez Varela** (3:46)
Yeah, so I did medical school in Colombia. I did also my master's in public health since my, I think it was in the second year of medical school that I fell in love with epidemiology. So epidemiology is the study of the distribution of health and disease conditions in the population. So that took me to being a research assistant very early in my career. And I got involved in an international network of physical activity epidemiologists and colleagues. So that exposed me to international colleagues. And after medical school, I did my PhD in epidemiology in Brazil. So that was my first big move. I did also lived in Canada, in Vancouver for my public health internship. And after the pandemic, I got an opportunity to work here in Houston because of one of my biggest mentors and best mentors in life, Bill Cole, who sadly passed away two years ago. And he actually helped me get this job. And I'm really excited. I've been here for two years now.