Our Consultants
Veena Thomas, Ph.D.
Dr. Veena Thomas is a strategy aficionado, and long-time physical therapy patient (and huge believer in physical therapy!). When she’s not moonlighting as a physical therapy business strategic marketing consultant, she is a scientist and a drug discovery strategic consultant. She received her postdoctoral training at Stanford, her Ph.D. from UCSF in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenomics, and her B.S. in Biology from MIT. Her relentless strategy was instrumental in achieving her training at top universities and labs, and in building a career in science that she absolutely loves.
No stranger to the art of business pivoting in difficult circumstances, when a serious knee injury during the pandemic prevented her from working a traditional 9-5 job — because of hours per day spent doing physical therapy for her knee injury recovery — she started not only her primary drug discovery consulting company, DrugAbility — but also turned her side passion project, Leg Up Strategic Consulting, into a second consulting business.
Especially after countless hours over 1.5 years spent helping her physical therapist with his strategic business marketing during the pandemic, and thus countless hours thinking about the challenges faced by physical therapy businesses and strategies to overcome them — leading him to refer her to other physical therapists for strategic business marketing consulting — she’s very passionate about helping physical therapists advance their businesses. For her day job, she is also the CEO and strategic consultant of her drug discovery strategic & technical consulting company, DrugAbility. She also does short-term advisory consults for drug discovery companies.
She’s thrilled to share what she’s learned about pivoting and strategic business marketing to help physical therapy business owners, especially those who were struggling during the pandemic, and has found it extremely rewarding to watch small business owners thriving and happy in their businesses after she gives them strategic business marketing advice — uniquely tailored to them and their strengths.
When all that strategic thinking gets tiring, Veena has performed improv comedy for the past 5 years (where there’s actually no time to think!). She prides herself on being a fun-loving, outgoing and charismatic scientist (yes it’s possible!), leader, and communicator, and quick-on-her-feet thinker.
She is passionate about helping people, scientific and business marketing strategy, bold ideas, and writing, and accordingly was awarded both an NIH National Research Service Award (NRSA) postdoctoral grant and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for her idea proposals. Her students voted her “Teaching Assistant of the Year” at UCSF for her skill and enthusiasm for teaching and mentorship.
Veena definitely collects unique experiences over possessions (40 years and still car-free!). Fun facts: Veena worked in forensic science for the FBI in Quantico, VA, where she received an FBI top-secret security clearance; did a summer intensive training in improv comedy at Second City Chicago, where many of the Saturday Night Live cast trained; wrote a weekly opinion column for MIT’s newspaper for 3 years; was a co-organizer and event host for one of the largest hobby social meetup groups in the Bay Area for 3 years; and was a certified conflict mediator in the state of Massachusetts.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/veena-thomas-15579425/
