Kathy Jeffery

Chief People Officer Element Science, Inc.

Last Reviewed: September 18, 2026

Executive Summary

Kathy Jeffery is Chief People Officer at Element Science, a medical device and digital health company developing wearable cardiac care solutions that combine device engineering with data science and machine learning. She is a people and talent executive whose career has been built almost entirely inside companies going through rapid growth or significant change, across technology, sports media, digital therapeutics, and medical technology. Alongside her operating roles she practices as an executive coach, holding a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach credential, and she has scaled five startups across domestic and international operations spanning Europe, Asia, Canada, and the United States.

Career Highlights

• Chief People Officer at Element Science, leading people strategy for a wearable cardiac care company.
• Former Chief People Officer at Pear Therapeutics, the publicly traded digital therapeutics company, from 2019 to 2023.
• Has scaled five startups, navigating growth across Europe, Asia, Canada, and the US.
• Holds the Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC) credential from the Coaches Training Institute.
• Former VP of People at Recurly and VP of Human Resources at Sportvision across two separate tenures.
• Writes publicly on leadership and scaling through a personal Substack publication.

Professional Journey

Jeffery holds a Master’s degree in Managerial Communication from Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Arts in Human Resources from DePaul University — a combination that points at the work she actually does, which is as much about how organizations communicate under pressure as about HR administration.

Her career has followed a distinctive pattern of joining companies at inflection points. She was Vice President of Human Resources and Administration at Sportvision from 2003 to 2007, during the period when the sports broadcast technology company was commercializing the on-screen graphics systems that changed how televised sport looks. After VP of HR roles at Band Digital and Insights, and a consulting and coaching engagement at Next Level Resources, she returned to Sportvision for a second tenure as VP of Human Resources from 2011 to 2016 — a rehire that is itself a signal, since companies rarely bring back an HR leader they did not value.

She then spent two years as an independent HR consultant and leadership coach before returning to operating roles as Vice President of People at Recurly, the subscription billing platform. In 2019 she became Chief People Officer at Pear Therapeutics, the digital therapeutics company developing software-based prescription treatments, a role she held through 2023 across the company’s period as a publicly traded business.

At Element Science she leads people strategy for an organization that has to combine two quite different kinds of workforce: medical device engineers working under regulatory constraint, and data science and machine learning teams accustomed to faster iteration. Reconciling those cultures inside one company is a specific organizational design problem, and it is the kind of work her career has consisted of.

Alongside her executive roles she coaches executives, founders, and emerging leaders, and designs leadership development, organizational effectiveness, succession planning, and culture transformation programmes. She writes on leadership and scaling through a personal Substack publication.

Education

Northwestern University

Master’s Degree, Managerial Communication

DePaul University

Bachelor of Arts, Human Resources