Kara Coluccio Bern joined Perspective as a Partner in 2018. She leads the firm’s biopharma R&D practice. Kara brings over 20 years of experience in the healthcare sector across health policy, pharma communications and life sciences executive search. Prior to Perspective, Kara founded and led Ivy Advisors, LLC for six years as a boutique, retained executive search firm recruiting executives across the R&D continuum for biotech companies at all stages. Before forming Ivy Advisors, Kara spent nine years in life sciences executive search with Russell Reynolds Associates and Catalyst Advisors, specializing in R&D executive and Board searches. Kara began her career in health policy with the Washington, D.C.-based think tank AcademyHealth, developing health policy seminars for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and managing a multi-million-dollar Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant portfolio supporting rural health networks, nationally. Kara subsequently worked with Porter Novelli in New York, NY with clients including Amgen/Wyeth and Merck/Schering Plough joint-ventures. Kara’s additional experience includes project work with PhRMA’s International Affairs Division, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care’s Ethics Advisory Board, Tufts Health Plan’s Government Affairs Division and Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Marketing and Planning Department. Kara received her B.A., cum laude, in the History and Sociology of Science from the University of Pennsylvania and her M.B.E., Master’s in Bioethics, from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.