Working on the future of care.

I'm Summer Wright Collins: founder, consultant, executive, speaker, and writer. A technologist who understands people, blending science, sport, health, data, and design into my life's work.

Step inside
A green fern sprig pressed under glass on a white studio background
A bright atrium where green plants climb a white architectural wall under a glass ceiling

I've spent my career where health meets invention: in the executive seat, at the consulting table, on stage, and at the workbench. I keep the doors between those rooms open on purpose. The best ideas I've ever found walked from one into another.

Summer Wright Collins, founder of The SWC Collective

About

I'm a trained epidemiologist with a designer's eye and a founder's urgency. For more than fifteen years I've worked across healthcare, member experience, and consumer digital products: leading innovation and strategy for one of the country's largest health plans, building the analytics backbone of a major pediatric health system, and turning messy data and real user behavior into decisions executives can act on.

Today the work spans five practices that feed each other. The consulting sharpens the ideas, the boardroom tests them, the studio ships them, the stage tells them, and the book is where the whole story is headed.

Focus
Health, wellness, and healthcare innovation
Base
Dallas, TX, working everywhere
Education
MPH in Epidemiology, Columbia; executive education in human-centered design, Stanford GSB; B.S., Northwestern
Boards
The Dallas Entrepreneur Center; Texas Women's Foundation, Economic Leadership Council
Open to
Consulting, keynotes, board seats, advising, and new ideas

Selected roles

2023 to now Founder & PrincipalTechnology & design studio, Dallas Built TailWag and CALLTIME and took both to market end to end, as the studio's only operator.
2017 to 2023 Associate VP, Innovation & StrategyHealth Care Service Corporation (Blue Cross Blue Shield) Led multi-state innovation for 17M+ members; piloted 10+ offerings and avoided $8M+ in build cost by validating or killing concepts before scale.
2013 to 2016 VP, Population Health Informatics & IT StrategyChildren's Health System of Texas Built the analytics and IT strategy backbone for the nation's 8th-largest pediatric hospital, and launched telemedicine reaching 500K+ students.
2010 to 2013 Director, Community Health AnalyticsDallas-Fort Worth Hospital System Foundation Public-health analytics, BI enablement, and chairing a multi-organization community health collaborative.
2005 to 2009 Epidemiology & ResearchOMNI Institute; Children's Health Fund; Columbia University Large-scale studies including the CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Where the statistical discipline comes from.

The Practice

Organizations call me at inflection points: a new model of care, a new technology, a leadership chapter nobody has read before. The consulting is senior and hands-on, close to the real problem.

Who I work with

Healthcare start-ups

Positioning, product strategy, and the reality of building for care.

Providers & practices

Service design, growth, and technology that fits clinical life.

Foundations

Mission and capital, turned into programs that move outcomes.

Leaders

A thought partner for decisions that sit outside the org chart.

Ways in

The strategy sprint

A focused engagement around one hard question, measured in weeks.

Ongoing advisory

A standing seat at your table, measured in quarters.

The embedded chapter

Hands inside the work alongside your team, for the seasons that need it.

A white workbench with interface sketches on grid paper, a phone, and a small succulent

The Studio

The studio is where I build: products and tools that surface insight and let people and businesses operate at their highest level. Both came from watching a specific kind of business run harder than it should.

CALLTIME

"Talk like you play."

Communication training for student athletes navigating recruiting: coached practice for coach calls, messaging, and NIL conversations, so the real one is never the first time they've said it out loud.

Visit getcalltime.co

TailWag

"You take care of the dogs. TailWag takes care of the parents."

AI-powered SMS for independent dog daycares: report cards texted home to pet parents, reminders that stop no-shows, and happy clients routed straight to the review page.

Visit usetailwag.co

The Stage

I speak about what I've lived, for audiences that want more than a slide deck.

  • Transformation and innovation in business

    How organizations actually change, told from inside the rooms where it happened.

  • Health and wellness

    What technology gets right, and wrong, about caring for people.

  • Student athletes and NIL

    The new business of being a student athlete, from someone building for them.

  • Innovation in pet care

    Where technology is taking the pet economy, from the front lines of building in it.

  • The personal journey

    The story underneath the resume, told honestly.

Keynotes, panels, and fireside conversations. Send your date and audience, and we'll take it from there.

A single cool spotlight on a microphone stand on a dark keynote stage

Prior speaking events include

  • SXSW
  • HLTH
  • Techstars
  • Credera Innovation Forum
  • Slalom AI Innovation Conference
  • Leading Women Executives

The Boardroom

A smaller room, by design.

Board service

I take a limited number of board seats with organizations working in health, wellness, and care technology.

Executive advising

One-on-one counsel for leaders navigating growth, transformation, or a chapter they haven't read before.

How it starts: a conversation. If it fits, we set a cadence together.

The Book

It's underway. The story running beneath everything else on this page, and it isn't finished being lived.

Details when it's ready.

Or bring me something new.

The best room in any collective is the one that hasn't been built yet. If you see work we should do together, write to me.