The Doctor Is In at Morgan Stanley, and She’s a MAKER

Most clients of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management expect to have conversations with their Financial Advisor teams about financial and investment strategies—not discussions about their personal health and wellness concerns. But since the arrival of Dr. Kim Henderson, Head of Health and Wellness Education in the firm’s Family Office Resources unit, these tailored discussions are exactly what many clients are getting.

“Our health is something to protect just as vigorously as we do our wealth,” says Kim, pointing out how, “just like our wealth, our health goes up and down—it’s never static. We need to pay attention to it all the time.”

Since joining Morgan Stanley during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, she’s been helping clients find answers to their health and wellness-related questions. She highlights opportunities for clients to employ healthy choices, shares best wellness practices and keeps them informed of health and medical developments affecting their lives. “I do whatever I can to make our clients healthier, which makes the client-financial advisor relationship healthier,” she shares.

While she no longer wears a stethoscope around her neck, Kim continues to care for others. “Wellness isn’t simply the absence of disease; it’s a more holistic combination of physical, mental and social well-being.” This broad, all-encompassing definition sees her helping clients in varied ways, whether it’s guiding them through the Medicare enrollment process or addressing immediate medical concerns, such as the time a client’s mother fell and broke her hip while in London. Leveraging her network abroad, including colleagues in Morgan Stanley’s London office, Kim was able to connect the client with a local orthopedic surgeon.

“It was as much about being there for the client in that moment as it was about finding the surgeon,” she shares. “Morgan Stanley is here to help clients in times of need, whenever and whatever that is.”

LAWYER OR DOCTOR—OR BOTH!  

Kim grew up in Livingston, N.J., and always knew she wanted to study in our nation’s capital. While earning her bachelor’s degree at Georgetown University, she developed an interest in medicine and law. Torn between the two, she took an unconventional approach by applying to both Georgetown’s law and medical schools, leaving “fate to decide what I would be when I grew up!” Unexpectedly accepted to both, she went to law school first before matriculating into medical school and finishing as “a Triple Hoya” with degrees in political science, law and medicine.

She went on to the George Washington University Hospital for her residency and then moved her young family to New York when she landed a job at Beth Israel Medical Center as an attending physician. From helping patients at the bedside, she transitioned to clinical care then to a medical director role in pharmaceuticals, which included overseeing retail health clinics. Now at Morgan Stanley, she says the consistent thread throughout these experiences is how she always brings “my best self to every client.”

Kim attributes her ability to easily and closely connect with people to being a woman and proudly expresses this self-identified “superpower” by wearing the color pink almost every day. She’s particularly proud to have been named a Morgan Stanley MAKER, Class of 2025—a distinction reserved for innovators, advocates and groundbreakers in inclusion, all nominated by their peers.

IT’S OKAY TO ZIGZAG

Kim is grateful for the persistent reminders from her mother, her primary role model, advisor and a life-long educator, that “education can take you places” and that one's trajectory isn’t necessarily linear. While Kim had struggles in law school and medical school, “Mom got me through the rough patches, helping me understand that if it doesn't work one way, try it another way. Flex and redirect. You have to be resilient.”

Kim now shares that same advice with her sons—Josh, a mechanical engineer, and Max, a rising junior at Skidmore College—and with anyone else she encounters. An active supporter of diverse communities, Kim is an executive sponsor of the inaugural Morgan Stanley HBCU Scholars Program, which awards a four-year college scholarship and ongoing academic support to economically under-resourced youth. Recognizing the pandemic’s effect on children’s mental health, she also dedicates time to the Morgan Stanley Alliance for Children’s Mental Health Innovation Awards program, which provides grants and business training to nonprofits focused on child and adolescent mental health.

While it was hard for Kim to step away from practicing medicine, “a doctor will always be part of who I am and what I do,” she says. Now that she’s a Morgan Stanley MAKER, “the sky’s the limit. I’m now part of a sisterhood that will certainly open doors to incredible opportunities, relationships and experiences.”