Josette Gbemudu is the Associate Vice President of Patient Health Innovation at Merck. She leads an organization responsible for innovating strategies and digital health solutions to close gaps in care and enhance patient and customer experience. Josette leads efforts across key business functions to ensure that accelerating access to healthcare is a central focus in the development and execution of patient-centric innovations. 

With over 10 years at Merck, Josette previously established and oversaw the Company's first Enterprise Health Equity Divison, led Private Sector Contracting in the U.S. Vaccines organization and directed Scientific Strategy for the Anesthesia and Surgery Marketing franchise. She played an instrumental role in building Merck’s U.S. commercial strategy. 

Before joining Merck, Josette was a Senior Policy Analyst at the National Governors Association, where she worked with a cross-section of highly ranked state and federal policy officials to develop innovative solutions to state-specific challenges related to health system reform. Additionally, she was a Health Policy Fellow at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, focusing on implementing accountable care organizations (ACOs). In this capacity, she collaborated closely with leading integrated delivery systems and national commercial payers to help construct ACO partnerships and agreements, and she has published extensively on the topic of ACOs. 

Josette holds a master’s degree in international health policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She received her undergraduate Health Policy and Management degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.