Meet the Center for Pediatric Innovation Team

Krista Nelson

Director of Innovation Development

Krista Nelson joined Children’s Mercy Hospital in 2015 as Director of Innovation Development. In this role she leads the development and execution of the Children's Mercy Innovation Strategy and serves as the leader for innovation throughout the organization. Krista partners with champions of innovative ideas and key hospital strategies and leads them through an innovation/strategic framework to bring their ideas to life.

Krista spent nearly four years at Hallmark Cards, Inc. in Kansas City as an Innovation Leader. Prior to this, Krista spent 20 years developing new products, services and software solutions in the financial industry. Overall, her career has focused on delivering solutions that bring value and meet consumer needs.

Krista is a graduate of the University of Kansas with a BS in Business Administration.

Sallie Guezuraga, MBA
Manager of Innovation Solutions

Sallie Guezuraga is collaborative leader with over 20 years of experience combining business intelligence with human understanding to drive meaningful consumer engagement and revenue growth. Sallie started her career at Hallmark Cards, Inc. working on marketing strategy, customer relationship management, data analytics, algorithm development, strategic alliances, product management and business development.

Sallie has been an innovation leader for over 10 years, with a focus on leveraging digital technology to enhance human experiences. She joined the Pediatric Innovation Center at Children’s Mercy in 2018. She is passionate about discovering and applying emotion- and relationship-based insights to build new solutions that influence behavior, with the goals of increasing adherence, fostering wellbeing and driving better outcomes.

Sallie holds an MBA from the University Notre Dame, a BA in Sociology and a BS in Preprofessional Science also from the University of Notre Dame.