Jacqueline Nelms, DHSc
Healthcare Executive. Behavioral Scientist. Leadership Strategist. Founder, Mindful Elevation®
Doctor of Health Sciences
Leadership & Organizational Behavior
Graduate Education
Strategic Leadership
25+ Years
Executive & Operational Leadership
Founder
Mindful Elevation®
Jacqueline Nelms, DHSc, is a healthcare executive, behavioral scientist, leadership strategist, and founder of Mindful Elevation® whose work explores a fundamental question: How do people and organizations sustain exceptional performance when the demands placed upon them are extraordinary?
25 Years at the Intersection of Operations and Human Performance
With more than 25 years of executive and operational leadership experience, Jacqueline has led complex healthcare operations, enterprise transformation initiatives, and large, diverse teams within highly regulated, high-stakes environments. Her career has been shaped by the intersection of operational excellence and human performance, improving systems and outcomes while developing leaders and creating environments in which people can perform, adapt, and grow.
A Scholar-Practitioner Foundation
Jacqueline holds a Doctor of Health Sciences with a concentration in Leadership and Organizational Behavior, as well as graduate education in strategic leadership and undergraduate study in business administration. Her doctoral research examined mental health within the law enforcement profession, with particular attention to occupational stress, trauma exposure, post-traumatic stress, resilience, and the organizational conditions that influence whether individuals seek and receive support. That research reinforced a principle that has become central to her work: performance cannot be fully understood without understanding the human system behind it.
Thought Leadership at the Intersection of People and Performance
Today, Jacqueline's thought leadership sits at the intersection of leadership, behavioral science, organizational behavior, mental health, resilience, and human performance. She examines how leadership behaviors, workplace culture, psychological safety, chronic stress, and organizational systems influence not only how people feel at work, but how they think, make decisions, lead others, respond to adversity, and ultimately perform.
The ASCEND & EMERGE™ Method
Jacqueline is the creator of the ASCEND & EMERGE™ Method, an original leadership and resilience framework that integrates principles of self-awareness, mindset, emotional intelligence, resilience, adaptability, empowerment, and continuous development. The framework provides a lens for understanding how individuals can strengthen internal capacity while organizations create conditions that support sustainable performance.
Mindful Elevation®
Through Mindful Elevation®, Jacqueline brings these disciplines together as a thought leadership platform dedicated to exploring the human side of leadership and organizational performance. Her writing challenges conventional assumptions about what makes leaders and organizations successful and examines what becomes possible when excellence is pursued without losing sight of the people responsible for achieving it.
"The strongest organizations do not choose between performance and people. They understand that the two are inseparable."