Kelly Blankenship serves as the Director of Administration for the Nashville Academy of Medicine & Medical Foundation of Nashville, where she oversees all things financial and operational for both organizations. The Nashville Academy of Medicine (NAM), established in 1821, is the professional organization for more than 2,300 physicians in Middle Tennessee. NAM launched the Medical Foundation of Nashville in 2018 to support public health education, physician education, and coordinated charity care through the Project Access Nashville Specialty Care program.

She previously served as the Senior Director of Operations for Nashville's GOAL Collective, where she led a collaborative effort to improve adult education access across the greater Nashville community of educational providers, using a Collective Impact framework of systems change. Other prior work includes coordinating an inclusive college program for adults with disabilities and providing American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation in a variety of educational settings.

Kelly earned a Master of Professional Studies from Lipscomb University in Organizational Leadership, and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Disorders/ Sign Language Interpreting from the University of South Florida.

She completed the Young Leaders Council program in the fall of 2023 and is thrilled to be serving on UGL's board as a YLC intern for the 2024 year.