FORT MYERS, FL, UNITED STATES, February 13, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Founder of Unapologetically You Collective Inspires Nurses and Healthcare Professionals to Lead with Humanity, Authenticity, and Courage
Kimberly Maurer, BS, LPN, is a Licensed Practical Nurse, author, mentor, and advocate transforming the way leadership is understood in healthcare. With nearly four decades of experience, including more than twenty years in Women’s & Children’s services, Kimberly’s career has been shaped by witnessing the courage, complexity, and resilience inherent in the human experience.
Kimberly began her nursing journey at just seventeen, working as a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), becoming a Licensed Practical Nurse in 1997, now spanning a total of 36 years, supporting women and families through some of life’s most defining moments. Her professional path has been marked by dedication to service, empathy, and a commitment to authentic connection. Yet, Kimberly’s most transformative chapter came in 2021, when the COVID-19 vaccine mandate abruptly ended her career. The loss was devastating on both personal and professional levels, but it sparked a profound rebirth.
From that turning point emerged Unapologetically You Collective LLC, a coaching and leadership platform designed for nurses and healthcare professionals who refuse to disappear inside systems that fail to protect their well-being. Through this platform, Kimberly mentors individuals and teams to reclaim their voice, lead with authenticity, and rise into their full potential, turning challenges into opportunities for growth and empowerment.
Building Global Coalitions for Healthcare Transformation
Kimberly’s impact extends far beyond individual coaching through strategic partnerships and collaborative platforms that amplify nursing voices worldwide. In 2026, she formalized a strategic partnership with Ignite Purpose, led by Global CEO & Founder Christina Foxwell, bridging healthcare transformation expertise with purpose-driven leadership development across sectors and borders.
Kimberly serves as a featured voice and contributor to several international healthcare advocacy platforms:
ENAG (Elevating Nurses Advocacy Globally) – Featured twice on this global nursing platform led by Jaypee Landingin, connecting nurses across continents to build collective power and address systemic challenges affecting the profession worldwide.
Nurses in Charge – Regular contributor to Dina Paoloni’s platform Nurses Move, and co-host of The Hierarchy Betrayal, a weekly LinkedIn LIVE series every Sunday exposing power dynamics and systemic dysfunction in healthcare while building pathways for nurse-led transformation.
MACH Health / The Nurse Collective – Weekly participant in Mark Carter’s LinkedIn LIVE events, translating frontline nursing reality into frameworks for sustainable workforce health, treating nurse well-being as system infrastructure rather than individual responsibility.
Modern Nurse Fest – Keynote speaker at the February 24-26, 2026 event in Winter Haven, Florida, alongside co-founders Emily Knife and Jen Crow. Kimberly will deliver her signature keynote, “The Sound of Silence: How Healthcare Fails the Math and Nurses Carry the Moral Cost”, addressing the systemic patterns that create moral injury while building pathways for nurse-led cultural transformation.
These partnerships reflect Kimberly’s conviction that healthcare transformation requires coalition-building across borders, platforms, and specialties. By connecting movements that share a mission but operate in different spheres, she creates the critical mass necessary for systemic change. Her work demonstrates that nursing’s collective power becomes undeniable when isolated voices unite into coordinated advocacy.
Published Voice and Thought Leadership
As a published healthcare writer, Kimberly’s work has been featured in national platforms including Journal of Emergency Nursing, The Nursing Stars Magazine, Thimble Health, Medicine Forward, and SSRN. Her writing explores critical themes such as psychological safety, burnout, leadership reinvention, embodied leadership, and the human cost of silence in healthcare.
Kimberly is also the author of The Healthcare Mafia: A Nurse’s Testament, co-authored with Ashley Scott, LPN, a groundbreaking narrative that blends lived experience with compelling storytelling to expose the emotional and systemic realities nurses face today.
Guiding Principles and Core Values
Kimberly attributes her remarkable 36-year career to a single guiding principle: choosing humanity, even when the systems around her attempt to strip it away. Her journey has been shaped as much by triumphs as by moments that demanded deep self-reflection, reinvention, and resilience. From holding trembling hands as a nurse to rebuilding her identity after the loss of her career in 2021, Kimberly’s success is rooted not in titles or accolades but in empathy, lived experience, and the belief that authenticity heals what perfectionism destroys.
Throughout her career, Kimberly has learned that authenticity fosters trust, honesty makes others feel seen, and creating spaces where people can breathe empowers collective growth. These core beliefs led to the founding of Unapologetically You Collective, a platform dedicated to supporting nurses, women, and leaders who refuse to shrink in the face of adversity. Kimberly’s accomplishments are shared with every individual who has stood alongside her, reinforcing that true success is communal and relational rather than solitary.
The most influential career advice Kimberly has received is to trust her instincts fully and without apology. Strong women and mentors in her life emphasized that intuition is not guesswork but a combination of lived experience, discernment, and truth. She learned to stand firm in her vision, even when others could not yet see it, and to never shrink herself to fit systems that demanded less than her full potential.
Advice for Emerging Healthcare Leaders
For young women entering healthcare, Kimberly encourages courage in protecting one’s voice. She urges new professionals to ask questions others avoid, challenge what conflicts with their values, and advocate for themselves even when uncomfortable. Kimberly stresses that being a woman in healthcare is a profound strength, offering intuition, resilience, emotional intelligence, and compassion that no textbook can teach. She emphasizes the importance of mentors, supportive colleagues, and embracing authenticity as a path to leadership and transformation.
Addressing Healthcare’s Greatest Challenge
One of the most pressing challenges Kimberly identifies in healthcare today is identity loss. Professionals face overwhelming emotional burdens while navigating systems that reward silence and perfectionism, resulting in disconnection, moral injury, and a crisis of self-worth. Yet, she sees this challenge as an unprecedented opportunity to help nurses reclaim their voices, rebuild their identities, establish healthy boundaries, and create careers that honor both skill and soul. Kimberly believes that by leading with humanity, healthcare professionals can redefine their roles, prioritizing truth, courage, and connection over hierarchy.
The Foundation of Impact
Authenticity, courage, compassion, truth, and emotional resilience form the foundation of Kimberly’s life and work. Authenticity keeps her grounded, courage fuels her advocacy, compassion strengthens her connections, truth guides her mentorship, and resilience allows her to rise repeatedly with clarity and purpose. These values shape how she leads, writes, coaches, mothers, and shows up in the world, they are the essence of her impact.
A proud mother of three and grandmother of two, Kimberly believes deeply in the power of community. Her guiding philosophy is simple: leadership begins with self-awareness, but it is sustained through connection. Through her work, Kimberly Maurer continues to champion a future where nurses reclaim their voice, rise together, and lead unapologetically, creating a healthcare system that values humanity as much as skill.
Kimberly Maurer BS, LPN
Unapologetically You Collective LLC
Coaching and Mentoring
Fort Myers, Florida
Phone: 517-392-5033
Email: kimberlymaurer731@gmail.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberly-maurer-bs-lpn-b35b87215
Learn More about Kimberly Maurer:
Through her Influential Women profile, https://influentialwomen.com/connect/kimberly-maurer
Influential Women
Influential Women provides a platform where women from all backgrounds can connect, share their perspectives, and create content that empowers themselves and others. Through storytelling, thought leadership, and creative expression, Influential Women amplifies voices that inspire change.
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Influential Women
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