Career paths rarely move directly from healthcare startups to defense policy, but Justin Fulcher‘s did exactly that. His story begins with RingMD, a telemedicine company he co-founded in 2013, and continues today inside the halls of the Department of Defense, far from where it started.
RingMD set out to connect patients across Asia with physicians remotely, tackling a problem where healthcare infrastructure had not kept pace with mobile technology. Fulcher built the company to operate under real constraints: unreliable networks, uneven regulatory environments, and healthcare systems stretched thin across multiple countries with very different needs.
A New Chapter in Public Service
In early 2025, Justin Fulcher joined the Department of Defense as a Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Defense. There, his attention turned to acquisition reform, an area where reducing friction can mean the difference between adopting useful technology quickly or losing years to procedural delay and internal review.
His contributions reportedly helped shorten software procurement timelines from years to months, part of a broader push to modernize IT systems across the department. Fulcher also traveled with senior officials to high-level dialogues in the Indo-Pacific, a region he had grown familiar with through his earlier healthcare work there.
Lessons That Carried Over
What connects Fulcher’s two careers is a consistent focus on institutions that resist change and cannot afford to fail. Whether scaling a telemedicine platform or advising on defense procurement, he has emphasized systems that earn trust over time rather than chase short term attention or easy headlines.
Justin Fulcher continues to serve on RingMD’s board as a minority shareholder while pursuing a doctorate in international affairs at Johns Hopkins, building on a master’s degree in nonproliferation and terrorism studies completed in 2023.
Along the way, his earlier accomplishments have not gone unnoticed. Forbes Asia named him to its 30 Under 30 list in 2017, recognizing the healthcare access RingMD had opened up for patients across the region years before Fulcher ever set foot inside the Pentagon. Read this article for additional information.
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