NutraWomen Wednesday: Dr. Brandy Zachary, Founder of the Functional Medicine Academy

As a practitioner, Dr. Z has built a reputation for her ability to help patients with complex cases by addressing the physiological root causes of issues like depression and anxiety in women and challenging the biases often seen in traditional medical approaches towards women's health. As an educator, she regularly teaches to multidisciplinary audiences including MDs, DOs, DCs, NDs, FNPs, RNs, PharmDs, LAcs, and other nutritional practitioners and emphasizes the importance of empowering women to learn how to earn and succeed in life, leveraging functional medicine as a tool for this purpose.

“When I started, I was nervous because I was coming out of a three-year time period where I was sick, and I felt sort of invisible in the world, so it was scary to go back out there," she said. "But I really led with my heart. I wanted to help other people, and my practice grew so fast I had to expand two locations within the first year–we just grew. And so then I got a reputation for being able to handle complex cases and sometimes people even flew in to see me."

The Functional Medicine Academy achieved significant growth in record time and thanks to Dr. Z’s emphasis on the importance of having a new vision and challenging herself to exceed expectations. She also is very focused on teaching women how to navigate the business world by breaking down barriers that may hold them back.

“When I started, I needed to have a new vision," she said. "I always thought it was reasonable to do a couple hundred thousand the first year of starting a business—I'd done it multiple times and taught other people. And then in this last year, I looked at what the boys were doing, and they were doing more and I thought, well, why can't I?

"I always joke, I'm a middle-aged mom in a mumu, I'm going to turn 52 soon. But, you know, why not? And so I actually did over $7 million in sales in a year. They had never seen anything like it. I broke all records. I did 150X growth in six months, and so now I love teaching everyone.”