News from Tunnell Consulting

Kristy joined Tunnell in November 2024 as a Principal and business development lead for Tunnell Government Services. At the end of 2025, her role expanded to support Tunnell’s commercial business development needs. She has 20+ years of experience across US federal government and commercial sectors.

Prior to joining Tunnell, Kristy held various positions within global CROs, most recently as Executive Director, Government and Public Health, helping transform her company’s federal subcontracting work into a prime contracting business unit. She supported initiatives for many customers - including NIH, WRAIR, JPEO, BARDA, VA and FDA, as well as biotech, large pharma, and NGOs - including Phase 1-3 clinical trials, large-scale mobile platform development, and real-world data analyses. Her passion and background in public health aligns with the various infectious and emerging disease therapeutic programs she’s supported such as Zika, Ebola, chikungunya, COVID-19, H5N1 and dengue fever.

Kristy lives in Rockland County, New York. When not cheering on her 3 kids at their various sporting events, she enjoys hiking - locally from Bear Mountain to the Old Croton Aqueduct and not so locally at National Parks including Acadia, Great Smoky Mountains and her favorite, Zion. Her rescue dog Duncan is often found by her side.

Tunnell is 100% employee-owned, meaning all Tunnell company shares are held within the ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan). Today, there are over 300 participants in the Tunnell ESOP. ESOPs are a retirement benefit plan that provides participants with shared company ownership. The plan is fully funded by annual employer contributions. Tunnell's ESOP has an external Trustee who acts in the best interest of the participants. They hire and oversee the valuation firm that conducts the annual valuation for its shares. Although ESOPs are highly regulated, technically complex retirement plans, Tunnell continues to provide internal participants with education and what it means to be a beneficial shareholder in an employee-owned firm.

For Tunnell’s Board of Directors and leadership team, ESOPs play a role in preserving the company’s mission, ownership culture and legacy along with its ability to support the retention of key employees while minimizing taxes. It provides the structure for governance with ESOP being the shareholder of all the company’s’ shares.