At Refuge Capital Fund, our leadership board is comprised of visionary individuals dedicated to driving impactful change. Each member brings a wealth of experience, expertise, and a shared commitment to our mission.
Together, they guide our strategic direction, ensuring that our investments not only yield financial returns but also create meaningful, positive outcomes for communities in need. Meet the leaders who are at the forefront of our efforts to transform lives and make a lasting difference.
“Compassion drives our investments, turning financial growth into humanitarian progress. So, join us in empowering change and making a tangible impact on global health.”
Crull is an organizational leader, clarity evangelist, and vision executor. After serving in leadership roles in a Fortune 500 environment, Crull transitioned to nonprofit executive leadership and has served in various senior roles overseeing strategy, marketing and communications, and staff management.
Professionally, Crull is passionate about building and leading healthy teams that integrate successful execution and healthy team dynamics. Crull helped found Shepherd Holdings, LLC, a management holding company with multiple wholly owned subsidiaries pioneering a disruptive data-driven one-to-one approach to marketing. He also serves on the board of Replenish Ministries and as Chairman of the Refuge Foundation.
From his start in 1989 until 2020, as an executive and entrepreneur, Bruce Smith has led eight large organizations, started 10+ companies, managed over 500 hundred employees, and managed over 500 million dollars in business.
Bruce has built dozens of well-led and well-managed high-performance teams and brings 35 years of experience and expertise in business strategy, financial planning, and business execution. In his role at Refuge Capital Management, Bruce will continue to oversee strategy, execution, and financial planning.
Aubrey is a co-founder and owner of the Shepherd Holdings umbrella of companies. He has four decades of marketing and client conversion experience, from radio, television, and video production to serving medical clients for the last 15 years.
With a deep understanding of gastroenterology, gynecology, and urology, Aubrey serves as a fractional Chief Marketing Officer for practices owned by the country’s largest private equity groups. His ability to understand patient needs and position and then connect the practice to them as providers and, more importantly, as healers has differentiated our physicians and led to long-term healthcare relationships. With a keen eye on practice operations and cultural adoptions of technology, Aubrey has created many patient acquisition and practice revenue advancements.
At his core, Brian Carpenter has an entrepreneurial spirit. His personal experiences are the genesis behind Refuge Foundation, a nonprofit created to curate spaces for high-capacity leaders to disconnect and be restored. As a business and nonprofit leader, Brian knows the isolation, stress, and challenges leadership can bring.
Brian is passionate about seeing leaders emerge from isolation into deep and meaningful relationships, relax in comfortable atmospheres, and receive the types of coaching that bring about real health. Brian’s unique perspective as a pastor and businessman is invaluable to the team.
Because of his deep connections with thousands of leaders each year, Brian has many opportunities to connect with capital sources and help leaders with their businesses.
Reed B. Hogan II, MD is a gastroenterologist and managing partner at GI Associates and Endoscopy Center in Jackson, MS. He received his Doctor of Medicine at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine and completed a fellowship in Gastroenterology at Baylor University Medical Center. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology.
Dr. Hogan’s leadership and influence in the field of gastroenterology are evident in his election by his peers for inclusion in Best Doctors in America, a recognition he has held from 1996 to 2023. His extensive research experience and numerous scientific publications further attest to his dedication and expertise. Beyond his work at GI Associates, he has served as the Chairman of the American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) special interest group for Ambulatory Endoscopy Centers, a role he held from 2007 to 2020.
Dr. Hogan is the founder/president of Maregade Rx and serves in product development with pharma entities. He holds over 55 patents in various medical disorders involving gastrointestinal, pulmonary, and urological-related disease states. His areas of expertise in practice management include AEC efficiency, enhancing patient care while maximizing ancillary services, and medical marketing. The most recent consuming activities have been the development of NAFLD algorithms for GI care pathways and IT-driven hypertargeting platforms. He has also been listed in Beckers’ “The 125 Gastroenterologists to Know.”
Reed B. Hogan III, MD is a gastroenterologist and managing partner at GI Associates and Endoscopy Center in Jackson, MS. He graduated in just 2.5 years from Samford University in Birmingham, AL, before returning home to Jackson, MS, where he received his Doctor of Medicine at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine. His internal medical residency and Gastroenterology fellowships were completed at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, TX.
Dr. Hogan III is the Chairman of the American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), a particular interest group for Ambulatory Endoscopy Centers. His areas of expertise include Anorectal care, Fecal Incontinence, and Diarrhea illnesses. He also remains very active in GI research.
Dr. Joseph Fix is an internationally known pharmaceutical executive with over 40 years of experience in pharmaceutical product development and commercialization. Joe holds 32 patents in pharmaceutical technology, has published over 75 peer-reviewed articles, and has given dozens of scientific presentations at national and international conferences. In addition to leadership roles in a variety of pharmaceutical companies advancing multiple products to the market, Joe has also helped start five specialty pharmaceutical companies.
A strong advocate for developing and encouraging new scientists, Joe held adjunct professor positions at the University of Kansas, the University of Southern California, and Purdue University for 22 years.
Dr. Tom Dooley is an accomplished pharmaceutical research scientist, serial entrepreneur, inventor with 15 issued patents, and author of 82 scientific articles. He has 38 years of diverse expertise in drug discovery and development from concept to commercialization, including drug repurposing of old active ingredients into new medical indications. Tom has made substantial contributions to treatments for skin conditions (Rogaine), anxiety (PanX), and inflammation (dual antihistamines).
Prior to founding several biomedical businesses, he held an endowed chair in academia. Dr. Dooley has received multiple professional awards and honors.
Dr. Doug Paul has spent over 25 years in the biopharmaceutical and medical device markets, passionately striving for simple and complex innovations to efficiently and effectively address the unmet needs of patients. He supports commercial efforts as a fractional employee for several preclinical and clinical biopharmaceutical companies. Before this, Dr. Doug Paul spent 20+ years as a founding Partner of Medical Marketing Economics (MME). He developed a broad experience overseeing a range of commercial engagements involving multiple therapeutic areas for pharmaceutical and medical technology companies. His initiatives include marketing and launch strategies, pricing strategy and research, reimbursement dynamics, management/analysis of forecasts, and product acquisition assessments. In the last ten years, Doug has been involved in total exit values of $35+ billion. Doug is considered a leading expert in the complexities of pricing and reimbursement of rare disease therapeutics. He received a PharmD and a PhD in pharmaceutical marketing from the University of Mississippi. He holds an adjunct appointment as Assistant Professor at the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy.
He has served >10 years as an elder at his local church as well as 15+ years as a board member for Scholar Leaders (their mission is to encourage and enable Christian theological leaders from the Majority World for the Global Church).
A prolific connector and communicator, Kyle Negrete spent his early career at Blackstone as an investment banker. In 2016, he left Wall Street for more purpose-driven work, helping to found a children’s home in Haiti. Upon returning to the US, under his own consulting firm, Shiny Objects, Kyle has been a source of deal flow for several venture capital firms and family offices across various sectors: real estate, tech, entertainment, and beyond. His core mission is to connect people to ideas and ideas to capital.
Over the last two years, he’s strongly supported the early growth of a start-up, Kinship, a community-based tech platform focused on emotional health. Kyle’s heart is centered around community, connection, and social impact, living his life with the purpose of intentional engagement.