About Us
Tungsten QI Partners is a clinician-run, female-led quality improvement firm. We work alongside healthcare organizations, technology companies, and individual leaders to build the kind of change that actually sticks.
Our Team
Kandice Tomkins
Kandice is the visionary behind Tungsten — the reason the firm exists and the philosophy that runs through everything it does. A clinician by training and a systems thinker by nature, she spent years in radiology before turning her frustration with broken improvement processes into a firm built to fix them. Kandice leads client relationships, shapes the strategic direction of every engagement, and is the reason clients feel like they're working with a partner, not a vendor.
Founding Partner
Daisha Marsh
Daisha is the backbone of how Tungsten actually works. With a background that includes a decade at Stanford School of Medicine, she brings deep operational rigor to every engagement — the person who makes sure the work gets done, the team stays aligned, and clients have everything they need. Daisha describes herself as "the middle" — the one who takes Kandice's vision and turns it into something executable. She also leads Tungsten's CRM and client management systems, and runs conference programming for the ACR Learning Network.
Partner
PartnerValerie Rigby
Valerie is where every new client relationship begins. She's the first point of contact for new projects — making sure the onboarding process is clear, the right questions get asked, and nothing falls through the cracks before work begins. In Daisha's words, Val always starts at the beginning, which is exactly what every new client needs. Detail-oriented, process-driven, and deeply committed to the team's mission, Valerie ensures that Tungsten's standards show up from the very first interaction.
The Founding Story
Kandice Garcia Tomkins spent years working in radiology — watching talented clinicians struggle not because they lacked skill, but because they lacked the tools, structure, and support to lead improvement in their own organizations. The problem wasn't the people. It was the system around them.
She founded Tungsten QI Partners to fix that. Not with reports and recommendations left on a desk, but with real partnership — embedding alongside teams, working through problems together, and building internal capability that outlasts the engagement.
The name comes from the element itself. Tungsten has the highest melting point of any metal. It's what makes x-rays possible. It holds up under pressure and transforms what it touches. That's the standard we hold ourselves to.
Why We Work This WayWe are a lifestyle-based firm. We work hard and we do excellent work, but we believe the people we work with have lives, and so do we. We don't demand your time beyond what the work requires. We do expect real commitment to the process.
Every engagement starts with listening. We learn your environment before we propose anything. We don't come in with a predetermined answer. We come in with a methodology and a genuine curiosity about what's actually happening in your organization.
Relationship is foundational to everything we do. If we can spend a few minutes at the start of a call just checking in — we're here for it. The work is better when the relationship is re