About our Founder and CEO, Sonia Kirkpatrick
Sonia noticed her oldest daughter was behind developmentally when compared to her siblings; she was insensitive to pain, lacked motor-skill dexterity, was inattentive, and could not interact socially with other children. After thousands of miles traveled in search of answers and countless appointments with pediatricians, neurological psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists, she received a diagnosis: Asperger’s Syndrome and ADHD coupled with Dyspraxia.
Sonia spent two years orchestrating multiple evaluations, consultations and referrals across the country, expending valuable time and resources that could have been better used to treat her daughter. She wondered how many others had experienced what she and her family had struggled to find.
From this highly personal journey, Sonia developed a vision for a clinic where a child could be evaluated, diagnosed and treated by a multidisciplinary team of professionals in a single, collaborative location. Thus, the concept for PediaPlex was born.
Sonia took this concept and spent years researching the types of specialists that are necessary to help diagnose and treat children with these challenges. In doing so, she finely tuned her business plan for PediaPlex while completing her MBA at the University of Dallas and became deeply entrenched in the pediatric behavioral health community in North Texas. She recruited and assembled a first-class team of professionals and proudly opened PediaPlex on January 2, 2012 in Southlake, Texas. Since then, additional PediaPlex locations have opened in Fort Worth and Frisco, Texas.
With her passion for helping families going through similar hardships combined with her extensive business experience in accounting and finance, Sonia has successfully established PediaPlex as one of the only collaborative care clinics in the country and the leading diagnostic and therapeutic center in DFW. Prior to opening PediaPlex, Sonia spent more than 20 years in accounting and finance positions at companies such as Nokia, CSF, Automation Resources and The North American Coal Corporation. Her most recent role as Director of Global Operational Excellence, Strategy and Projects at Nokia provided valuable experience in understanding the importance of financial rigor applied to any business, including medical offices, as well as the discipline of tracking metrics that produce repeatable results, which have significantly contributed to her continued success as Founder and CEO of PediaPlex.
As a 2021 inductee into the University of Dallas Gupta College of Business Hall of Fame and the 2013 Distinguished Alumni of the Year, Sonia is an active member of the University of Dallas. She currently serves on the Advisory Board for the University of Dallas and has been the alumni speaker at several of the University’s commencement ceremonies for graduate programs. Sonia also serves on the Parker University Advisory Committee for the AOTA program. She is now on the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History Advisory ASD Board and has served as the keynote Commencement speaker for Parker University Health Sciences.
Sonia has appeared on the NBC Texas Today show, The Broadcast, and Fox 4 news with Heather Hays discussing autism. She has also been the feature story in D Magazine.
