Exploring the World of Healthcare Innovation w/ Anushka Patchava MD, MBA | Wellx

‍Anushka Patchava: 0:00

You know what, when you're ill and you have a great healthcare experience, that's going to make you feel a little bit better. Even if your physical symptoms go away, mentally it's going to help you. We had a model, but we knew what was broken in that model. So I met one of my co-founders at a bar. He was in town, and he was trying to pitch Wellx to Vitality. Because I had my Vitality hat on and I was trying to pitch, give me a job. And it worked. And that's how Wellx came together with Javed and Vaibh ,and we made it very relevant for the environment we were in. So we weren't going there going. We're going to go to take over America, like most startups do. We went there saying we want to take over Dubai, and we want to change health care in Dubai.

Amardeep Parmar: 0:40

Today, we have Anushka Pichava, MD, who wears many different hats, including being a strategic advisor at Wellx and chief growth officer and chief clinical officer at Mindstep. Anushka's got a really varied career, one of the most varied we've had on the podcast. She started off in medicine, worked her way up there, then she went into consulting. Some of those jobs worked out. Some of those jobs didn't work out and went into writing. She's done so many different things. I can't summarize it effectively right now. So you're going to hear this journey and for many of you who maybe are thinking about different career opportunities and how to transition between careers, this is the perfect episode for you and she'll talk about how she's excelled in these different areas and led to the position she's in now, which is making a real difference through these purpose-led companies in the healthcare space. I really hope you enjoy today's episode. So, Anushka, you've done so many different things in your career, but I would wonder, when you're starting out, when you're a kid, what was your dream? What was your ambition?

Anushka Patchava: 1:35

Oh my gosh, that's such a great question. I guess, coming from a family of doctors, my parents both being surgeons, you'd want me to say doctor, but actually, for me, I was always very, very creative. I remember wanting to play Disney on the piano and being told I needed to play Bach, and I remember in my room with a Discman dancing in front of the mirror. So I'd say I think theatre slash being a dancer of some sort. Take from that what you want was probably my hidden ambition when I was growing up.

Amardeep Parmar: 2:09

And how far did you pursue that? Did you actually try to like think, okay, can I go to drama school or can I do that?

Anushka Patchava: 2:13

Yeah, so I did, I did, I did a lot of drama exams, went to drama school, stage school for a summer and was told I was good. But I think, yeah, I think you very quickly realize that there's a lot of societal pressures on being something. Maybe it's more vocational, that's going to pay bills, it's going to give you the lifestyle you want and so, yeah, you let go of your dreams, unfortunately when you're that young and you live in an Asian household. And what did you then study, young and you live in an Asian household?

Amardeep Parmar: 2:45

And what did you then study then?

Anushka Patchava: 2:47

So I have an interesting story. So I started off as a medic, dropped out after two days, then did biochemistry at the same university really basically to party in London and then I went back and did graduate medicine, so a bit of a roundabout way, but the American way. So I did pre-med and then med 

Amardeep Parmar: 3:03

So when you dropped out, what was behind the decision to drop out and switch subjects?

Anushka Patchava: 3:09

Do you know what I think? At the time I really wasn't convinced medicine was for me and I remember going this is a terrible thing to say, but going to university and sitting in day one of medical lectures at Imperial College and just looking around and seeing a lot of people that looked like me, um, and the room was crowded, like there, there was over 300 students and I just thought, nah, I want to be unique not saying that biochemistry makes you unique at all, unless you're building the COVID-19 vaccine or something like that but I just I wanted to be unique and I saw a lot of, you know, people with similar backgrounds, similar experiences. You know a lot of Asians and I.

Anushka Patchava:  3:47

just it, just it just didn't sit right with me.

Amardeep Parmar: 3:48

And then what made you go back again? 

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Anushka Patchava:

I didn't have a job after I graduated, so I've been very lucky. I graduated in two recessions. Um. The first time, I graduated from my BSC right in the middle of the 2007-2008 crisis, um, and I knew I didn't want to go into banking or consulting, but I didn't have a job, um. So, um, I recognized that my parents would probably pay for me to do medicine if I got into a good school, and it meant I could party for another four years, which is basically what I did at Cambridge as well. And I guess the other reason, I think, that made me go back.

Anushka Patchava: 4:21

I always think about this, and my one moment was I was sitting in a mud hut in South Africa in a village called Kailicha, and I was helping a friend build an orphanage out there and looking after orphans. A lot of them were HIV positive and we'd just done the HIV vaccination program with the Red Cross out there. And I remember sitting there and it was just when the Harry Potter books came out. So I picked up this massive Harry Potter book and, sitting there with a torch on my head, reading this Harry Potter book, thinking, do you know what? This is quite magical.

Anushka Patchava: 4:53

And I don't know if it was the Harry Potter book and the Hogwarts story, and you know me trying to work out if it was Gryffindor or Slytherin or the environment of just, you know, having everything stripped away and being able to support and help people. But that was the first time I was like actually I really do want to go back and, you know, try out medicine, do medicine and be able to help and support people. Little, I know, a lot of medicine isn't really necessarily helping people. It's a lot of admin and other stuff, but hey-ho.

Amardeep Parmar: 5:19

So then, once you then studied your medicine degree, you then went to Cambridge, right, and going into the actual job of being a doctor, right? You alluded to there that actually there's a lot of admin and other things related to that. How was that experience? Did you enjoy it?

Anushka Patchava: 5:32

Did I enjoy it? I think for the first two years I did because you feel so needed and at that age you've I mean, I was a little bit older than most people when they graduate from medicine but you know you've, you've done all the hard work, you've got this great qualification, you've got the two letters in front of your name and it's really exciting. So I think at that stage I did. I remember the first year really, really like you know, jumping out of bed at 6: 30 am, putting my scrubs on, running in to take bloods and failing miserably at taking bloods and then begging nurses to do it for you. You know that kind of environment, that camaraderie, that being part of something which you often lose when you come from university and then you go into a job with medicine. You had it still. So I did enjoy it.

Anushka Patchava: 6:19

But very quickly I recognized that the frustrations led to me really struggling with emotional regulation and as someone who has ADD like diagnosed probably when I was 14, that emotional regulation piece becomes more and more important as you go through life and I remember, with medicine, constantly being emotionally dysregulated and then also turning to bad habits. You know we used to have the best mess parties at Mary's, where we'd go out all night on mega benders and it's true, you know, doctors probably drink a lot and party a lot more than other people and I remember just feeling that doesn't make me feel centered and a lot of the things that matter to me, like fitness and sleep. I'm known as half woman, half mattress because I sleep and nap a lot, but those things fell apart and so I think I enjoyed the core of the camaraderie but I didn't like what it did to me.

Amardeep Parmar: 7:12

So is it difficult to then leave that career and go into something else?

Anushka Patchava: 7:15

I think by the time I left, which was the first round of doctors protests which me and a group of friends helped organise, whoops years and years and years ago, I think, by the time I'd left, mentally, I was checked out, I was burnt out, I was checked out, I was frustrated.

Anushka Patchava: 7:34

Frustrated with the inability to change what wasn't working, the inability to problem solve, and frustrated with the fact that the environment was very hierarchical, um, rather than compassionate, and you know, uh, it didn't allow me to develop, um, and, ironically. So I've just been in the hospital a fair bit, you know, having some random tests done and, ironically, now even walking into a hospital. It triggers me because I see the way that healthcare workers are under pressure and the way they interact with each other and sometimes I won't say often, but you know the observations I've had you lack that compassion and that kindness because you're so burdened with everything else going around, um, so, yeah, I think, by the time I'd left, I was, I was checked out, I wanted to do something more fun. 

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Amardeep Parmar:

And what was that next thing?

Amardeep Parmar: 8:21

What did you think was going to be fun? Because I'm guessing you probably weren't right at the beginning.

Anushka Patchava: 8:25

Ah. So I quit without having another job? Um, don't for anyone listening, please don't do that. Really really bad thing to do. Um, but what did I do? Um? So I applied to a consulting company called business 3.0 at the time. Um, just honestly, fortuitously, uh, my brother knew um one of guys, a guy called ‘Vishal Amin’, who was there as CFO, had a couple of chats. They were going to try and do some stuff in health care. This was an innovation design strategy consulting. I'm going to be honest with you when I left I had no idea what any of those words meant. I just applied, got this job and, I'll be honest, got fired from the job eight months later, which was quite interesting, because in medicine you don't really ever get fired and I don't know what that felt like. But yeah, I basically got made redundant because I was so useless at being an innovation strategy design consultant.

Amardeep Parmar: 9:17

So for the people listening as well. Vishal Amin has actually been on the podcast too and is the founder until now.

Anushka Patchava: 9:22

He is yeah.

Amardeep Parmar: 9:23

So it's interesting to see that experience you had there. But I guess it's interesting that you can see that it was an unfair dismissal. Right, it was that you weren't, it just didn't match with you.

Anushka Patchava: 9:32

To be honest, I would never say it was an unfair dismissal. It taught me a lot about life, um. So business 3.0 had this really awesome culture where you could wear what you wanted, um, which meant you know jeans and hoodies, you didn't have to be in suits, you didn't have to be all you know stereoscopy and heels and all that up which medicine was, and you only had to be in the office from 10 to 4. And obviously, growing up now I recognize that that doesn't mean you only work 10 to 4.

Anushka Patchava: 10:00

But at the time it was, you know, I'd go to the gym for two and a half hours in the morning. My, but at the time it was, you know, I'd go to the gym for two and a half hours in the morning. My body was in the best shape it's ever been because you know, I'd bum around or go to the office and I just really wasn't connected with the work. You know I did projects in telecommunications, in media, in retail and as a medic who's very, you know, scientific and you know maybe even now more data science-y by background, those kind of projects to me were very Fluffy and actually at the time my best mate, a gentleman called Jared Lee, who is an actress by background and has done a load of great stuff in ed tech and so on and so forth, he always used to call me Fluffy. My nickname became Fluffy because no one could work out what I was doing.

Anushka Patchava: 10:40

I don't think I ever worked out and sorry, Vish, if you're listening in the eight months what I was doing and why I was there, but it didn't work. And I think that was the real realization that the advice I'd give anyone listening to this is redundancies and getting fired aren't great environments or it, emotionally, can take a lot out of you. But if you really focus on why and Simon Sinek says all the time, start with why you'll recognize that you weren't playing to your strengths. Um, and there's no point playing to your weaknesses in today's day and age, um, I'd always say pay to your strengths, make your life as easy as possible, because that's when it's going to be the most fun.

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Amardeep Parmar: 

So how was it like, after you're getting let go, right, that's obviously a big hit to your ego, big hit to your sense of self, too.

Amardeep Parmar: 11:25

Right. How did you bounce back from that? How did you decide, okay, this one I'm gonna do next. And like, how did you discover what your strengths were?

Anushka Patchava: 11:32

I think I panicked, um, because I felt at that point, having left and had a big kind of storm, I was one of the first in my group of friends and, I guess in that ecosystem, to leave medicine I felt that I couldn't go back and ask for money from my parents. So I felt somehow I had to make ends meet and all of a sudden it became about being frugal. So I started doing things like investing the little money I had because I was like, oh, you can turn that money into more money, probably did a little bit of gambling as well, to be very honest and then started talking to people. And it was the first time and I always say this to like you know, any doctors and healthcare workers out there.

Anushka Patchava: 12:14

You feel like you talk to people every day in what you do, but you're never interacting outside of that healthcare ecosystem. And networking outside the ecosystem is the only way you allow yourself to grow and discover. And the more curious you are, the more you get to that point where you realize what works for you, and not only just in terms of the things you do, but how you do it and who you do it with. And that was the first time I recognized the thing that we always said at Business 3.0 when they did performance reviews. It's not what you do, it's how you do it. And I recognize that you feel like you talk to people every day and what you do, but you're never interacting outside of that healthcare ecosystem. And networking outside the ecosystem is the only way you allow yourself to grow and discover. And headhunters, a couple of them tried to recruit me to be a headhunter so I did a three month stint being a headhunter and then got my next job through doing that.

Anushka Patchava: 13:03

But I think one of the things about being a headhunter allowed me to talk to lots of different people and ask people what they wanted to do, which made me think about what I want to do and who I want to be and recognize at the time. You know I couldn't let go of the science. I really liked helping people, but maybe not in that physical, clinical setting. I still liked reading scientific journals and papers. We always get told before university interviews tell everyone you read the New Scientist. But I was still reading the New Scientist back then. It wasn't the Economist, it was definitely the New Scientist. So I basically ended up falling into a pharmaceutical consulting strategy role, and that made sense.

Amardeep Parmar: 13:48

So did it make sense at the time? But does it make sense once you're in the job as well?

Anushka Patchava: 13:52

Both, actually both. The only thing that didn't make sense in the job was it was like 80 to 90 hours a week and at that point I'd made this pledge to myself, which I haven't lived out. But I said at the age of 38, which is this year I'm going to be retired and I'm out. But I said at the age of 38, which is this year I'm going to be retired, and I don't want, you know, I wanted to kind of capitalize on the fact as a medic you work really long hours. I wanted to carry on reducing each year how much I worked and, obviously, strategy consulting. You don't reduce how much you work and you travel a lot. 

Amardeep Parmar: 14:20

Why 38? That's really specific.

Anushka Patchava: 14:21

I don't know, I think. I think I had it in my mind that 38 was the year that people got old. Let me just say, that's not true toanyone is out there.

Anushka Patchava: 14:29

38 is definitely the new 18, but yeah, I just think, I think I had it in my mind and I thought, you know, before my 40th birthday, I want to, I want to be retired. I want to be, you know, doing charity work or philanthropy or whatever it is. Um, I still believe I'm doing a lot of what I want to do now, but obviously I'm not retired.

Amardeep Parmar: 14:48

So that's just interesting, because a lot of people say 40 or they say like a round number, whereas 38 is such a specific target and like how long ago was that? Now, where are we in the timeline?

Anushka Patchava: 14:59

So it's about 10 years ago, yeah, when I was like 20, probably just over 10 years ago, 26, 27. So when I first got my first job I think I was like I'll do like 10 years and I'll be out. Um yeah, I mean, most medics will tell you you don't stay in medicine if you have that ambition. So it's not a surprise I left 

Amardeep Parmar: 15:15

And then how long were you doing the 1890 hour? Weeks for, before you realize.

Amardeep Parmar: 15:20

Actually, I've got to make a change here?

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Anushka Patchava:

 A year a year with lots of flights, great business, business, awesome team, awesome leadership, but a year A year and then again I was super close to burning out, knew the symptoms, knew the disconnect that happens with the work, knew the fact you know things like fitness, sleep, relationships are taking a toll. So, yeah, I lasted a year then then landed my next role.

Amardeep Parmar: 15:46

With the timeline now. So you've done so being a doctor, a stint as a headhunter, a stint as a business consultant, now this pharmaceutical consulting. What was next, what's the next like evolution of that?

Anushka Patchava: 16:02

So this is where the story gets really exciting and it's funny. My brother features a lot of things like who I've become, um, and where I am, which is awesome because he is literally like one of my best friends in the whole wide world. Um, but it's me, yeah, when I reflect back, I think it's quite funny. So again, um, I'm in this pharmaceutical consulting role, really, have just done a project on analyzing breast cancer, a portfolio for a large pharmaceutical company, got to travel, got to go back to my kind of hometown, cambridge, you know, where I felt like I was most at home, um, and I just, I remember someone said to me, get on LinkedIn. And I was like, eh, you know, at the time it was like I think I was still Facebooking, to be fair, um, and I'm not a big social media person. Um, I do it. I used to do it, I should say, because I felt I had to rather than I wanted to anyway. So someone said get on LinkedIn. So I got on LinkedIn. I, you know, look at my brother's profile, make my own profile up almost a copycat, trying to like, make, make myself look good.

Anushka Patchava: 17:03

And then, out of nowhere, this gentleman contacted me. Um, a British Asian gentleman called ‘Sney Kempker’, um, and said I've got this role. That is, you know, blah, blah, blah. I'm chief of staff population health at Aetna International, um and digital health, and you get to work with me and you know your title will be. I think my title would start with commercial manager but you get to lead all the propositions. And I'm saying all of this because I'm like, at that point I'm like great, awesome, like I have no idea what any of these words mean. Like, you know, digital health this was years ago so no one really knew what it meant. Population health, what analytics? Yeah, like statistics, what are you doing? You know, the chief of staff sounds like a really, really cool man, like I am in charge, but like, what does it mean? Okay, cool, like, and what had happened is Sinead was connected to my brother. They both went to the same boarding school, though they're years apart, and you know it.

Anushka Patchava: 17:58

Just, I just fell into this role, um, but that, that one role, um, actually built my career, um, and you know I'm super grateful for that, because I got to go in and be a support to a very, very senior person in a very, very large business that had just been taken over by CVS Health, so it was a Fortune 4 company. It was going to go in transformation, not only digital transformation but cultural transformation, org transformation. Got to build some cool products and sell them to different markets and travel around the world, learn about American health care systems. You know, I went out to South Korea, Thailand, India, built digital health ecosystems and honestly got paid what I thought was a lot of money. But Sney actually subsequently told me he would have doubled my salary had I asked for it.

Anushka Patchava: 18:43

So lesson one always asks for more. I asked for it. But you know, I think that really made it for me because I got to do a lot of things that I didn't know what they were when I started and for me I realised and recognised at that point being curious and constantly learning was my fuel.

Amardeep Parmar: 19:04

We hope you're enjoying the episode so far. We just want to give a quick shout out to our headline partners, HSBC Innovation Banking. One of the biggest challenges for so many startups is finding the right bank to support them, because you might start off and try to use a traditional bank, but they don't understand what you're doing. You're just talking to an AI assistant or you're talking to somebody who doesn't really understand what it is you've been trying to do. HSBC have got the team they've built out over years to make sure they understand what you're doing. They've got the deep sector expertise and they can help connect you with the right people to make your dreams come true. So if you want to learn more, check out hsbcinnovationbanking.com.

Amardeep Parmar: 19:42

So you took this job that you didn't really know what it was. You didn't really know anything about it. How did you? You land there on day one? How do you then try to thrive and try to do well at that job when you have to learn so much all at once? And also, I guess, how much of it? Were you being able to admit that you didn't know some of this stuff? Or were you trying to prove? Oh no, I know what I'm doing.

Anushka Patchava: 20:03

So that's a really good question. I'm sure my view is different from the people who worked with me and my managers. I think a lot of it was recognizing that I do have a large skill set. We all do, but because we don't use it every day or we don't think of it in a traditional way, oh, I learned this at school we forget. Because a lot of us can talk to people, a lot of us are able to read information and understand it. You know, if you challenge yourself, you can analyze data, although you've got you know all the likes of AI doing that for you now.

Anushka Patchava: 20:36

But you know, I think what became really important in that role was behavior over actual ability and capability, because capability could always be taught and you'd learn from observing and you'd role model and the people around you. But it was behavior and the attitude that I can do this, um, that really, really helped. And then I also think for me was two phenomenons that I still try really hard to practice today um, separate signal from the noise, supercritical, because in those environments it's not again, it's not what you do, it's how you do it. And who you do it with. In a corporate environment, the more friends you make and the more you do projects together, the more you learn and the more output you have. You can't do it on your own.

Anushka Patchava: 21:21

And the second principle around it's okay to be grey, not in terms of weather. I hate grey weather, um, I'm a beach bear by default. But it's okay to live and exist in an uncertain world, an uncertain environment, because what that should encourage you to do is be curious, and that's what that environment of Aetna allowed me to do. It's allowed me to be curious, allowed me to read. I think I spent the majority of my first six months just reading loads of stuff and learning and going to America and understanding how things were done with the wider business in America. And that discovery piece no matter what role you do and where you end up, even in relationships or business relationships or personal relationships, that discovery piece is the most exciting. It's where you get, you know, the fuzz, the buzz, the power. It's, it's the cool bit.

Anushka Patchava: 22:13

So I think, yeah, that curiosity and separating signal from noise was, was, yeah, how I, how I did i.

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Amardeep Parmar:

I think sometimes people in that community get worried about this idea of needing to prove themselves right, of maybe they don't do as much discovery as they should do, because they want to hit the ground running and be like look, I know what I'm doing and it's that almost that pride aspect, right?

Amardeep Parmar: 22:29

yeah, yeah how are you able to kind of show people like, actually I want to learn and I want to do it in that way? How did you cultivate that mindset or did you is something you built up over time?

Anushka Patchava: 22:38

Such a great question. I don't think I can answer that because I don't know if I fully nailed what I want to or how I want to do that yet. But I would say I totally agree with you, right, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves because of society and whether that is, you know, as Asians or not, we just the human race generally, humans generally. If you take the burden off your own shoulders, you'd actually perform better in every scenario. But we put a lot of pressure on ourselves and I don't think it's just Asians as a whole. But you know, given the audience today, I'm happy to address that Asian kind of.

Anushka Patchava: 23:18

We kind of feel like we have to go to war with everything. I grew up in a household where I felt like everything had to be a competition. Like my parents pitted me against my older brother and actually we laugh now. You know we were having shawarmas the other day because we grew up in Saudi Arabia. So when my brother gets to town we go straight out for shawarmas and we were laughing at the fact they pitted us against each other. Because we are so close, we share everything. We're like the besties. You know, we learn from each other. There's no ego when we're talking to each other. So why do we get pitted against each other? And I think it's just the culture we go to war. As Asians, we feel we need to prove ourselves. We go to war. We see the world as against us rather than with us, and that's a mindset you have to change. When you start seeing the world as 99% of people are actually really good and not focusing on the negative and I've only started doing that since late part of last year through some real deep discovery of who I am and what I want to be, life becomes so easy. Being kind becomes so easy. Um, I'll tell you so.

Anushka Patchava: 24:24

I used to hate airports. Um, I came out of a long-term relationship. I spent the best part of that time traveling with that person all the time everywhere. We must have done two, three hundred flights together, um, and I'd never, I recognized when I came out of that in the last five years I hadn't been on a flight on my own. So I hated airports. I spent two years absolutely hating airports, being really upset in them, having panic attacks in them, getting on flights on my own, being, like, you know, back and forth to Dubai, not being able to sleep, you know, being super anxious, all of those things.

Anushka Patchava: 24:59

And then when I flipped it and said, like have you actually looked around you? Rather than go in with the mentality I hate this, or someone's going to attack me or someone's going to get me or I'm not going to be good enough, so I have to overcompensate, go with the mentality that this can be anything. And now I go to airports and all I see at airports is love, all around me i, deep different forms. There's, you know, so many different types of love. Deep different forms of love. Even the people who work at airports, they're always jolly and fun and happy.

Anushka Patchava: 25:29

If you go through security in an airport, you'll laugh at how much the security guards are messing around, but you never notice it because you go in feeling, oh my God, I'm going through security, they're going to find something on me. Oh my God, this is going to take time. You'll. We all go into these environments with a negative mindset and so I think if you change that and you go in and take the pressure off and just observe things for the way they are, you see things in a different lens, and I think that's what.

Anushka Patchava: 25:52

That's what I would say. I would do differently is don't go into an environment trying to prove, trying to think people are going to fire you or get you or, um, you know, not support you, um, they're going to come at you, they're going to take your money, they're going to take your jobs, they're going to take your house. You know, go into an environment and be like hey look, I'm here, you can teach me or I can learn myself, because you have to have your own, your own 50%, have your own accountability and I'm going to look at this in a completely different light. Um, and I did, and you know, to testament, today I'm still really good friends with quite a lot of people at that organization that taught me and you know, two or three of them are my mentors and then I know from there.

Amardeep Parmar: 26:36

You then went into health insurance, right, but you left that to do what you're doing today. What was behind that decision in that part of your life?

Anushka Patchava: 26:43

This was the one that didn't really have a like a plan, so I actually thought I'd stay in health insurance for a very long time. I always wanted to be kind of like a c-suite listed company, you know, the big dog uhm at a large organization doing really cool things. I got a role at Vitality, which was amazing because I love my Apple Watch. Even before Vitality, I was into my fitness. The fact you're going to reward me for going to the gym is amazing and I absolutely loved it.

Anushka Patchava: 27:15

But during my time at Vitality. So I started an executive MBA, just before I got my job at Vitality and just after the pandemic had started, and so my life became about the executive MBA because that became your social life, that became your intellectual life. You were working from home, so that actually became your community. And very quickly again, looking at people around me, very different to when I was at imperial medical school, I looked around the people in the room and I was like all these people are so different to me. They have different backgrounds, different jobs, different titles, and that started the phase of discovery of entrepreneurship. Um, very, very quickly.

Anushka Patchava: 27:58

Um, during that journey, um recognized I was doing a lot of electives in, like financing the entrepreneurial business and building. You know your own startup and innovation and and you know innovation markets and marketing analytics and you know all those things that like then put together and you're like, oh, now I know enough, I can do it on my own. So I think that's what that and I guess the pandemic which allowed us all to think about the lives we want to live a little bit more made me think I want to do entrepreneurship and my brother played a little part because at this point he'd been an entrepreneur for a few years and he was doing really well and he had a really cool life. So a little part.

Amardeep Parmar: 28:37

And then was Wellx, the first company which was like you could call yourself co-founder and start to scale officially, yes, unofficially no.

Anushka Patchava: 28:44

There were about six iterations um, some ideas, which were put on the kind of uh on ice but are coming back live soon. Um, but, um, yeah, it was. So I met one of my co-founders, um, at a bar in London. He was in town and he was trying to pitch Wellx to Vitality because I had my Vitality hat on and I was trying to pitch, give me a job, and it worked and that's how Wellx came together with Javed and Vaibh.

Amardeep Parmar: 29:12

So could you tell us a bit about Wellx? What does it do? What's the mission it's trying to achieve?

Anushka Patchava: 29:16

Yeah, so Javed and Vaib actually had built the concept of Wellx way before I came in. And Wellx is around, very similar to Vitality, creating better value in insurance, but also targeting the key issues in healthcare today, which is it's not sustainable, it costs a lot, we don't track outcomes and people aren't responsible or accountable for their health. So we put that all together into a platform. We believe we can do insurance differently. We believe we should reward people, but we should also penalize people who don't look after their health. We believe we should empower people to make better, healthy decisions, but give them the tools and the resources and the education to do that, because not a lot of people know a lot about health. We assume they do, but they don't.

Anushka Patchava: 29:59

We believe digital is the way forward, don't we believe digital is the way forward? We believe controlling costs is not the most important. It's about getting the right health outcome and we want to create brilliant experiences. You know what, when you're ill and you have a great healthcare experience, that's going to make you feel a little bit better. Even if your physical symptoms go away, mentally it's going to help you, and that was what Wellx was about. Holistic healthcare, mental health, and physical health are important as each other and create journeys and experiences where people actually enjoy interacting with their insurer and don't over utilize their health care or health insurance. Um, so it's a health insurer tech platform. Since then, I should tell you this, because it's in the market. Uh, we built HealthX as well. We're not taking away SpaceX and all the Elon Musk dimensions, but we built HealthX, which is a digital insurer and the first digital end-to-end insurer in the region as well.

Amardeep Parmar: 30:54

And so obviously you went from Vitality to Startup right, which is quite a big shift. Obviously. Vitality, huge brand, what was that like? How has it been like working at a company which is obviously a lot earlier stage and building out from that early days?

Anushka Patchava: 31:06

Hard, really hard. Uh, it didn't help that I was flying back and forth to london and dubai quite a lot um, for personal reasons, but um, I would say hard, but also I think so. One of the things I always laughed at was Wellx has an amazing logo and it's a really cool colorful W and when I look at it it's a water slide. I look at it and I think of the water slide and I'm a child deep down. I literally I love water slides, I love water parks. I'll spend all my time on it. So it helped being in Dubai and having water parks to go to every weekend. But it also helped having a really fun environment.

Anushka Patchava: 31:47

And again it goes back to that, what I was saying earlier, and I don't mean this to be a full circle, but it's not really what you do, it's how you do it. We made Wellx fun. In fact, it's in our motto. You know, make healthy fun and health hassle free. And we made it fun. The tough times were fun. You know the tough times were tough because it is a startup, is and I wasn't on the ground 24-7. I mean testament to Vaibh and Javed, who are and were, but we also made it about discovery, so we didn't really know what we wanted to be, what we were doing. We didn't know health x would be born as an mga solution. We just kind of made it about discovery, um, and the more we discovered um, the more excited it became. So I'd say it's you know, go back to that, it's, it's, it's how you do things and who you do it with. That helps.

Amardeep Parmar: 32:39

And I know your role there has changed over time as well. Can you tell us a bit about that, like how you've contributed and how your different skill set from your past has enabled you to do so well there?

Anushka Patchava: 32:52

I wouldn't even say it was a skill set. Again, I'd say it's the people that you surround yourself with, um. We had a really nice balance on the team, with different strengths, um, and you know, I I before we we came on live we were talking about strengths and working your strengths and so on and so forth, and I think that's super important, because what you want and I always say this when you're with people you want others to cover your weaknesses or your shadows and you, your spikes, not to be theirs, um, and that's that's, I think, what worked. I think what allowed Wellx to build something super, super, super cool was we had some great tech and developers, we had a great team, we had a great vision, we weren't scared to make mistakes and we had a model. But we knew what was broken in that model, whether it was a Vitality model or the Ulife model, or we knew what we wanted to change and we made it very relevant for the environment we were in.

Anushka Patchava: 33:43

So we weren't going there, we're going to take over America like most startups do. We went there saying we want to take over Dubai and we want to change healthcare in Dubai, which is a really difficult environment to change healthcare in, because everyone's, you know, got everything so easy, as people will probably say commonly which isn't the case, by the way but you know, that's how the world perceives it. So I think that's it. That was that, and I think what I love most about the product role like I went from being, you know, digital health and propositions leader and to then being deputy chief medical officer to then being chief product officer titles are nothing. Like title doesn't mean anything. It's what you create from that. And what I like about startups and the product role is you bring all aspects, so the creative side comes out. I do everything in Figma now you know, which I never would have thought I'd do and I get to color in.

Amardeep Parmar: 34:37

So could you share a couple of the biggest wins there from Wellx?

Anushka Patchava: 34:39

Whoa, okay. So a really big win, getting seed funding. I would say Javed  and Vaibh, Vaibh more than Javed  put a lot of energy into that and it was awesome because I came on board or, yeah, was able to be full-time as a result of the funding, so that was awesome. I think one of the best wins was Malta MedTech World and winning best digital health of the year uh, uh, platform of the year um, because it was voted by people and I think for me you know, being a product officer, my first year winning, that is really, really cool. Um. And then my third big swing, I'd say, was having a team that at very many points, um was 50 female, and I love that In that culture, in that environment, to be able to bring up talent from the ground up and to be able to be female. And we were part of the Women in Tech program. We were running this up in the Standard Chartered Women in Tech program. I love that. I think that was something I'm really, really proud of.

Amardeep Parmar: 35:38

And then I know you're working on other projects too. Could you let us know about those too, before we go to the quickfire questions?

Anushka Patchava: 35:43

Quickfire. Okay, yeah, so other projects I do a lot. I help lots of businesses grow and that's where I get my most energy. I love working with startup founders. So I've got a role at the UN and the WEF, the World Economic Forum being an advisory in healthcare and a lot of that around AI health policy. My favourite role right now is working in the mental health space, something that's super important to me as Chief Growth Officer of Mindstep AI-led mental health triage solution that is breaking barriers and changing the market, and I absolutely love that. I met the two co-founders at Google AI when I was there with Wellx and we just had a fantastic bond and again, it's a really fun environment. And then on the side, I'm doing some really cool things that I can't probably tell you about, but it involves money and getting money to the right places and raising capital to give the right people capital to do good things in the world.

Amardeep Parmar: 36:37

Sounds exciting there, so we're gonna have to go to a quick fire questions now with time. So first one is who are three British Asians you think are doing incredible work and you'd love to share them with the audience today?

Anushka Patchava: 36:47

Okay, um, my first one's, Farzana Rahman, who, um, was probably one of my biggest inspirations to come out of radiology, because they built radiology. Uh, her and her co-founders built a company called Hexa, Hexarad, which is about radiology reporting out of hours, making the system more efficient using AI, and so on and so forth. But I love the fact that she was a consultant radiologist and then went and did something completely different and, you know, a mother, an Asian female, breaking stigmas, barriers, and for anyone who's met her, she is just a delight to be around. She has that kind of real, charming energy that no matter how low you are when you see her, or high you are, she'll get you to a better place. So that's definitely her.

Anushka Patchava: 37:34

My second one is someone who I call my second dad, a gentleman called Krishna Moorthy, who most recently stitched up my chin when I fainted and smashed my chin. Um, he is incredible. He. He was my first surgical trainer when I was a doctor. He'll always tell you I quit surgery because of him. I think I quit because I wasn't ever going to be as good as him, um, but he's a gentleman who then became an entrepreneur again, you know, got to a senior level as a health care worker, um decided do something different and he's changing the shape of cancer, built a prehab rehab solution previously known as Onko, now called Alvie. But as a human he is incredible in that he's very humble. He's not your typical surgeon. Oops, did I say that and very, very passionate about delivering the right outcomes. Ironically, his daughter's called Nush and my dad's called Krishna, so there's like this weird, weird dynamic there. But yeah, he's a huge, awesome, awesome, inspirational force in my life.

Anushka Patchava: 38:31

And my third one has got to be my brother. My brother's 11 months older, for those that don't know, is my bestie, as I've said many times. But yeah, I mean, why do I know how to do data science? I mean, why do I know how to do data science? Because he learned data science. Why do I know anything about politics and economics? Because he studied politics and economics. Why can I still play the piano today? Because he can. You know he bought me a piano at my home in London and we learned the piano together growing up. And you know why am I not? Why am I an entrepreneur? Because I know when I can't pay my bills, he'll pay them for me.

Amardeep Parmar: 39:04

What's his name?

Anushka Patchava: 39:05

Abi Patchava, you told me to say my brother's name is Abi Patchava. 

Amardeep Parmar: 

Okay, what does he do?

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 Anushka Patchava:

So my brother is the CEO and co-founder of a business called Bright money. Um, they use AI to deliver better consumer finance.

Amardeep Parmar: 39:14

Awesome. So I always say that because people say they shout out their siblings or their husband or their partner or whatever, and they never say the name. It's like the audience doesn't know his name. 

 Anushka Patchava:

That's because I don't want him to get more LinkedIn followers than me. 

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Amardeep Parmar: 

So if anybody wants to find out more about you and what you're up to, where should they go to?

Anushka Patchava: 39:28

LinkedIn, because that's the only social media I'm on these days, and then, yeah, through there. Like, I'm very good on my WhatsApp, I'm very crap at my emails. You can find me often in gyms, so if you really want to track me down Oxford Circus Cycle, that's where I'm normally hanging out most days, most evenings and on Saturdays, and, yeah, I love connecting with people. So if I could be of help to any of your listeners, I'd love to be.

Amardeep Parmar: 39:52

And is there anything that you need help with right now that the audience could help you with?

Anushka Patchava: 39:55

I need more time in the day, so if someone can slow down the day, that'd be awesome. What else do I need help with? Look, I love building ideas, so I've got a little bit of spare time. I shouldn't say that too openly. So if someone's got an idea that they're looking to do a feasibility study of, or commercialize or just think about, or they don't know how they'll build it or how it will get you know paid for, um, then yeah, like I'd love to. I'd love to. I love getting like dirty with post-its, um, and working through and solving problems.

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Amardeep Parmar: 40:33

So thank you so much for coming on today.

Have you got any final words for the audience?

Anushka Patchava: 40:35

Final words? The audience. That's a hard one. I'll tell you what my final words are. Um, it was on a leaving card when I left sa Arabia to move to the UK, and it was a card that one of my friends gave me that said do what you love, the rest will come, and I truly, truly believe that's the way to roll with life.

Amardeep Parmar: 40:51

Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe. See you next time.

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