Going from medical school straight into business. Guy Gross shares with us on this episode his insights from his remarkable career journey, transitioning from Nottingham Medical School to leadership roles in global healthcare corporations. Gross discusses selling to the NHS, emphasizes the importance of integrated care systems, and delves into challenges in health tech investment for long-term prevention.
His experiences as the UK COO of Teladoc during the COVID-19 pandemic are explored, including the impact of the vaccine rollout on telemedicine companies. This episode also delves into Gross's personal path, highlighting his pivot from medical school to the business world and offering advice for doctors seeking success in business. Topics include identifying strengths, differences between CEO and COO roles, conflict resolution, corporate financial literacy, and bridging knowledge gaps when transitioning from medicine to business. The episode encourages listeners to disrupt their careers, broaden perspectives, and make a meaningful impact in healthcare and beyond.
Timestamp:
02:35 Doing business during and after medical school.
04:06 The changing landscape of a career in the NHS, working hours and burn out.
06:30 How do you find the time to develop your business experience?
08:46 Involved with Google, YouTube and Facebook through music.
11:08 Translating doctor skills to successful business skills.
13:03 Identifying one’s super powers.
16:18 Different phases of companies require different skills.
21:06 Having a basic understanding of financial literacy is crucial.
26:26 Why certain Health Tech companies fail and why others thrive?
31:30 Understand the currencies of healthcare.
32:36 How to identify the best Health Tech companies to work with.
Quotes:
"Control Over Career Choices in Medicine: And I thought, I just want to have control over my career and control over knowing where I want to be in 5-10 years time. And I felt that that wasn't happening in the NHS."
— Guy Gross
"Translating Medical Skills to Business: So one of the amazing things that doctors do that other people don't is look at things through a lens of logic. You've got your surgical sieve. You ask questions like, is it before, during or after an organ where you've got a problem? Business is no different. When I consider problems in business, I look at things, is it presales? Is it the problem with landing the sale? Or is it the after sales, for example? And it's a very logical application where we are able to rapidly put together frameworks, I would say more doctors than I know other people around how to solve problems, and that's a massive win."
— Guy Gross
"Personal Growth and Self-Recognition: But when it comes to growing yourself, it's very much about identifying what are your own superpowers. And when I look at that for myself, it's taken me a very long time, probably 15-20 years, to identify in myself what makes me unique as a person. I would say the ability to walk into a room full of smoke and just point directly to the fire."
— Guy Gross
"Understanding Corporate Lifecycle: I've also realized there's different phases of companies, and this is something you don't realize unless you've been through a lot of this. There is the founder part of a journey, which is the ability to overcome inertia with a group of people who have the oomph behind them to stick it out and just get it done by any means necessary. Then you have the growth phase where once you've proved that you've got a thing that works, you need to scale it. A totally different set of skills around identifying, optimizing and managing things as they grow. And then once you're big, you just want someone who's a safe pair of hands to run that. And so you have to identify where you fit in the lifecycle of companies as well, with your temperament and with your skill set."
— Guy Gross
"Understanding Health Tech Failure: The reason why a lot of health tech fails is they completely fail to understand that. If you're talking about a narrative of keeping people well for another ten years and preventing long term disease, the challenge with that is if I'm an investor in that as a health system, then I'm not going to see my money back for ten years. But if I can help you now identify people who are continuously coming back to hospital and stop those people coming back, then that's in year savings."
— Guy Gross
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