Intro 0:13
Many aspire to reach the upper echelon of the healthcare industry, but few are able to successfully navigate the corporate ladder. As Asia becomes the world epicenter of the healthcare industry, C-Suite Partners sits down with international healthcare executives asking the tough questions and unpacking the personalities of the top industry leaders.
Welcome to the boardroom.
Michael Murray 0:44
What about in terms of you mentioned ethics? Have you got any stories about No, an ethical decision that needed to be made in your career? Whether it's early on or or recently?
Zubin Daruwalla 0:57
Yeah, I think it's very interesting, because one of my questions that I posed when I was debating between organizations of who to join and ultimately joined PwC, it actually boiled down to a question on ethics. Okay. And the question I posed to one of the senior people who actually brought me on to the firm, I asked him, I said, as a clinician, I have certain ethical values when it comes to health as a consulting firm. I'm sure you all deal with all clients across the health industries. And obviously, the answer was yes. So my question was, if I'm put in a situation where my personal ethics are compromised, do I have the option of not engaging that client or not working on that job? The answer is, yes, you have control. And we believe in ethics and integrity. And that, that sealed things to me that was like, ethics is at the heart of what we do. So not a problem.
Micahel Murray 1:57
Tell me when a project went wrong for you, and how you rectify that situation?
Zubin Daruwalla 2:02
So I think it was from not wrong. It was my first project first that I that I was engaged on, when I joined the firm. And how did it go wrong? Well, actually, everything went right. Right up to the delivery to the CEO of that project? Well, the project ran as any project would, we even had sign offs, that you know, what green lighted every week. And ultimately, I think if I look back at the start point of that project, something that we do with every project, is we always ensure a meeting a face to face meeting with the Group CEO or head of the organization, regardless of whether or not they are the sponsor, because I think it's important to get alignment at the top level. Now, the project sponsor and the team that was managing this, said, No, there's really no need. And we pushed back once and said, you know, we'd like to, and came back again saying, No, there's really no need, this is coming from them. This is the initiative they want to do. And everything was going really good. Come the delivery day. The entire it was actually in a boardroom, bigger than this. You know, we sat down with the Group CEO with the entire project team. And one of the first things the Group CEO says, is, this is not what I asked for, well, and was quite taken aback. So we kind of went into detail, you know, asked what, what do you mean, it, this wasn't what you asked for, and it was what he had asked for. But the stakeholders that he wanted to address was a different group of stakeholders, we were told to address and we ran through the results, the methodology was all correct. And it was really that one group he wanted a response from. So what we did in the end, I mean, we took it as an investment, we went back, and we really looked at a different group, and then included that in the report. Ultimately, the report was against what the initial thought was of the organization. But I guess that's one of the things I'm quite happy when it comes to integrity and ethics as a, as a firm, no, PwC we we want to be an independent party, right? And we want to give you the truth. So the way we work is not giving an answer that you want to hear necessarily. And so we stuck by by that decision, much to the dismay of the Group CEO, but that's really what we were engaged to do.
Michael Murray 4:48
And what about you know, now you're into PwC you've made the decision. You're now in the commercial slash corporate world. If you're going to mash them together. I want to know your Stuart's on the Southeast Asia healthcare market, I'd like to get your 30,000 feet view of where the market is now and where it's going to be in the next five or 10 years.
Zubin Daruwalla 5:09
Sure. So when we talk about healthcare, I think when you ask me know, what businesses do and how they, they get involved in countries, while we're all a business, and we have to remain sustainable, I think you have to look at healthcare differently. You can't look at it as a business. Look at it for what it does, how it improves lives of people. Ultimately, revenue and profit will be a byproduct of that. But the focus needs to be shifted, and not that the revenue doesn't or shouldn't drive the business. My unique perspective, one of the things I always advocate is that we need to use technology to complement our clinical practices, not replace them. And I think if organizations do that, they're going to be a lot more successful. And organizations do need to focus on the emerging economies where there is no infrastructure, countries that have poor infrastructure still have higher mobile penetration rates. For example, you look at Indonesia, you look at Philippines, very high mobile penetration rates, a lot of online to offline solutions, where infrastructure is lacking. And I think that is going to be the the key success factor if you if you address these
Michael Murray 6:23
And what about your career in one word,
Zubin Daruwalla 6:26
Evolving. And if I could give to and be cheeky, I'd say constantly evolving.
Michael Murray 6:32
Zubin, thank you very much for spending time with C-Suite Partners In the Boardroom