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 0:51
Richard, thank you for joining C suite partners in the boardroom.
Richard Grayson 0:55
No problems. Thank you, Michael.
Michael Murray 0:57
Very interested to understand your career in banking. So can you take me through to when you came out from University to where you are today?
Richard Grayson 1:04
Sure. Well, so you probably pick up from the accent. I grew up in New Zealand and went to the University of Auckland, studied arts and commerce was across there. Out of Uni I actually did a year at Dun and Bradstreet, the American credit rating agency. Before I joined ANZ, I joined ANZ a year and on the graduate program, probably about a year or so into moving to Melbourne, I had the opportunity to move into the healthcare industry. Now for me, will healthcare distributor inside ANZ now that was a very new business inside, I answered. So at that point in time, I think we hit about $500 million of lending versus about the 12 billion we've got now, so it's been a really interesting story. But for the last, so over the course of that, that's been, you know, within the healthcare space, primarily the corporate and institutional end of the business. So that's lending effectively north of 50 million dollars. The last about 18 months, though, I've been working running our commercial health business.
Michael Murray 2:03
What do you think the challenges over the next 5 to 10 years for healthcare because it's always interesting, I've had some large investment banks as a part of this series and, and they've got a different lens on it than people who are who are living it day to day internally. What do you think about it?
Richard Grayson 2:21
the healthcare industry has some tremendous tie ones you know, very kind of well-known things like aging demographic, you know, increasing, increasing number of chronic conditions. But, you know, very, very clearly there's, there's some immediate, you know, kind of immediate and longer-term challenges. You know, you have a look around, it's this question of who pays, you know, clearly at the moment, we've got an indebted consumer, we've got a fiscally constrained government, and we've got falling PHI levels. So at a system level, there's clearly challenges there a challenge, but also an opportunity, I think things like changing consumer expectations as well. So that's kind of where heroes delivered, how it's delivered. And I think technology as well, technology has, has a, you know, huge role to play in the future of health.
Michael Murray 3:04
With your banker lens on where do you see the Asia healthcare market? Probably the next 5-10 years.
Richard Grayson 3:14
That's s omething we're actually spending a fair bit of time talking about the moment so, ANZ still has a sizable footprint in Asia. And part of our business actually runs delegations through Asia. I think it's it's actually quite challenging for domestically focused healthcare businesses to see the opportunity that exists in Asia. And I think it's hard because if you speak to, you know, most of basically focus businesses in the healthcare industry, they'll say, I've got, you know, I've got more demand than I can keep up with at the moment, I've got certainty of payment, and I don't need to spend endless hours of applying. So what's the, you know, what's the motivation? You contrast that to a local manufacturing organisation that's growing at one or two per cent or a local retailer that is kind of growing at one or two per cent. But certainly, I think we have seen some tremendous examples of, you know, kind of where the more adventurous or more entrepreneurial healthcare business can potentially almost buy an option into that that huge growth. As we've seen a couple of instances in the retirement space, we've seen a couple of instances in the IVF business we've seen, we've certainly seen a couple of answers in the smallest of medical space. I don't think it's, I don't think there's many organisations that necessarily have absolutely nailed it. But it's there's a huge opportunity.
Michael Murray 4:34
What is so attractive about this market, which doesn't have a huge population we talked about you're always going to get paid on time, barriers to entry is not going to be that hard compared to say Vietnam or China. But what a client saying to you or PE firms saying, why is it so attractive?
Richard Grayson 4:52
Well so the common thing that we get with not so much PE firms but investment particularly out of China is that desire to try and get the IP and take it back to larger markets. So we've seen that time and time. Certainly PE, I think global PE is a little bit more, in my view, a little bit more opportunistic, you know, they, they certainly see the strong themes. So things like, you know, the aging demographic, the growing population, the fairly stable level of funding notwithstanding there's always challenges and that sort of space. So I think, thematically, it's a really, it's a great place to be. If you then look at certainly my experiences they'll then dive into those modalities or sub-sectors and look for value.
Michael Murray 5:38
One of the questions I always ask executives is, when you move through your career, have you thought about it strategically. Have you looked at and said, "I'm going to be in a position in five years" or have you been pulled towards an opportunity, someone's given you something and you thought, I'm going to be opportunistic here. Has it worked out for you?
Richard Grayson 5:58
I'd probably, I mean, it's interesting, I've actually had that conversation with with a couple of senior colleagues. And I think we go in different directions. But I think I have been reasonably strategic in the way I've approached my career, early on, I didn't know that I was necessarily going to have a career in health, I had a bit of an interest, a bit of a passion. And I think that that, that I kind of, once you once you snowball, once you get a bit momentum, then you start kind of becoming a bit more thoughtful around where do I go. But the thing that I, I tend to do, I'd typically sit down at that break over Christmas, is always sit down and try and have a bit of a think around where you know, what is it that I'm enjoying? What is it that I'm not enjoying? What is it that I'm good at? You know, that I'm not so good at? Because those things change year on year? And I think that that's really helped me and the other overlay usually I've had is, you know, am I still enjoying the industry that I'm in? And the thing for me is I've never actually been able to find industries and I've enjoyed hence the long term career path and and health but I've certainly, you know, I've certainly made those kind of you know, that point we stop you have a little bit of thought and try and align.
Michael Murray 7:10
Excellent. Richard, thank you for spending time overseas with C-Suites Partners.
Richard Grayson 7:13
Thank you.