Describe your role in one sentence? It's a small team and in a new business you get involved in the details of everything. However my most important contribution is to manage the complexity of what we are doing and reduce it to a few easily understandable ideas.
How do you want to see the health sector change in the next five years? I would like to see patients and their families being able to take more responsibility for their own health. Everyone knows that ageing and long term conditions are big problems in our society. It is often commented that we can become parents without any training for it, but nowhere teaches us how to prepare for old age or how to look after those in our families who have already reached it.
Why did you want to work in healthcare? Before Intelesant I spent 12 years at ITIS building a world leading traffic information system that allowed drivers to share information by connecting their mobile devices and cars together. I see the opportunity to do similar things in healthcare, and specifically in the area of frailty and old age.
What is the biggest challenge you face? Bringing our products to commercial success. The NHS likes to invest in products that have evidence of results somewhere else, which means finding someone willing to take the first step. Proving evidence also takes time. As far as the consumer is concerned, being frail and elderly – even when it concerns someone else – is something that they would rather not think about until they are forced to.
What it your proudest achievement at Intelesant? Winning the HSJ Efficiency in Information Technology award and a Guardian Healthcare Innovation Award. It's really satisfying to be given recognition for your hard work.
What do you like most about your job? The team that I work with and also the subject matter. It's such a big problem and it impacts everyone. There is so much for me to learn.
What do you like least about your job? Very little!
What is the biggest obstacle in your work life? That I'm not a clinician. This can make it much harder to be taken seriously until you have proven yourself. However I am fortunate enough to have access to great team of clinicians who aid me at work; and one advantage is that I can look at things from the patient's or carers point of view. When I was growing up, for many years we had elderly relatives living with us. What I learned then is still relevant years later.
Where would you like Intelesant to be in 10 years? Being used by millions of people in the UK and overseas.
What do you wish you were better at doing? I would like to be better at sales.
Where did the name Intelesant come from? The name is completely made up. 'Intel' means information of significance, 'tele' means transmission over distance, and 'sante' means health in French. Together, the words are exactly what Intelesant is all about.
What is your biggest regret? I don't have any regrets. Doing the right thing is about integrity and making the most of the information that is available at the time.
Biggest little worry? I weigh myself every morning.
At work I'm always learning that ... there is so much more to learn!
In my downtime, I ... spend huge amounts of time researching, which is probably still work. I am involved in youth work in my church because I am passionate about young people making the most of their lives.
My biggest pet hate is ... someone not being fully engaged in a conversation with me, and also sloppy and unreliable work.
At night, I am kept up by ... the future of our society. I am fascinated by the way in which machines are getting more and more sophisticated but worry about what happens to the people's jobs that are displaced by them. I know this concern has been around since the first industrial revolution – but is this information revolution different?
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