Scaling across international boundaries with Lynda Brown-Ganzert

"I really appreciate it when I hear from the outliers, people that don't necessarily agree. I want to dig into that, because they are warning signs."

Today we're joined by Lynda Brown-Ganzert, the Founder & CEO of RxPx—a global digital health platform with a mission to ensure 'no patient is left alone'.

RxPx is an Ai-supported global digital SaaS platform with key customers including Sanofi, Novartis, J&J and Astra Zeneca.

Lynda has won multiple industry awards and is globally recognised as a thought-leader in digital healthcare.

Today Lynda shares her insights on:

1. How she merged two companies to unite around one clear mission
2. Tips on building a strong, cohesive culture across a global, remote team
3. Navigating the responsibilities of AI as a founder  
4. The importance of a compassionate, customer-first approach
5. Strategies for retaining top talent by personalising their work experience

Guest: Lynda Brown-Ganzert, the Founder & CEO of RxPx
Host: Mark Bryan, Partner at Pemba Capital Partners
Producer: Martine McMahon
A Pemba Capital Partners Podcast

Transcript

Mark Bryan: 0:00

This series is produced on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. Pemba respectfully acknowledges traditional custodians throughout Australia. We recognise their continuing connections to country and culture and we pay our respects to elders and leaders past and present. Welcome to View to the Summit. I'm Mark Bryan, a partner at Pemba and each month we explore the experience of founders, industry experts, and growth specialists, uncovering invaluable insights on scaling business effectively. For our many regular followers, you're going to love this episode. And for our new listeners, it's great to have you on the journey with us. Today, we're delighted to have Lynda Brown Ganzert, founder and CEO of RxPx, joining us. Pemba's been partnered with Lynda since 2022. She's a world renowned digital health leader. Having successfully founded Curatio, an extremely purposeful digital health business, committed to supporting patients with a mission statement of leave no patient alone. And Lynda's won multiple industry awards and is globally recognized as a thought leader in digital healthcare. Lynda, welcome. We're thrilled to have you on the pod. My pleasure, Mark. Thank you. Lynda, as mentioned, you're a highly accomplished and well regarded digital health leader. To set the scene and to understand how your career has developed and how you end up founding, exiting, and leading a global healthcare tech platform, it'd be great if you could give us a quick rundown of how your career has developed.

Brown-Ganzert: 0:02

Thank you, Mark, and very, very kind words. In short, I mean, I started my first business when I was 14, and that was the same year, uh, coincidentally, that I won the science fair for how computers work. And so from an early age, I've really had this passion for using technology to connect people. I think of myself as a social entrepreneur, and I'm part geek, and I'm part connector, and that has been a common theme throughout my career. Prior to Curatio, I was working in the area of private mobile social networks, and that was my former company. And, uh, that was started before WhatsApp had come along. So the social network, um, praise was well in swing, but this notion of private social networks wasn't as much and I was really on the edge of that. And while I was developing that, I became a patient myself. We were trying to have our second child and, uh, it was a very challenging and difficult isolating time. You know, I would spend my evenings, uh, sort of researching and, and trying to learn more about my condition. I would be in the, clinic, you know, a couple of times a week. And it turns out. decades of research that shows that peer support is one of the most impactful ways to help patients not only manage their day to day health care, but certainly to help with things like adherence and navigation, education, psychosocial support, and overall well being. In fact, there's some interesting research that says when not only the patient, but the caregiver, the family have social support, the entire family benefits. I started thinking about, okay, so it seems to be a real need, um, to be able to deliver this type of support at scale and how would you use technology to do that? And so that's really where, um, Curacial came from was a very, you know, a very personal experience. You know, there's a really great African proverb that says you can, you know, you can run fast alone or further together and with Curatio, we'd really reached a point where we knew that we were delivering great value for patients, but what we often heard back from our customers is that we were Can you help us with HCPs and with doctors? Of course, in the other part of our business at RxPx was started by doctors who were having some similar problems, you know, really And so When we met RXMX and PEMBA, what we heard is the founding doctors saying, you know, we're doing a great job in, in helping and delivering value to those doctors, but our customers are asking, can you help us with patients? And so very quickly, it sort of became this one plus one equals three, where we saw together that our missions were very aligned, our values were aligned. And by bringing these together, to pieces together, we could have just, you know, massive global impact. And so that was really a big part of, of the consideration, but it came back down to, you know, that mission statement and no patient alone and really wanting this to be in the hands of, of every patient and doctor around the world and having aligned values, uh, with that As we look now at the business RxPx, it's very much a global business, of course, with customers and team members across Australia, US, Canada, and Europe. As an observer of your management style, one of your many superpowers is building a unified and enduring culture over international boundaries, different time zones, and in a remote environment as well, what are some of the leadership techniques and business patterns you've used to help build the powerful culture that's developed under your leadership at Rx? It's an interesting question and one I, I feel like I could write a book on now, but when we brought the two businesses together, so when you and I met and we merged the companies to form RxPx, it was very much like a blended family, you know, we had two very strong founder genesis types of stories. We had very strong missions, we had teams that were hugely committed. So it had to be incredibly thoughtful and well planned out. And some of the things that have really worked for us. is having what I call a rhythm. And, and so that's the discipline around, you know, daily huddles, weekly one on ones, monthly town halls, you know, quarterly reviews, annual OKRs, and having the expectation that everyone is the same. It's keeping to that rhythm. It keeps us connected. It keeps us aware of what each other's working on and keeps us aligned with how the business is growing, but does require quite a bit of discipline to do that and discipline across the leadership team and, and throughout. And then. Thank you. Being a remote team, one of the advantages we have is using a lot of different tools. So we're really active users of Slack. We use another great tool called Office Vibe Workleap, which does really wonderful employee, um, weekly surveys. So we really get a heartbeat and an employee NPS, which tell us, you know, what teams are maybe needing a little bit more support. We do psychometrics. You have to be very purposeful in how you bring people together. So we've done some things like Amazing Races, where we do those pretty regularly, randomized games. I remember And we really live by those core values. You know, we've got four core values of a growth mindset, accountability, compassion, and measurement. for that. So we've just had to be really purposeful in, in thinking about not only those traditions, but also how we embed fun and connection and, and helping people get to know each other. And I asked that question with interest because on a previous pod, Kris Satish, founder and CEO of Oolio, a hospitality tech platform, his purpose actually took many years to develop. So any perspectives you have around a clear mission statement for businesses would be really helpful. And while there, you know, are, are certainly benefits in terms of, um, you know, have profitable, successful, um, you know, goal, goal based, um, careers, there's, there's also, I think, More meaning around, uh, the work that you're doing, the legacy that you're leaving, and the, the connection that you have to the company's vision. And that was one of the first things that we spent a lot of time on was just what that mission statement was. And, you know, you read about it and you think, okay, well, that's all nice, but I've got, you know, I've got a startup. I'm trying to get my company going in the early days. It's just, it's 24 seven. And so really, you know, Spending time on your vision statement might feel a little bit luxurious, but it is so important because it is that one North star. It's really what, what aligns everyone, um, uh, around that meaning and purpose that gets, gets them going, gets them excited. There's no easy way I found in terms of getting that other than to, and. Try very early on to develop trust to develop vulnerability and to really enable people to feel safe and supported and talking about what's really important to them in that mission. And then from there you can craft a mission statement because everyone's being real and true and authentic and you can usually get at the nugget then much faster. And so, you know, when, when they see our mission statement and we're talking about it They're very much on the same path. That's why they're getting up in the morning to do the work they're doing. And so, um, that brings us together and unites us much, much faster. I'm really proud actually, that the executive leadership team is particularly diverse. What does diversity mean to you and how's this shaped your leadership style? balance there. Um, and some, you know, phenomenal leaders, um, but also some phenomenal female leaders with, uh, you know, Valerie Stachurski and Tessa Engel and sure. You know, when you're creating an executive team, you do need to be purposeful and looking at around, around the table, what seats are empty. How do you invite people to the table? How do you support them? Cause everyone needs support in a slightly different way. And so when I think about diversity, I go back to my days, actually, in electronic arts, when Don Mattrick was leading, um, that giant video games, uh, company and, uh, Remember chatting with him and him saying something to the effect of, you know, we're, we're building games for our world audience, you know, we're. It's, it's the, and we want the entire world, you know, playing, um, playing our games. And then, you know, later I was often asked to speak, um, about women in games and speak on panels. And I would always get the question, right at the end of the talk. Right. All right. Well, how do we get more women, you know, playing our video games? Cultural, as I said, age, you know, um, because we are like our mission at RxPx Is to deliver value to patients and doctors around the world. And so in order to do that, we need to understand what the experience is of patients and doctors around the world, and that has to be very multidimensional. to businesses. We've seen some explosive growth, obviously, across the market around early AI solutions. RX has developed and implemented various AI driven products to improve the patient experience. Do you have any insights and tips for our founders that are contemplating and trying to position for the AI development theme? Mm hmm. Absolutely. You know, AI has been around for quite some time. And so while there's a lot of buzz around it, um, you know, we've been working in it for seven years. We have team members and been working in AI for 15 years. And I would imagine a number of the people listening have been working in AI for some, some time. Rare diseases in advancing clinical trials and the speed of bringing life-saving therapies to market. So there's some very exciting things about AI and certainly we're working in that area, that area too. We've had an AI buddy in our platform for years. It's really, you know, a buddy and a support to the patient. And more recently working on the AI clinical trial buddy, which again, is meant to, you know, support the patient rate from recruitment all the way to through trials. To improve the success. But I think when we're, when we're thinking about AI or bringing AI into business, it goes back to those fundamental questions or what is a problem that you're trying to solve? It's also important to remember that technology has a bias, and we're seeing that in AI. If we're not using language models that have diversity, if we're not, um, designing AI in a way that is representative, then we're going to continue to position AI in a bit of a way that is privileged or, uh, or biased. And so, you know, as leaders, we have a real responsibility to think about, you know, problems that we're trying to solve, if AI is the right tool. to think about how we design that AI to avoid bias, um, and to include diversity, and certainly then the privilege of AI. Um, and by that I mean there's a lot of AI right now that is solving problems of privilege.

Mark Bryan: 0:18

Maybe as an extension of that, you've operated in the tech arena now for a number of years, and that's a market segment that's obviously experienced shortages of talent, and particularly as we drive towards AI. That's meant that talent retention, building career roadmaps for your team members is crucial.

Brown-Ganzert: 0:18

Such an important discussion and I, I am so fortunate. I think I, I work with the best team in the world and I'm so thankful and, uh, and humbled by the work that they do every day and I think an important part. of retaining this amazing team that we have is, is first of all caring. We've all got heavy loads and I care about you as a person. I think the second thing, especially as leaders, is to try and listen, you know, more than we talk. Uh, I'm still learning that one, but I think just listening and I, I really appreciate when I'm hearing from the outliers, you know, when I'm hearing from people that don't necessarily agree or saying, Hey, you know, something's wrong over here. I really, I think I've matured to go. Okay, I, I want to go dig into that, I want to learn more, I want to understand because those are warning signs, right? So to really listen, not just listen what you want to hear, just also listen for what you might not, not hear or be aware of. And then to try and personalize, you know, we've, um, we've spent a lot of time and effort on really personalizing, you know, the perks, the environments, you know, even simple things, you know, the, some of the teams suggested that it would be really meaningful, you know, to have your birthday off. And so, you know, we, we did that and we'd make a big deal of birthdays in the business, but really personalizing the experience. And then finally, I think is, Um, especially as leaders is just tying it back to the mission, every single town hall we have every month, I talk about our mission, I talk about our core values, and I'm sure I sound like a broken record, but I just want to remind everyone that we're The mission that we're on and is so much bigger than ourselves, uh, and that no patient alone mission that our team is a part of, um, is really important work. Rx has built a very enviable customer base of global pharma companies, many of whom have been with Rx for the long term. Can you please talk about how you've instilled a culture of customer care and compassion at Rx? And so we have a lot of compassion for the customers that we work with, because not only is their entire sector changing, but they're also expected to come up to speed on a gazillion new technologies. And it can be really scary. There's, you know, some big decisions they're making. There's some big risks they're taking. They're trying to do things differently. You know, they're, they're being entrepreneurs and innovating inside their organizations. And so when we think about customer care, we think about that compassion for customers are really understanding what their day to day is and how overwhelming. That is in in trying to navigate an ever changing health care environment along with understanding and learning how these new technologies can help them. Being a fully remote team, this is an area we, we focus on quite a bit and it comes back to those four core values. And you know, we have developed and matured these together. It's something that is across the entire company, but those are accountability and especially in a remote environment, that's absolutely key. People need to be able to depend on each other. So accountability is, is number one. Growth mindset, you know, we are innovators, um, we are Doing, you know, just amazing work in the area of digital health, and we need to have that growth mindset of trying new things, of learning new things, and always pushing the boundaries. So that's a really big one. Compassion, which I think you've probably heard through, um, out this, uh, throughout this interview, but it's very important, um, to the team, but also probably my number one. Um, if you can really understand where someone's coming from, whether that's a customer, a doctor, a patient, then you're going to be creative around those solutions because you understand their pain points and you want to help. You've helped thousands of patients experience higher quality medical service and in many situations provided services that frankly will have saved lives. So we really thank you for that. Um, finally, do you have any great health related hacks, podcasts that you find useful that you think our founders might benefit from? For sure. And it might sound like funny recommendations, but the first one in terms of health, especially for CEOs and founders, is roundtables. Make sure you have a group of peers that you can talk with that can support you and you can support them through this journey. Um, because as, as we all know, it is a hard and long climb to the summit. Um, so having that support and being a part of a roundtable is so important. Um, I think absolutely critical. And the second I would say is, is reading. I, I like to read at least a book a week and everything from, uh, I've been diving into Enneagrams and understanding different personality types to, you know, I, I really enjoy bios as well. Some excellent content there that I'm sure that our founder listeners will really value for core values, accountability, growth, mindset, compassion, a measurement, loved hearing about the mission and purpose of no patient alone. And also would sort of categorize your leadership style as empathetic leadership.

Mark Bryan: 0:26

hope you enjoyed this episode of View to the Summit.