Journey of how an Equity Derivatives Broker became a Health-Tech entrepreneur, bringing transformation to the industry.
Like human evolution our healthcare sector has undergone various levels of evolution.
Today we live in an era where technology has immense potential in every area of our life, including healthcare but at the same time “empathy” stands at the top of the healthcare pyramid.
Personal and holistic approach to corporate employees is the new evolution in employee healthcare benefits. Quite rightly so, as we deal with human emotions.
Have you ever imagined a reliable,robust and innovative system which will support you and guide you and your family through various health conditions, connect you with the right doctors, nurses and obtain optimum outcome ? One which provides timely and appropriate support and guidance not just technically but more so emphatically as well.
Existence of one such system in today’s society will not just make our lives easier but at the same time it will help develop a stronger mindset to face our health issues and pass on this life changing system to our future generations to come.
Meet Lena Chauhan from London, founder of Rise IQ.
Rise IQ was born out of her passion to guide people to find the right medical treatment and empower corporate employees to navigate and access the best UK healthcare.
She carries a zeal to learn something new everyday, stretches herself beyond her comfort zone, and is dedicated to working towards building her business which will create a positive social impact.
Rise IQ provides corporate medical concierge & a patient advocacy service.
They guide employees through the British Health System and help them obtain the optimum outcome for any health diagnosis, including their families.
Rise IQ have been particularly effective with expats coming to the UK. They also host lively lunch & learn discussions with experts in women's health, men's health, leadership, health-tech, mental health and many other topics depending on requirements of each organisation.
Rise IQ also has an active "Social Impact" arm which was focused on Dementia for the first two years. Lena created a human intensive care model for people affected by dementia and built a Web app to scale the impact. This was recently sold to a larger distributor.
Lena says
“My social impact journey really captured my soul and I became a carer to understand the needs that weren't being met for people affected by dementia”.
The Beginnings
“Allow your passion to become your purpose, and it will one day become your profession”
Lena began her career as a graduate at Deutsche Bank, and stayed at the bank for several years, before this she was introduced into the world of investment banking by her friends during her university days. Soon she became an Equity Derivatives Broker for the rest of her career in finance.
While she loved the greater rewards, flexibility and lifestyle,it brought along its own challenges such as being male dominated and was a super tough environment. Amidst her ever growing wonderful career journey she deeply felt from within to contribute beyond the corporate world. Alongside she passionately acted as patient advocate for her family,friends and colleagues.
It was after she had her second child she felt there was zero purpose to her work in finance and felt a degree of apathy towards it.
She says “ My mind began to rewire and send out energy that I wanted to do something with meaning”.
She fortuitously met a surgeon who introduced her to the health tech space and soon after that she introduced a medical concierge service to her clients in finance. Around the same time she started to meet people affected by dementia, including her own friends & family.
She worked very closely with people affected by dementia and learnt that their reaction to dementia diagnosis was one of shock/denial, and they were lost on their way forward. She was extremely determined to support them and provide a clear pathway of guidance.
She trained herself under charities in the UK and USA and developed her own interventions which would provide them step by step guidance on the way forward.
Rise IQ was born.
“From a small beginning come great things”.
Lena started off small initially. She set up a limited company, began working with a small number of clients from her network,recruited nurses and health practice contractors as she did not want to be responsible for salaries early in her journey, and got the system up and running.
Having said that initial days were filled with unknowns and she faced her own challenges in finding her own feet and trying to shape the purpose she had discovered
She says“ It was so exhilarating learning a new industry and building a brand wonderful new community around me after all those years in finance”.
Along the journey her work towards people who were affected with dementia continued with the same amount of zeal, passion and dedication. Mapping improvements of the people affected over a number of months gave her more clarity and pushed her forward.
She says, “Becoming passionate and mission driven for social impact whilst running a corporate business confused me and made everything else that much tougher, however when you feel that way you simply cannot stop”.
Like every business has a catalyst, Rise IQ too had its own catalyst. Lena met her co-founder Cassandra Chiang, while she was a part of the London Business School Impact Program.
Growth brings along its own challenges.
Rise IQ continues to grow amidst all the challenges it faces at various levels.
At a corporate level working alongside insurers/occupational health and employee assistance was one of the biggest challenges, as nothing was streamlined.
Lena spent the majority of her time arguing cases with health insurers, managing the expectations of clients, and at the same time not losing focus of her goal which is to empower them to really take responsibility for their own health rather than relying on a quick temporary fix.
At a social impact level, the biggest challenge Lena faced was being a carer, it was consuming and she went through phases of being depressed during those times.
But all these challenges didn’t blur Lena from her Vision. She continued with persistence with her clients and never looked back. Over a period of time her clients started noticing positive results, this took time, but it helped to encourage many others.
When asked about her secret to keep herself motivated through these challenging times, she says,
“It’s important to not take things personally. Also, I learnt to say no to certain projects and not to take on the energy of others- This has been a valuable tool for me ever since”.
I love what I do - During times of turmoil as a carer, psychotherapy was a godsend alongside other complementary therapies.
Leaning on my tribes of women within the health tech space, women in innovation and conversations with like minded friends has kept it life in this space relevant as well as enabled wonderful collaborations.
Growth and Vision
Rise IQ is currently building a peer support program to help South Asian communities during and post Covid as they have been affected by Covid in larger numbers than other populations.
Once it has been validated they envision to scale the set up and apply to all communities.
Lena is passionate about technology and is currently mentoring a group of wonderful "Teens in AI".
During a Covid Global Hackathon they formulated, designed and built a working prototype app to help people affected by domestic violence. They have keen interest from charities in the UK to co-design and co-develop and are simply mind blowing.
Lena strongly believes that all businesses however great or small should build social impact into their business model.
“We all need to share responsibility for the care of our world and only collectively can we scale impact”.
Lena's Advice to Women Entrepreneurs
Be passionate about what you are getting into as you will need to lean on that frequently when challenges arrive (and they will)
Talking about her family she says, “I have been blessed. Period. I could not have entered the health tech space if my husband had not been so supportive and let me discover what was my true purpose”.
Lena is blessed with 2 kids and her mother is her positive force.
Know more about Lena:
When I face a big challenge- I pause, then plan.
My greatest fear is-Losing my children.
The most courageous thing I’ve ever done is: Leave my career, Be a carer for people with dementia.
If I could go back in time to when I was 20 : I would tell myself : Don't waste time. worrying about what people think of you, start meditating, physiotherapists are super important - we need them on speed dial.
I believe in : Health is wealth, Karma.
The biggest lesson I have ever learned is : Nothing stays the same ; the only constant in life is change.
My favourite business tool or resource is : Slack, Buffer, Excel
My favourite quotes are : "There are only two ways to influence human behaviour -You can manipulate it or INSPIRE it!"- Simon Sinek.
"Working hard for something we don't care about is called Stress, Working hard for something we love is called Passion"