At 31 I was the first female cardiac surgeon at the University of Freiburg. I trained alongside Denton A. Cooley in Houston, operated at the site of the world’s first heart transplant in Cape Town, and led surgical teams in Germany, China and Laos.
The operating room teaches you things no MBA does. How to diagnose fast under pressure. How to make a decision with incomplete information and live with it. How to lead a team when the margin for error is zero.
After reaching a senior consultant position at one of Europe’s largest congenital heart centres, I hit a wall. The clinical challenge was gone. I wanted scale — not just one patient at a time, but systems.
So I learned the language of business. Deloitte’s Restructuring and Transformation practice. Then Roland Berger. I applied the same diagnostic eye I’d used in surgery to failing organisations — in healthcare, fashion, shipping, automotive. I was good at it. More than that, I loved it.
Fresenius VAMED took me to Dubai as MD Middle East. I led a multinational team across three continents, developed greenfield hospital concepts, and ran operations in markets most executives never get near. As one of very few female leaders in the region, it deepened everything I already believed about what good leadership actually requires.
When the business was sold, I had a choice about what came next.
Consumer health is the most interesting space I’ve seen in twenty years. People aren’t waiting for the healthcare system anymore — they’re building their own. Oura rings. Longevity clinics. Continuous glucose monitors. The behaviour has shifted faster than most companies can follow.
The gap is specific: you need someone who understands how the body actually works, how organisations actually fail, and how to move at commercial speed without losing clinical precision.
That’s not a common combination. It’s mine.`
I don’t guess. I diagnose.
Strategy without execution is just theory.
Every health product lives or dies on whether people actually change.
