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Ryan Hill on transformational healthtech

By Ryan Hill

Docplanner, VP Global Leadership Development & Executive Recruitment

Ryan Hill is a highly regarded head-hunter in tech & venture capital, now a senior leader for the world’s largest and most disruptive health-tech software company.

At a time when access to health is paramount, Ryan has transitioned into healthtech taking on a new mandate leading global leadership development & executive talent acquisition for Docplanner – Poland’s first technology unicorn. Their platform connects doctors, patients and clinics through a global software platform to make the healthcare experience more human. Active in 7 Countries with 2500 people, having raised over €300million & valued under €2bn they are taking the world by storm.

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Can you tell us about your motivations behind transitioning into the healthtech sector?

It may be serendipity but lots of things triggered me to join Docplanner. One of those things was the Founders, their view on the world & how Docplanner is playing a vital role in changing the face of healthcare on a global scale.

The mission of Docplanner to make the healthcare experience more human is a real thing for me, I have family and extended family that are attached to the healthcare system in the UK. Given I also played football at a fairly decent level, I have a deeper level of understanding when it comes to healthcare.

I had a major health scare with cancer in 2012 and I think that was a contributing factor that drove me towards Docplanner and the healthtech sector.

What does being VP Global Leadership Development & Executive Talent Acquisition at Docplanner entail?

There are three pillars to my role. The bread and butter is executive hiring and headhunting. I brought a lot of experience in this field from 360Leaders where I was leading a firm of 30+ talented executive search professionals. I'm now building a similar function on a global level for Docplanner. We have a team across seven countries executing on senior leadership hiring and we are scaling fast.

The second pillar is leadership development. We have around 160 leaders in our organisation worldwide and it's about supporting those leaders with their development needs, coaching them and enabling them to become better talent magnets.

The third strand covers employer branding for senior leaders, building a narrative about our leaders and promoting them internally and externally.

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"The complexity and level of depth that is required to understand a business of our scale & convert top talent is super intense but incredibly enjoyable."

What have been the pivotal moments in your role so far?

We’ve made strong headway with some senior leadership hirings. We’ve just landed our Global COO – it took me two years to track him down and convert him, we recently appointed him 4 weeks ago. It was a pivotal moment not just for me, but also for our co-founders. The complexity and level of depth that is required to understand a business of our scale & convert top talent is super intense but incredibly enjoyable. Executing some of the senior leadership hires – including our Global COO, Chief Information Security Officer, a new CEO in Spain, a new COO in Brazil – has been amazing to see the impact they are and will create.

There was also a pivotal moment when we were able to hire some game changers for our function, getting them both has changed the dynamic for me. We’re in the early stages of building together what we call our “flywheel” for Docplanner: building networks, search strategies, deep assessments into onboarding plans.

What do you find compelling about the healthtech sector?

If you think about healthtech in general, it’s one of those sectors that still needs to go through mass digital transformation. Docplanner is at the forefront of that; we are the global leader which is exciting.

When you think about the countries that we operate in – Spain, Italy, Turkey, Poland, Germany, Brazil, Mexico – they’re very densely populated with average digital connectivity and that’s where we serve really well. We want to be the global healthcare operating system of the future.

The other thing for me is knowing the impact that we create in our function. The people that we are hiring into the business have the potential to make significant changes in our category and ultimately the people needing to access a far simpler and more enjoyable healthcare experience.

"f you think about healthtech in general, it’s one of those sectors that still needs to go through mass digital transformation. Docplanner is at the forefront of that; we are the global leader."

Ryan Hill, Docplanner

What are the biggest challenges of operating in the healthtech sector right now?

I think for me, it’s about the people. We’re spending about 80% of our time and resources on people. I feel a huge amount of pressure – alongside our co-founder and Chief People Officer – of finding the people we need globally to allow us to scale even further.

The challenge for us is gaining mass adoption in each country and allowing people to understand what Docplanner can do. There are lots of things happening in our business from a global marketing perspective that are super interesting and one of the challenges is unlocking more growth. We’re trying to go deeper into countries to understand our doctors, patients and clinics and what they actually truly need.

Who inspires you?

From a personal perspective, my Wife. I offload a lot onto her because of the nature of my work, she never really complains, and she is an incredible soundboard & mum to our two little girls – she’s the real hero to me.
From a professional perspective it’s the Founders of Docplanner: Mariusz Gralewski our CEO, Lucek Samulowski our Chief People Officer and both Skoku & Konrad. Mariusz has been on the cover of Forbes too many times to mention and you wouldn’t know it, but he’s such a humble, inspirational human – there’s no ego. The narrative of where they’ve come from and what they’ve created is so inspiring – originating with the bravery and motivation to fix the healthcare system in Poland a decade ago, they’ve taken the global healthtech ecosystem to the next level and I feel like I’m super lucky and blessed to be part of it.

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