Meet the exceptional women leading the way on our Discovery Health Executive Committee

Female leaders comprise 57% of our Discovery Health Executive Committee (Exco) team. Within this group of women leaders there’s a 57% black representation. In our constant efforts to transform further, we have set ourselves ongoing targets to increase representation of both women and black people. The transformation of our Exco has delivered a powerful cohesive and diverse team of industry leaders who are simply the best at what they do.

I’d love for you to get to know the women leaders on our Discovery Health Exco better. Today’s post – also timed in honour of Women’s Month – brings you, their voices.?

?They are sounding boards and mentors, boundary-breaking thinkers, and of course, valued colleagues and friends. I rely heavily on their insights, perspectives, debate, and empowering attitude to work and life. We stand together in good times and bad, and jointly share all achievements. We are truly privileged to have the IQ, EQ and social awareness that these women hold, permeating our Exco.

Meet Ana Endres, our Chief Digital Officer

Ana leads our digital platforms strategy as well as the Special Projects unit, which develops and launches key digital health and innovation programs.

Of participation on our Exco, Ana says: “It’s a privilege to work alongside the incredible leaders on our Exco. Each brings a unique view and value-add to the table, and in parallel we are aligned around our purpose of positively impacting the lives of all people on the African continent. With Ryan at the helm, our diverse team has nurtured a culture that is marked by real personal connection and collaboration, as much as it is by execution and drive. Our meetings are friendly and inclusive and a great mix of productive and energizing efforts.

Looking back on recent achievements, she adds: “I am proud to have played a part in the launch - two weeks from concept to launch in fact - of the free, virtual doctors’ consultations that Discovery made available to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic, through our partnership with Vodacom. ?It’s also been wonderful to be part of the Launch of our Africa Health Insurance business, which went live in four, different African countries within 12 months of kick off.

Meet Emma Knox, our Head of Africa Health Insurance

In her relatively new (almost one year) role as CEO of Vitality Health International, Emma leads the expansion of the Discovery Group’s Health Insurance and Vitality offerings to the rest of Africa.

?Of participation on our Exco, Emma says: “It is a pleasure to work with such an experienced and diverse team. I am learning so much and look forward to bringing the power of this unique Exco team to the Africa Vitality Health business.”

?Looking back on recent achievements, she adds: “I am very proud to be part of the team that has launched Vitality to the rest of Africa. We are now live in four significant markets: Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, and the DRC.”

Meet Karren Sanderson, our Chief Operating Officer

Karren joined the business in 1997 straight out of university (UNISA: BCom) as a call centre consultant and was promoted into various management roles across diverse business areas. In 2015 she was appointed Chief Operating Officer for Discovery Health, responsible for our complete operations, across four regions nationwide. Her 3 600 team members are focused on delivering service across all customer segments and service channels. She chairs our Group Operations Forum and is a member of the Discovery SA Exco and Discovery Group Exco (chaired by Adrian Gore), which oversees all of Discovery’s businesses and interests globally.?

Of participation on our Exco Karren says: “With 24 years’ experience at Discovery, my institutional and broad knowledge makes for a deep understanding of our clients. It’s a privilege to be able to add my voice to our Exco engagements and debate, provide support and help and enable others. I am not afraid to raise and discuss unpopular discussion items and all opinions are welcomed. I also feel it’s important to be the calm persona and mind at the table, as our thinking is best when we’re calm. It’s also important to be humble, treat everyone with dignity and be approachable. I’ve learned that strong teams and bonds are built on trust. The company we keep plays an enormous role in our own continuous learning and capabilities. I often reflect on the great people I get to work alongside - thought leaders, or captains of industry - who stimulate me to constantly learn, to be better and do better.”

Looking back on recent achievements, she adds: “Our Virtual Assistant (“Ask Discovery”) and chat channel services are a blend of AI and human service. While evolving daily these receive some of our strongest customer perception ratings and we are seeing significant growth in customer preference for these channels.

Our interest in data science capabilities that feed service operations have led to the creation of many custom data models that identify and trigger a variety of service activities. This includes natural language processing and sentiment models that identify negative sentiment and trigger urgent intervention, or that identify customers who have been involved in traumatic events and trigger proactive support services. We’ve also implemented various health-related predictive models and even models that predict which clients might reach out to us and why so that we might proactively react. We're currently building a bespoke customer relationship management system powered by data models and insights that leverage many key pieces of information, to us to further personalise our service.”

Meet Maia Surmava , CEO: Vitality USA

Maia has 25 years’ experience in Information Technology, Financial Services, Insurance and Healthcare. In July Maia was appointed CEO, Vitality USA.

Of participation on our Maia says: “The people on our Discovery Health Exco team come from such different backgrounds. This means there’s a powerful combination of strong alignment on our business’ values and core purpose but also extremely diverse opinions, that make every conversation that much more colorful, rich, and interesting! As a result, we all have constant opportunities to learn from each other and grow.”

Looking back on recent achievements, she adds: “I have to single out our response to COVID-19. The team?very quickly mobilized and transformed into a purposeful machine. We looked for every opportunity to help our clients and country through the pandemic, and explored every avenue through which we could make a difference. Not only did we manage to continue business as usual, but we also?accelerated innovation and deployed a series of initiatives around COVID-19 support, including supporting the national mass vaccination drive through nine sites we set up in partnership with provincial departments of health (through which we vaccinated a million people by the start of 2022). Impacting so many lives stands out for me as one of the most fulfilling times in my career, and for our business.”

Meet Maria Makhabane, Head of Marketing for Discovery Health

On 1 August Maria took on the role of Head of Marketing for Discovery Health, responsible for implementing strategically aligned marketing solutions for Discovery Health and Vitality Health International Africa. From June 2020, Maria served as my Executive Associate.

Of participation on our Exco Maria says: “As the newest member of this team, I bring a fresh pair of eyes to the table. I also add a diverse voice, given that my experience - having worked in the telecoms and banking industries - is quite different to that of the rest of the team.?I’ve really felt the deep support of a very strong team and that we have a “help first” approach. I particularly appreciate the robustness of our interactions, and the world class wealth of knowledge in the room.”

Looking back on recent achievements, she adds: “As Ryan’s Executive Associate, I was privileged to lead numerous strategic projects. These included the Sisonke trial vaccinations for 3500 of our employees, leading and launching Discovery Prepaid Health, leading our contribution to the Northwest Province’s COVID response on behalf of the Royal Bafokeng Kingdom, and ownership of the COVID Alert app launch.”

Meet Dr Noluthando Nematswerani, our Head of the Centre for Clinical Excellence at Discovery Health

Nolu oversees Health Technology Assessments, Health Economics, Surgical Risk Management, Clinical Policy Development, and our Medicines Unit (including Drug Risk Management and the Clinical Research Unit).

Of participation on our Exco Nolu says: “It is a real privilege to work alongside our amazing team of strong, smart, and super hard-working men and women. We hail from diverse backgrounds and bring diverse, globally competitive skills to the team. Having worked at Discovery for the past 16 years, I am able to bring in the public health and managed care view and my strong appreciation of evidence-based medicine and its role in ensuring best quality healthcare adds a meaningful voice to our product development. This ensures clinical robustness in our product offerings, further strengthening our clinical credibility in the eyes of the members we serve and the healthcare providers we engage with. Ryan is a visionary leader who challenges us to always be on top of our game, strive for excellence and to live the Discovery values of intellectual leadership, drive, tenacity, and urgency.”

Looking back on recent achievements, she adds: “I am very proud of the way in which our team drove our clinical response to COVID-19 through benefit-design, thought-leadership, education, and awareness. Other key successes include our work to improve access to high-cost medicines (e.g., biologic drugs and certain oncology medicines)?through close engagements and negotiations with pharmaceutical companies. These efforts not only benefits Discovery’s clients but the industry as a whole. We’ve also worked very hard to meet medical scheme members’ real-life needs through cover and benefits for everything from continuous glucose monitoring for people who have diabetes to cover for assisted reproductive therapy.”

Meet Nonkululeko Pitje, our Chief Growth Officer: Group Integration

Nonku is a seasoned leader, with over 20 years’ experience across varied functional and business areas. Her current focus is on leveraging the capabilities, expertise, and innovations built within Discovery over the past 30 years to expand access to quality and affordable healthcare to the millions of South Africans.

Of participation on our Exco, Nonku says: “I am also proud to work in an Exco where a significant number of leaders are women. I learn from them and grow through them. It is important for me to work in a business were brilliant, successful women leading large areas. Discovery values the contribution that women make and is supportive of their growth and success. My personal style is to engage with passion, honesty, and kindness. Energy is my superpower. I’m also a Discovery Health Board Member. I bring in experience gained across different parts of our business to contribute to diverse, strategic thinking. Working with and being led by Ryan I feel I am in flow, energized by his determination that we collectively make an impact and his bias toward action. I also appreciate that while we often have different points of view, he allows and facilitates robust debate, and works towards unanimous decisions.”

Looking back on recent achievements, she adds: “As the Chief Growth Officer within Discovery Health, I feel a relentless drive to think broadly and find opportunities to expand our core purpose of making people healthier and enhancing and protecting their lives. This has, over the past five years, led to the development of much-needed health solutions such as a focus on Employee Wellbeing with our Healthy Company solution, Gap Cover, COVID-19 Business Support and more.?These solutions now support 300 000 clients. It’s also absolutely thrilling to be launching #DiscoveryWomenMove at the end of August and I will post about this on my LinkedIn profile soon. This powerful initiative provides an opportunity for women within Discovery to engage?more actively on gender diversity and inclusion targets, and to give their input and suggestions on how success should look and feel in this regard.” ?

Meet Dr Roshini Moodley Naidoo, Head of Strategic Risk Management?

Roshini leads risk management, provider-contracting, value-based care, population health, and clinical policy, with funds under management of USD 4 billion.

?Of participation on our Exco Roshini says: “As a female leadership community in our Exco, we actively (and without apology!) look to support other women, whether through the professional development of our colleagues through mentorship and sponsorship, or through clinical matters pertaining to women’s health. I enjoy the easy and free-spirited discussions, where we play the game, never the person. This is a deeply ingrained Discovery value - play hard but always be mindful of the dignity and value of every person in the team.”

?Looking back on recent achievements, she adds: “I have enjoyed building new Quality Improvement and value-based care functions at Discovery Health and having the opportunity to influence this work at a national and international level. It is an absolute honour to have been selected as a 2022 Fellow of The Leapfrog Group – a global leader for safety standards in healthcare that rates the performance of nearly 3000 hospitals in the US through safety grades. Another professional highlight, and personal passion project, ?is our soon-to-be-released Hospital Care Rating - a quality score for private hospitals in South Africa, similar to what Leapfrog and other organizations do around the world – for our medical scheme members to access. It has also been a privilege to hold the responsibility of managing the financial operating performance of all our client schemes (representing USD 4 billion funds under management). I have enjoyed meeting our annual financial targets in transformative ways by shifting the funding model in the private sector from volume to value (with approximately 60% of hospital costs now contracted on value), and including the voice of the patient in our innovations. Looking back over my life while I’ve been with Discovery, I am most thrilled and fortunate to be the mother I want to be to my two children, and the friend I want to be to my colleagues at work.”

Meet Zimkhitha Saungweme?,?Head of People for Discovery Group and former Head of Discovery Health People

Zimkhitha became Discovery’s Chief People Officer in August 2021, responsible for the development and implementation of the People Strategy and Vision.

?Of participation on our Exco Zimkhitha says: “I have deep and broad understanding and knowledge of the Discovery Health business, which enables me to contribute meaningfully to various key business within this division of the Discovery Group, and also to people, our discussions, and debates.?Truly a phenomenal opportunity to work with Ryan, the Health Exco and the brilliant women in the Exco – a highly engaging environment which continuously challenges my thinking and perspective, exceptional work ethic, where nothing is too big or impossible.?It’s truly an honour to work with such highly committed individuals.???

Looking back on recent achievements, she adds: “It has been a career highlight to successfully lead the implementation of our COVID-19 vaccination policy, which saw 98% of our people getting vaccinated by early 2022.”

I hope this team of powerful leaders’ profiles have left you inspired, and convinced that a diverse workforce and leadership is a prerequisite for success.

Diversity in all its forms, both in leadership teams and across business units simply makes sense. I have time and again had the privilege of observing the way in which our diversified ExCo brings about a range of rich varied views - invaluable to our continued operation in the complex and fast-changing world of healthcare. We’re able to emerge with consensus-oriented and truly balanced decisions, products, customer engagement, innovations, and strategic pathways.

At Discovery Health we are proud to have a diverse, strong representation of women across different levels. Currently,?68.6% of our people are women. Also, 58% of our managers are women, and?56.7% of our broader senior leadership team is female.

We are committed to preventing and addressing issues of gender-based unfair practices and discrimination, including gender pay gaps.?To this end, we are a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact Target Gender Equality (UNTGE) programme, which is an international body that guides and supports organisations on gender equality strategies.?Signing up with UNTGE is a firm step in holding ourselves accountable to the cause of gender equality.?Giving life to this pledge was actually easy. Together with our remuneration team, I led an audit of all remuneration across Discovery Health. Wherever we spotted differences, we ensured these could be explained. I can attest without hesitation to the fact that there are no gender- or race-based remuneration differences in place across our 5300 employees. Any differences that exist are fully explainable by role, tenure, performance, or other distinct business factors.

I appreciate all of the women in my life. My inspirational wife - a chartered accountant, my soulmate and thought-partner in every respect, my daughters - whose creativity, leadership and academic ability is boundless, my mom - from whom I’ve learned unconditional love, and my colleagues, who inspire me

?At Discovery health, we are equal, we are diverse, and we will continue to strive for improvement as we progress our transformation journey.

#WomensMonth #GenderDiversity #DiscoveryHealth #WomenInLeadership?