Borzo Baradari

2019

Borzo Baradari joined Strategy& (formerly Booz & Company) in 2010 after graduating from King’s College London GKT School of Medical Education. Right off the bat, Borzo was made part of the team tasked with defining the concept for a health & wellness center in Beirut to cater to an increasing GCC demographic. With a small team from the Middle East and experts from the firm’s global network, this ambitious challenge ended in success. Subsequently, Borzo went on to experience a number of healthcare projects in the provider, regulator, and private-equity space in Riyadh. He remembers late hours at the Kingdom Tower offices where most teams on the ground got together in their down time.

Wanting to round out his capabilities and convinced that he still had a lot to learn operationally in healthcare settings, in 2012 Borzo departed Strategy& for the greenfield project Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, where he was part of the five-man clinical operations team during its pre-operational phase. The vision and scale for this project were exceedingly ambitious: to offer Cleveland Clinic Ohio’s world-class healthcare out of Abu Dhabi, in a US$2 billion state-of-the-art landmark facility of 4 million square feet, at tertiary and quaternary levels of care. This was Cleveland Clinic’s first international venture, in concert with Mubadala Healthcare, which produced a full-scale hospital that has become its flagship healthcare asset. Moreover, at a higher level, this project supported the Abu Dhabi government’s long-term endeavor to recapture the billions spent abroad on healthcare for its local population and to create a sustainable ecosystem.

The move allowed Borzo to experience the execution side of strategies generated by consulting firms. After spending a couple years working with all 10 institute chairs to define opening day clinical offerings and supporting the creation of operating manual blueprints for standing up institutes, in 2014 he got involved in preparing his respective areas for mock operations during pre-launch. This was the point when systems, processes, and patient workflows were stress tested. From 2015 onward, Borzo spent most of his time supporting the hospital bed ramp up and activation, and specifically the expansion of the intensive care unit (ICU) from four beds to 72 beds  the largest single-unit ICU in the UAE  and the further sub-specializing of the units into cardiac, neuro, and medical/surgical ICUs. He eventually became the Institute Administrator for two institutes, managing the second-largest physician group at the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi.

During the opening phase, Borzo spearheaded a big data analytics initiative on access to care, which provided actionable insights via a visualized historical and future demand versus supply state for outpatient appointments and respective targets. This dashboard has become the most viewed across the enterprise since opening day.
Borzo has taken time from his busy schedule to address MBA students at the INSEAD Abu Dhabi campus and share his experiences and lessons learnt from projects that span greenfield to full-scale operations. He attends local startup events and is interested in piloting health-tech to disrupt the way healthcare is being delivered to improve patient experience.