Previously
Co-founder & COO, FeedrBoard Trustee, Ourmala
Senior Program Manager, Clinton Health Access Initiative
Company
Qured are a super-high growth, Series A Healthtech. When Covid-19 hit, their original business model was affected, leading them to pivot rapidly into Covid testing products. They played a critical role in getting industries up and running again, both enabling businesses to get their employees back to work in a safe way, while also offering travel testing to consumers. Their innovative and tech-centric approach enabled them to build a market-leading distribution network, and they are now looking to leverage that as they build a best-in-class health preservation system.
They have a team of around 50 in London and are on a journey to leverage all of what they successfully built during the pandemic into a new sustainable Healthtech business, centred around preventative health.
Search Background
In anticipation of a fundraise and also in the context of building and executing against a new business model and strategy, Qured were building out a new leadership team to support Alex Templeton, CEO and Founder. A key part of that team given the logistical complexity of at-home testing was the Chief Operations Officer. They were looking for someone to come in and lead Customer Experience, Fulfilment and Logistics, Clinical Operations, Business Ops and HR. However, as the search progressed, and particularly following meeting candidates with different backgrounds, the remit also expanded to encompass sales and marketing as well as operations, working extremely closely with Alex, the CEO.
Requirements
Initially, we were looking for a strong operational leader, ideally with previous experience across logistics, supply chain and general business processes, however we were also open to candidates with a broader experience across commercial functions as well as operational.
Beyond the relevant background, this needed to be someone comfortable in complexity, with a very high mental bandwidth and maturity in handling complex business issues. This also needed to be somebody who was comfortable building processes rather than just optimizing existing processes, ideally with prior experience in entrepreneurial or at least intrapreneurial environments. Finally, it was essential that this was somebody who could embody Qured’s culture and values as a critical part of the leadership team, with managerial responsibility over the majority of Qured’s employees.
Result
We successfully placed Lyz Swanton into the role. She began her career in strategy consulting with Oliver Wyman, before leaving after four years to join the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI). She joined as a Program Manager for their HIV Care and Treatment programmes in Swaziland, leading a 3 year multimillion dollar project with a team of 15, reaching over 10,000 HIV care clients, and successfully doubling HIV-testing in health facilities. She managed everything from remote diagnostics to implementing portable point of care diagnostics in remote clinics, to processing results with the National Laboratory of Swaziland. After three years, she moved to London to complete an MBA at London Business School. Shortly after, she and Riya Grover founded Feedr in late 2016, a business aiming to facilitate access to good-quality, healthy food in the workplace. They deliver personalized meals to office workers as an alternative to companies setting up their own canteens, effectively connecting local food vendors, last mile delivery and customers via their app. They were sold to Compass Group for £17.5m in March 2020 and Lyz spent a year with the business before transitioning herself out.
Alex Templeton
CEO & Founder
We had a great experience working with Maria, Flo and team on the hire of our COO. They were smart, empathetic and thoughtful and both challenged and supported our thinking on the right profile for this critical role. We were pleased with both candidates sourced and the smooth running of the process and delighted with the great hire we made for the role.