Black Rise

How To Rise to the Top in Health Tech - With Dominick Kennerson

• Black Rise • Season 1 • Episode 27

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What if a chance encounter on Craigslist could redefine your entire career? Join us on the Black Rise Podcast as we chat with Dominick Kennerson, Senior Vice President of Health Tech at HSBC Innovation Banking, whose remarkable journey from El Paso, Texas, to the heights of health tech leadership is nothing short of inspiring. Born into a military family and raised in the vibrant yet challenging streets of Washington DC, Dominick's story is a testament to resilience and the power of seizing unexpected opportunities.

Throughout this episode, Dominick opens up about the crucial role of personal growth, education, and discipline in his success. From navigating diverse socio-economic backgrounds to excelling in rigorous academic environments, Dominick shares the pivotal moments that shaped his path. He recounts his educational odyssey, from battling algebraic physics to discovering a passion for healthcare business during his Master's in Health Administration. His experiences in hospital management and health tech startups reveal the emotional weight and empathetic challenges of the medical field, underscoring the importance of maintaining a human connection in healthcare.

But Dominick's journey doesn't stop there. We explore his move to London, where he faced the challenges of scaling up UK healthcare startups amidst the limitations of the venture capital trust system. His insights on creative fundraising and the future of health tech innovation are invaluable. This episode is packed with lessons on resilience, adaptability, and the transformative power of education and discipline. Tune in to hear Dominick's incredible story and gain insights that could inspire your own path to success.

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Speaker 1:

One day I was online and I was on this random website they have in the States called Craigslist. You know. I was looking for a job and there was an ad for Revolution Health and I'm like, oh, I heard about this company from Rima and I'm like, okay, well, let me apply. And I applied. I got a call back that same day, within like an hour or two. I went in for an interview. The next day On my way home, I already had a job offer.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Black Rice Podcast, your getaway to inspiring conversation with la crème de la crème of Black talent, who are leaders of seven-figure and above businesses across a spectrum of industries. I'm your host, Flavilla Fong-Gang, an award-winning serial entrepreneur, who will guide you on his journey. Black Rise isn't just a podcast. It's an extension of our business platform, allowing the business world to connect with skilled, talented and experienced Black talent. Our mission is to serve as a bridge, connecting businesses with vast opportunities that lie in working with Black professionals, entrepreneurs and enterprise. We strive to showcase the value, creativity and innovation that Black talent brings to the table, fostering partnerships that drive economic growth, diversity and mutual success. Visit theblackrisecom to find out more. Hello everybody, Welcome back to another episode on the Black Rise Podcast.

Speaker 2:

It's me, of course, Flavilla. I've been having so much fun. I don't know for you, but for my listener, I don't know if you enjoy it or can you feel the energy in the room and how amazing all our guests have been. Again, I repeat, if there's anybody you'd like me to speak to and interrogate, I don't really interrogate them. I like to ask them great questions and they have so much knowledge that they share, so it's always something that fulfills me. You know it's funny.

Speaker 2:

I was speaking to one of the leaders and he said what I really like is that no expense is ever wasted. You know, no matter what you do or no matter what you're trying to achieve, no expense is ever wasted. You might not get the outcome that you want, but you definitely learn something from it. So these are some of the things that I love to learn from the great leaders, and this time I am joined by the one and only Dominique Kenerson, who is a senior, not just vice president, but senior vice president health tech at HSBC Innovation Banking. I hope that means that he added another zero to his paycheck, but we're not going to ask how much he's getting paid. That's not what the conversation is about. But we should start from the beginning, and I'm talking about is the Dominique of today the same as the Dominique of yesterday? I want to know about your childhood. Where did you grow up? Where were you born? Who influenced you when you were young? And really, what kind of values were you brought into? Tell us all.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, big question. I was born in El Paso, texas, at Fort Bliss, el Paso, texas. My mom had me when she was in the military actually, but my mom is from Washington DC. She's the kind of woman that you know. My grandfather had this rule that when you were 18, you had to move out the house. So on her 18th birthday she signed up for the US Army. Whatever possessed her to do that, I don't know, but that's what she did and I think that's probably key because I mean that means inherently, like she was a disciplinarian, you know, and I think that was pretty important because where I did officially grow up is Washington DC and outside of DC and DC around the time I was growing up been probably easy to just get sucked into the community in a different way than what I was. I think today, when people meet me or see me, they think I have a very different upbringing than my actual upbringing. I met with two friends last week in the park here in London and they're like oh, dom, you're so posh and this.

Speaker 1:

And I'm like, no, I'm really from the hood I'm from, like the real hood, and they're like, no, I don't believe you and I'm like no, really, like really.

Speaker 1:

You know, I think the community, the other thing that DC was known for and the community is known for, so one part's, you know, kind of murder capital, but also known as Chocolate City. So I think, unless you have really spent time in that part of the world, or in DC or in Maryland, I think a lot of people that visit for the first time are surprised that there are so many kind of Black people or Black and Brown people, so really a diverse community. I think there were different kind of inflection points. You know, when I was growing up, like I was generally smart and because my mom worked so much, I was really mostly self-directed. You know she did have some structure but I did a lot pretty much on my own and grew up as an only child, kind of surrounded by, you know, a big family with her siblings, you know. So she does have four siblings and so our nuclear family is pretty close-knit, to say the least.

Speaker 2:

You know it's interesting because I'm like you as well. When I say to people I'm from Paris, they say, oh my gosh, you're so lucky and I never understood why. It's like, what am I looking for? Because imagine the Paris that they imagine is a Paris where you live by the Eiffel Tower. You go and everything's fantastic. But wait a minute, this is not the Paris that I've seen. I'm from a Paris that you don't see the suburb, the ghetto, the places where you have all the immigrants.

Speaker 2:

And again, one thing that is so important as well your past doesn't have have to define the future and the identity that you have. You know, it's not because you grew, you grew up in the ghetto that you still have to start if you're from the hood, right, you know you, you are educated, so you evolve naturally. And it's funny because I had a great conversation with stephanie. She's a. She was the first black female to make it to be the presence of the society and when you hear her speak she's well spoken, but something like you, her background is, you know, from space, and I think it's so important that we don't lose ourselves but remember where we come from. But we also evolve, right, it's so important.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think you have to be open to evolving, right, I think that's part of it and I think you have to recognize those opportunities when they come, when they come. Going back to that conversation in the park last week, I did start thinking about, okay, well, what made me who I am today? And I think it was just being exposed to new people, being exposed to new places and being in some really important rooms and meeting important people. Yeah, and I had a lot of training and a lot of help along the way, you know, a lot of intercultural training, a lot of training that people probably don't get, you know, even for them to be senior executives. So I was sensitized, I think, to a lot and I was always open to just kind of leaning in to the best version of myself. You know, I think I always felt like I could do more, like I could be more.

Speaker 1:

I think I always felt like the environment I grew up in was like a temporary thing, you know, and I pretty much also knew that I wasn't going to go down a certain pathway. You know, I knew that I wasn't going to hustle, so to say, well, I could hustle professionally but not be on the corner, as they say. I'm not really into violence so I knew that wasn't an option for me and I mean I was decent at sports but I never thought that I'm going to go to the NBA or I'm going to go to the NFL. That was never really on my radar. So yeah, just kind of understanding my options early, I think going to go to the NBA or I'm going to go to the NFL, like that was never really on my radar. So yeah, just kind of understanding my options early, I think was important.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think it's important. You know, as you say yourself, your mom understood the importance and still understands the importance of discipline. So that's something that you grow up. Discipline is so important because you know you can be the best in your space. But if you do not have any discipline, you will never make it. And you look and and I always say people that will make it to the top and, honestly, the best they have, one who has the best discipline and consistency in whatever they they want to achieve, and that's super important, that when you are disciplined and great, then it's a winner. Right, but you said the way that was important to say that you know you understood the importance in being the right places. People will listen to this right now. It's like how, when you are a boy, you grew up in the ghetto. How do you get into the right places?

Speaker 1:

So I mean it does go back to mom and I think when I think about my education, you know my mom.

Speaker 1:

So in the county where I grew up Prince George's County which is relevant today because it's probably the most affluent Black county in the US and there are kind of pockets of ghetto, so to say, or hood, so to say, but it's a really nice county and my mom, she in that county they have what are called magnet schools, so schools that kind of develop you and schools that were designed to help gifted students kind of excel.

Speaker 1:

And in order to get into those programs, you know my mom, she had to kind of like wait overnight in her car and be there first thing in the morning. So you know she kind of sacrificed for that. And then the rest of that school system, the way it's designed so it's for you to kind of, once you're in that program, you're pretty much set up to go through different specialized programs, so that by the time I was in secondary school, or high school as we call it, I was part of this what's called a science and technology program, and so it was kind of designed and set up as a school within a school, so in each class. There would only be each graduating class. There would only be in a high school of 2,000 students. We would probably only have about 100 science and technology students, so less than 10%.

Speaker 2:

And how many were Black?

Speaker 1:

students. Good question, yeah, in a school that big. So remember, I mean it was a Black county, so I would say it was probably about 90% Black and or at least 85%, and then 10% were actually like Filipino and then maybe 5% Caucasian.

Speaker 2:

It's interesting because now you grew up with not necessarily that sense of I'm a minority, you are a majority, right.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, exactly, and that's the thing, and I think being around and it's not just being a majority but being a part of a very talented majority. You know, it was definitely one of those experiences where it was iron, sharpening iron every single day, you know, um, yeah, and I think that helped love that, love that.

Speaker 2:

So your entry into technology was very early.

Speaker 1:

It did come early, yeah, and I mean that school system. I mean, looking back, it was really good because you, they did so much to encourage critical thinking. So we, you know, used to have what we used to have to invent products. We used to have, you know, a science fair every single year where you had to really do some research and understand research methodology and how to present it and how to put it together. And I think a lot of those skills you know kind of took me through my early career, you know, because when I did go to college and in my undergraduate studies it was you know for biology and did that, thinking that I would do pre-medicine, know for biology and did that, thinking that I would do pre-medicine.

Speaker 1:

And I think there comes a point for most people that study the sciences where you get to what's called organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry, and it's just pretty much the teacher starts writing like shapes on the board or on the slide and you're like, oh, what is this, you know? And then along with that you get to like calculus three or calculus four and the teacher just stops drawing numbers and they're just squiggly lines on the board and you're like, whoa, long story short. When it was time for me to go to college, I did receive a full scholarship, but that scholarship was based on leadership. You know, it wasn't an actual academic scholarship, and so I had to pretty much come up with my own thinking on how I thought leadership or how I thought leaders developed, and so that was kind of we were talking earlier about like recognizing opportunities, like that was one of those opportunities. You know that I think I recognized and, yeah, just kind of jumped at and it was all of that high school, because really I guess the part I left out is that transition from my transition from high school to university.

Speaker 1:

I think within two weeks of graduating, you know, I got a phone call from a university that they were having a summer school program for incoming freshmen and they identified me because of that science and technology background and said, yeah, he can come and take some classes and he'll have three classes to take, you know, for summer school, and there'll be access to scholarships, maybe if he performs well. So, you know, found my way to south carolina state university uh, six and a half hours drive from dc and, yeah, started summer school and yeah, that was one of those kind of um, yeah, you know I love my stories on.

Speaker 2:

I love to interrupt people, sorry, I apologize about doing it anyway, but you know what?

Speaker 2:

What is beautiful about your story is that we sometimes undervalue the importance of these programs at the very early stage in kids' career and how you know, the scholarship can really change the path of a kid, because you know there's so much similarities in your career as well as mine.

Speaker 2:

In Europe they used to have that, but obviously the UK decided to leave the European Union, but you used to have this program called Erasmus program, and this is how I found myself in London 20 years ago now, because they would send, if you do not have the opportunity to spend money or you have the opportunity to spend money to send your kids to study abroad.

Speaker 2:

This was the program designed for that and I think the importance of programs and early on to really change the pathway of a kid who maybe grew up from not so much in, you know, in their life because of the lack of opportunities that these parents have, but how this can be pivoted and change an entire family because of one of them succeeding as well. I mean, that's such a beautiful people. People are listening, we're part of companies. Just in terms of what am I doing? Maybe to support the education system or support, you know, offering scholarship, and that's such a beautiful, you know, journey of what you've done and and you know journey of what you've done and you know because you had to work hard.

Speaker 2:

It's not just a scholarship as that.

Speaker 1:

You work hard, but sometimes what people lack of is opportunities and you definitely tap into those, you know. I think let me contextualize hard work right, because I heard there's this football player in the US. I heard him say once that there's no such thing as hard work, like there's just work, you know, and I think and I tend to gravitate towards that, because I think anytime I've just sat down and done my work, it's not necessarily hard, it's just time and it's focus, and sometimes I can feel hard but it's really not. But at the end you're like, oh yeah, I did that and it's okay. But at the end you're like, oh yeah, I did that and it's okay.

Speaker 1:

And I think, really for me, my undergraduate studies, because the high school was so rigorous, such a degree to where, yeah, I didn't really study study, until I had to pass physics, you know, and I actually failed. They offer physics in two ways at this particular university. You can either take calculus physics, which is basically for math majors, or you could take algebraic physics. And what I learned and I failed algebraic physics like twice.

Speaker 1:

And I took the calculus physics and I think, like I got a, b, you know, and I had to take two parts and I did really well and I think what that taught me is the way I. It taught me a lot about the way I learned you know. So in algebra and physics, for example, you're going to read about a problem someone throws a brick off of a roof or whatever. Or you have to understand if a rock and a feather falls at the same time, like who cares. But in calculus physics they would talk about being at the beach and looking at the waves and how to understand that wave motion, and to me that natural world just made a lot more sense to me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that I mean this is, I think, the thing about kind of hard work. I think, at the end of the day, it's just kind of work and sitting down to do the work, but, more importantly, understanding how to work for you and how you actually learn and what helps you learn. You know and I wish that's the one thing I wish I would have learned a little bit earlier Like, how do I actually learn? Um, because that, once you unlock that, I think it just makes everything else a lot easier.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. So now we're coming back to university. Yeah, what was, you know, the entry into the business world? What was the first job or career?

Speaker 1:

So when you study biology you typically have two career tracks that you can go in, very generally speaking One you go into medicine or you go do research. Speaking One you go into medicine or you go do research and medicine. I ruled out because again I didn't want to study organic chemistry and calculus three with squiggly lines and no numbers. I just thought there had to be a better way, so I ruled out medicine. And there were other reasons as well, but those are the general reasons.

Speaker 2:

Maybe blood.

Speaker 1:

No, I didn't mind that. I mean, by the time you're at that point in university, I mean, you've dissected. Things Like blood isn't necessarily an issue, but then research. So I had a few internships with the Department of Agriculture, the US Department of Agriculture. At my last what do you call it? My last internship, I had to do a. Do you know what a tick is? Like a deer tick, like a parasite? I don't know, I do not.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so in the summer, especially in the mid-Atlantic states, also in some parts of Europe, you have what are called ticks, and sometimes you'll find them on your pets, like your dog, and you typically buy a dog collar or something to protect against it, and they sometimes carry disease. And so this one summer I had this internship with the Department of Agriculture and we had to go into the woods of Washington DC, the suburbs, and we had to collect deer ticks to see if they had Lyme disease. And so what that basically meant, in order to catch deer ticks, what that meant is that we had to create a space to find deer, and so what you had to do is basically not to say lay a trap, but we pretty much had these things called corn feeders. Deer love corn, apparently, and we would fill these. I had to carry these 50-pound bags of corn into the woods in the middle of DC summer, which DC is a swamp, as you've heard Donald Trump refer to drain the swamp, blah, blah.

Speaker 1:

But it's actually a swamp and in the summer it's well over 30 degrees and to protect yourself against ticks you have to wear an all-white suit so that you can see them. You have to wear gloves tape up the gloves. You have to wear boots tape up the boots. So it was probably 30, 35 degrees outside wearing this suit. It's probably like close to 40 degrees. Right, and it was that summer where I said, okay, I'm not doing research. So it was, okay, medicine's not happening, research is not happening. I'm out here in the woods in middle of the summer looking for deer ticks which are like really, really tiny, like the size normally the size of a pinpoint, and it's like why am I wasting my time doing this?

Speaker 2:

I like it. Do you know what I like about you? It's like you know what I'm done. Bye, I'm not doing this Very practical.

Speaker 1:

Very practical. Right.

Speaker 2:

I can literally see you.

Speaker 1:

Do you know what I right? That was absolutely what happened. But what that led me to do was to figure out, okay, what can I do with my degree? And I found this program that was called the values of healthcare with business, so it was like an MBA for health, and this particular program was designed for hospital management. And I thought, oh, that actually sounds cool, like to learn how to run a hospital. And then I saw how much hospital people in hospital management make, like the CEO of, like, the children's hospital in dc was making over a million dollars a year and I was like, oh, that's crazy I want some of that um oh my god, and yeah, and I said like not to say necessarily the low end, but that was like pretty standard for a hospital ceo in those days and I'm like, oh yeah, I'm definitely going to look into this.

Speaker 1:

I found there were two programs in my hometown. There were three that I applied to Georgetown, george Washington University and Johns Hopkins. I got accepted to Georgetown and George Washington. At George Washington they also put in a little bit of money and yeah, so I did my master's at George Washington University for what's called a master's in health administration, and that pretty much introduced me to the business world with the values of healthcare.

Speaker 2:

It's interesting. I like how you have this very medicine angle, but you also, because sometimes what happened a lot in the healthcare system? People are not able to connect the two, between business and medicine, and if you have that, people sometimes just have one background, but you have both now. And that gives a very strong advantage. So my question now is how did you use that to your?

Speaker 1:

advantage. I think what I've learned, again the way I learned, I think there's a Rosetta Stone to everything and you know, I'm good with language, I'm good with numbers, but I'm a little bit better with language Once I understood that there's kind of a set of stone and there's a scientific process to almost everything. I think what's unique about my career is that I've been able to use that model to do different things in my career that people normally don't do. So, for example, going back to the community where I'm from. My first experiences were working in a hospital. I did really well, but what I also learned at the same time was that I am a very empathetic person and seeing sick people every day is really quite a challenge. And I started thinking that, okay, can I really do this for the next 20, 30 years? Yeah, the money's good, but to really make money in a hospital, what it means is you have to get people in really quickly and you have to get them out very quickly. That's really the business model, and when you actually care about people's social issues, you're not really solving any problems.

Speaker 1:

You know, because a lot of the people, especially the first hospitals I worked at again, I told you I'm from the hood and the first hospital I worked at was in my grandparents' community. Like it's a hospital I drove past every time on the way or leaving my grandparents' house, you know. And so I cared about the community. And in communities like that, hospitals become a social net and they're part of a social fabric and part of a social network and I realized I couldn't really impact that social network, just quote-unquote, just working at the hospital.

Speaker 1:

You know, I cared too much about the upstream issues and I cared too much about kind of the downstream issues, so what brought you to the hospital in the first place? And I cared too much in terms of like what happened after. And I think like one of those moments was when I was so the way the master's program was set up. You had to do a rotation, the way a doctor does. So I had to kind of work in every single department in the hospital, everything from kind of the janitorial services to food services, to the emergency room, the operating room, the CFO office. I got worked and everything. And at one point in time I was working in one of our clinics, the maternal child health clinic, and this girl comes in like literally a girl about 12, 13 years old, and she had a newborn baby.

Speaker 2:

What.

Speaker 1:

Right, and I'm looking at this girl. She could barely hold the baby. It looked like she was holding a doll baby. That was just a little bit too real and my heart just opened up and I'm like, oh my goodness, what brought her here? What's going to happen to her after? She's just going to see some doctor in here for five minutes? And this is what I mean by I care too much about upstream and I care too much about downstream, because there was so much like in the thing about this one little girl. It's like she wasn't alone. You know there were others like her. You know, right, it's hard.

Speaker 2:

I think it's hard, it's hard, it's hard, and I've you know it's. What is beautiful about your story is that you haven't lost this humanity some people have seen, unfortunately, in the medical sector, where they completely detach of that they've seen so much that they've normalized it right.

Speaker 2:

but you realize it's too much. You know, and that's probably because you have strong empathy, it's really hard to not be touched by Right. But you realize it's too much, and that's probably because you have strong empathy, it's really hard to not be touched by this and just be. You know, it's just another case, just another story. It happens all the time. It's not going to be the last.

Speaker 1:

Right, right. And I think you do come to a point in medicine where you're faced with that decision and you're faced with that choice like, do you just let it be another story, do you just let it? I like the fact that you use the word case because, yeah, it is, for a medical professional, it's another case and you have to treat it like a case. You know, um, but yeah, that was a bit too much for me and um, a little bit through serendipity, what happened was that time was really transformative. I think also around that time it's something I started doing. One of the business development people at the hospital she also was a health coach and I spent a lot of time with her. She was one of my mentors and she actually introduced me to meditation. That, for me, has been, I think, a big part of my development also because she also demystified it and I think, growing up in a very religious family and background, there are these kind of I don't know, misconceptions you have about really.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're right, people don't actually realize that meditation is very, actually, close to prayers.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, exactly, and from a religious perspective, what I say is like prayer is like talking to God. Meditation is the listening, you know, and this is how you begin to have a real conversation with God. Meditation is the listening and this is how you begin to have a real conversation with God. And so I only share that, because that part of my life I was probably about 24, 25 years old that lit a spark to where I could be empathetic enough and I could be intuitive enough and I could be introspective enough to say, hey, I like this, I like the money, but this kind of connection to people it's a lot. And I never wanted to really make the choice that this person is just another case, but kind of the next point in my career. And I mentioned her because she introduced me and this is what the CEO of the hospital used to say. She was like this woman, her name is Rima Bilkis. She was like Rima has the future and I'm like what, what are you talking about? Okay, but what Rima actually did Rima introduced me to.

Speaker 1:

There was this company, this startup company called Revolution Health, and it was mostly people were paying attention to it because it was founded by this guy named Steve Case and Steve is known. He's one of the first dot-com billionaires. He built this company called America Online, or, as they say in Europe, aol, and AOL was the first company in the US to get everyone to use the internet. Basically and Rima was the first person I knew talking about this company and Steve was so important because that hood environment in DC changed over the course of 10 years because of America Online. America Online was built right outside of DC. All of the wealth that that company brought to that region, I think Washington DC went from a B or C credit rating to a AAA plus kind of a credit rating as a city. I mean it completely changed the dynamics of the city to the point where the Sunday Washington Post, every Sunday it would either be the president of the United States or Steve Case.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 1:

He was that kind of a figure in that city during that time, and so when he started Revolution Health, it was like, okay, well, this guy has been super successful, of course he has to be successful at this next thing. And one day I was online and I was on this random website they have in the States called Craigslist. I was looking for a job and there was an ad for Revolution Health and I'm like, oh, I heard about this company from Rima and I'm like, okay, well, let me apply. And I applied. I got a call back that same day. Within like an hour or two, I went in for an interview. The next day, on my way home, I already had a job offer.

Speaker 2:

Did you even wait for you to do it?

Speaker 1:

Right, and the way the interview went. The way the interview went and this will maybe date me a little bit, but the interview went like have you ever heard of MySpace? And I was like, uh, yeah, and that would be like today if someone said if you go into an interview and someone says have you ever heard of Instagram? That was the interview question and I'm like yeah, I have a.

Speaker 1:

MySpace back to the story, like that was like that job and that role was amazing because I really had the opportunity to work closely with a guy that's probably one of the 20th century's biggest entrepreneurs, you know, and to see him every day and to see how he works. Like literally his office was, you know, maybe 10, 20 feet or I guess was that three to six meters away from my desk.

Speaker 2:

As we continue this engaging conversation, remember that Black Rise is more than just a podcast. We're a dynamic platform where businesses can connect, collaborate and prosper with Black professionals, entrepreneurs and Black-owned companies. Our commitment to diversity, inclusion and empowerment reshapes industries and builds a future where Black excellence thrives globally. So don't forget to subscribe and give us a five-star review on iTunes. You know what you mentioned is so important because tech companies really really demystify the idea of of um. I can say you know all these levels where if you want to speak to a vice president, you have to go to the next one, that you're going to a startup and it's an open plan office. This is something that is, I, also helps in speeding up innovation.

Speaker 1:

Right, Exactly, Exactly, and it was designed exactly like that. Uh, we called it like a newsroom design. You know, um, very few actual offices. He did sit in the office, um, but everyone else pretty much sat in this newsroom style setup and it did make collaboration really easy. And again, you know, earlier we talked about just recognizing opportunities and recognizing situations.

Speaker 1:

That was one of those situations where I had to really adapt if I had to adapt quickly, you know, to just get better because there was so much talent around. You know, I mean, in hindsight, the people at that company. They've gone on to start companies like the founders of Peloton. You know I worked closely with them. There's a company called Living Social that used to compete with Groupon. You know, I mean the talent there was just otherworldly. You know the people that I worked with there. They've gone on to do some amazing things. They've gone on to do some amazing things and so to have all of that talent and to be I was somewhere around employee number 100. I think we ramped up to 500 employees in one summer and I had probably three, four promotions while I was there, but it wasn't.

Speaker 1:

It's one of those things like in hindsight, it's easy to say those things, but I think my first presentation I completely bombed to the point where I thought they were going to fire me and I was 25 years old, had working for this cool startup it's like a $300 million startup and this is like $20, $16, you know or I'm sorry, I need to add 10 years like 2006, $2009, you know, and I had to get. This is what I mean by I had to get better. And what I learned very quickly is that because I studied science and because I was in healthcare, healthcare people talk differently than technology people and from differently from business people. So in healthcare, because you're always earlier I mentioned these science experiments right, and even learning those at school so in healthcare, the way you tend to communicate is what's called the passive voice, so you talk about everything in the past as if you did something.

Speaker 1:

In technology, you use what's called the active voice and the active voice sounds like, yeah, I'm having a podcast meeting with Flavilla today, whereas passive voice is around. Yeah, I podcast yesterday with Flavilla. It's flat, it doesn't sound as active and just understanding that nuance, there's this book called Elements of Style and someone was kind enough to come up to me and say Dom, read this book, It'll help you. I read Elements of Style. I said, oh, this is why I'm not performing, because I'm communicating in this way and it's falling flat. So I started going to Toastmasters every week so I could just really practice my speaking.

Speaker 2:

What is Toastmasters?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, toastmasters, they have them all over London, they're all over the world actually. So Toastmasters is for leadership and for communication, and so the way Toastmasters is set up is there are clubs all over the world and I think in London there have to be at least a dozen different Toastmaster clubs. And what you do every week you meet with a group of people and for one hour I think it's one hour, maybe an hour and a half, I don't remember and you basically the way the meeting is set up three people give a speech and there's some extemporaneous questions, I think at the beginning as like a warm-up, and then there's maybe another portion at the end. That's like that. And I started doing Toastmasters and it tremendously helped.

Speaker 1:

I started going going every week and the way the initial program is set up is you have to, uh, give like 10 speeches and those 10 speeches basically build up to by the time you're on your 10th speech. You have to give a 10 minute speech with no notes and there has to be humor involved. There has to be all these other things involved because typically after you give a 10-minute speech with no notes and there has to be humor involved. There has to be all these other things involved Because typically after you give a speech, you get feedback, so people tell you how you deliver it, they tell you what worked, they tell you what you could try differently, they talk to you about your hand gestures, your mannerisms, your body language and you get this immediate feedback loop to help you get better and help you get better quickly, and Toastmasters helped me really keep that job.

Speaker 2:

I love that. It's true, but you know what people don't realize. As a leader, communication skills is probably the strongest part of your success. If you don't know how to communicate with people, you will never. And what I love about it is having people around you. When I'm learning about your journey, it's like having people around me to say, actually read this book. You could have been. Now I might say you know what? Don't tell me what to do, I know better. No, you have to stay very open-minded about positive criticism. That can help you get there faster, to where you want to achieve, and it's so important. And also one thing that you mentioned importance of having the right people around you. You can learn so much faster.

Speaker 2:

You know, sometimes people don't realize that they are born in privilege because that's their normal. Around them there are people who are successful. They're listening, they're learning from a very young age, so therefore they're listening, they're learning from a very young age, so therefore they know already the ways to get to the top, they have the right introduction, and so on and so on. And what you say is so important, toastmaster. I would definitely ask people to check it out. I actually love this because it feels like. It's a bit like theater. So you can, you know you can present and you never know who's going to be in a room, and it's super exciting and it helps you as well calm your nerves, because it's. I love that. I would love that I might go with you next time yeah, we can go.

Speaker 1:

Actually, what I'm thinking about doing is starting a club here at the office and, um, yeah, and I mean it would be still a public club, even though it would be in our office. So stay tuned, or we can start our own club, to be fair you can start them anywhere.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely definitely. So you, you are still in your 20s. I feel like you're 20s. You're learning so much already.

Speaker 1:

Wow, right yeah, by the end of that experience it was pretty much one of the first financial crises or one of the first ones in recent memory, but I had just finished working for one of the biggest entrepreneurs of the 20th century. So I started my own company and I was consulting on my own and I had, after a couple of months, I had three clients, like a children's hospital, where I was doing strategy work. I was also working with a large health and wellness platform doing partnerships and business development work, and then I started doing public affairs work for pharma companies and I would do that by day. And then, because I was working on my own, I also wanted to be social and I thought what better way to be social than to bartend? So I took a bartending course and started working at kind of a classy cocktail parlor right on Capitol Hill in DC and I would do that maybe three nights a week. And that was mostly relevant because it's one of those things where preparation meets opportunity, right, because one night we're in the bar and we were talking about the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and I had just done some work for a client. So I already knew everything about it. I studied it, I researched it, I educated other people about it and we're at the bar and this bar is right on Capitol Hill in DC. So everyone that goes to the bar they work for some congressperson, so they're all super interested in the topic and we're talking about it and I started telling people how it works. And everyone's looking at me like Dom, how do you know this? You just made me a vodka martini Explain. And this one guy was just super curious and he was like Dom, that insight is amazing. He was like you can really do something with that. He was like you're a healthcare expert. You can take that outside of the US. There's a lot of people who can learn from you. He was like there's this program called the Robert Bosch program. And I was like huh. And he was like yeah, they will take you to Germany. You'll go to Germany for one year and you'll get some professional experience and they'll teach you the language. You'll get a Germany for one year and you'll get some professional experience and they'll teach you the language. You'll get a tax-free stipend, you know, and you'll get to live in Berlin. He was like Berlin is so cool. And I'm like this actually sounds really cool. I was like, yeah, I can, I can do that. Um, so I applied for the fellowship. Long story short, got the fellowship.

Speaker 1:

I moved to Berlin for the first time in 2010. Wow, language had to be at a certain level by a certain time. I took cultural development kind of courses Even before I left for Berlin. I had a language tutor where we spent eight hours together per week, one-on-one, and yeah, I mean I think everything just accelerated after that. So in that one year I had two kind of work placements, one with Bayer Pharmaceuticals and another with. There's a group in Germany called well, in English it's the National Statutory Health Insurance Association, and so it's basically a lobby group that works for the 90% of Germans on the public sick funds. So I spent some time with them Pretty much. We met with everyone in German industry and economics. We also spent time in Brussels, so I got a really good introduction to how the European union works, how the commission works, et cetera. I mean it was just really kind of phenomenal in terms of what it was designed for, you know, professional development, cultural exposure. So I did that.

Speaker 1:

One year I moved back to DC and, yeah, I think it took about a year, I started some healthcare. I think I was working with Pfizer, I was doing some consulting work with Pfizer, did that for about a year? Did some healthcare, investment banking work. And well, already after that first year being back, I had like a what do you call it? Jabufa, jaboffa? No, I had reverse culture shock. Oh, you know, like I was in the grind, I was back in the states and I was like geez. You know, germany was so cool, like I traveled more than I had ever traveled. I saw more than I had ever seen. You know, it was weird being back in the states and all of a sudden like in germany on a friday afternoon when it's nice out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I could just go, yeah no one well, not even no one's working. But I can like just go get a beer and pop it open and walk down the street and enjoy it. All of a sudden, in the states, if I want to pop a beer and open it, walk down the street, people are going to think I'm a wino. You know, or they're going to like or I'm going to get arrested yeah and I was like oh, the states are actually really weird. Like everyone works, they make this money but they don't get to enjoy it.

Speaker 2:

Like I think europe taught me how to just kind of enjoy life a bit, you know I think this is the thing, but I never understood that people have two weeks holidays, like what people have two weeks holidays, like what People have two weeks Right. It was insane for me because, you know, I come from France where you only have five weeks, but then you have the 13 months, you get paid an additional month at the end of the year and so on. So again, social, social country I have a sense of we don't live to work. You know we work, we work to live, and but yes, it must be so hard that where the culture is different, you know the healthcare is, the healthcare system is different, there's a lot to pack on. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:

So what happened was my old manager at Bayer Pharma in Berlin. She gave me a call. She's like and we kept in touch, you know. And she's like dominic, you know, I have a job open. I haven't been able to fill it. Do you think you would be interested in moving back to germany? And I was like, uh, yeah, to be fair. She actually came to dc and she like really was trying to pitch me on it and I'm like like you don't, you don't even have to pitch me. Like I'm fine, yeah, let's go like tomorrow you're supposed to be hard to get that.

Speaker 1:

Let me think about it well so the part I left out in the story, like she came at me that way because, to fair, she offered me a role before I moved back to the States, and what I told her? I said I will stay for the summer Because Berlin summers are amazing, but I told her, when September comes, I'm going to want to go back to DC, because what happened was that winter I was there during that one year. It was the worst winter ever and to the point, and Berlin was still poor at that point, so they didn't shovel the sidewalks or put anything down, so there was like a layer of ice on the sidewalk from like November until like February, you know, and it was brutally cold, like I never felt that cold. You know, I lived in back in berlin later and there was never again a winter like that. So that winter, that one winter experience, cautioned me to kind of continue the work.

Speaker 1:

But, yeah, so I did move back to germany uh, this was in 2013 and took on a role with bear. I was with bear for nine years what is bear, so, bayer, b-a-y-e-r.

Speaker 1:

Bayer up until very recent, and I think in German or in a lot of Europe, they would say Bayer. People know Bayer Leverkusen, People know Bayer Munich. The Bayer company actually owns Bayer Leverkusen, which they're doing pretty well this season. Bayer is one of the oldest kind of pharmaceutical conglomerates on the planet. Probably they used to be one of the largest. Today not as much, I think. When I joined, the market cap was around 100, pretty much ramped up to 150 billion 150 billion. So at one point I think somewhere around 2014, 15, it's the number one company on the German stock exchange, so larger than SAP, larger than Daimler Benz.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, so I held several different roles while I was there, and so I did global communications for about two and a half years. I was a pharmaceutical lobbyist for about four years and I did corporate venture for another two and a half years before I left. And that lobby work a lot of people say, well, what's lobby work? It's like public affairs work and really, when you're working for I used to call it corporate diplomacy, so corporations have diplomats, basically, and that's what public affairs and lobby work really is. But yeah, and my last role was kind of got me back to my digital health roots. So I had a global team that was doing investments and partnerships for Bayer and kind of key markets, you know Japan, Turkey, Mexico, US, of course, UK all over.

Speaker 1:

And I think I was keen on leaving because you know the company that bears today. Well, I was just ready to leave. It was time for me to go.

Speaker 2:

Do you have that sense of you seem like you're very clear in terms of your evolution. You change, you evolve. You're very clear in terms of your evolution. You change, you evolve. I heard one say and I say all the time now to the youngsters if your job is not evolving in maybe two to three years, you're losing money. Did you have that sense very soon about the importance of continuously evolving?

Speaker 1:

Yes and no. I think what I knew about Germany as a place to develop a career. I knew that it's actually a slow career pathway and I knew that I would have to go in with some patience and with some strategy. And I think you know, despite that framework, I was promoted more than several times. You know, I think even in my first 18 months I was promoted two or three times, at least twice. Promote it two or three times, at least twice. Hustle and actual work will always win every day.

Speaker 1:

And I think I like the fact that I have that progression on my CV. I think I also like the fact that I did three very distinct things. I didn't just have a promotion or a career pathway where I just got promoted through communications. It was okay. I did the communications. Now I'm going to do the public affairs. Now definitely outpaces, maybe the cash Very important. But I think you know a multinational that I mean Bayer. Let me travel around the world, you know. So without Bayer and that experience, I mean I've been to, I did my work. I can say I've done my work in Brazil, on the ground. I've done my work in Argentina. I've done my work in Mexico. I've done my work in the US. You know I've saved the industry billions and some of my ideas and some of the things that I saw happening, you know I mean things that I wouldn't even put on my CV necessarily. And this is what I guess, kind of bringing it full circle to where we started, like when people say well, dom, you're so posh.

Speaker 1:

It's like no, I've been in some rooms with you know, like if I'm in Brazil and I meet with the Business Trade Association that represents 80% of the Brazilian economy and I'm pitching to the head of this group how we should adopt AI three, four years before, anyone is talking about AI like that's real work and that's the real work that I did you know.

Speaker 2:

But can I ask you a question, dominic? Because you give me a sense that there's something about you, give me a sense that you naturally have developed that self. You know you're a learner and also always ahead of the trend, and a lot of people don't necessarily have that in their mind. Also pitch, which is very important to be an asset for a company to be able to say this is where the future is going and we can help you get there before the curve happens. So how do you think you developed that mindset to be able to think this way and act as such?

Speaker 1:

I think I've always wanted to challenge the status quo and I think some of that even comes from my upbringing. You know, my mom was such a disciplinarian and she learned a lot of that from the military, and I had this structural element in the home to where I knew I would never go in the military because I would always want to challenge authority. And it gets back to what we were talking about upstream and downstream. Why are things the way they are? And I think even in Germany, something that Germany teaches quite consistently, more so than the US, is history. And learning about Germany for me was about okay, everything is the way it is because of a history, because of a policy or because of actual something like things just don't exist. So if there was some past event that caused something, then there has to be something I can do now to create a future event. And I think you know, for me it's just, for lack of better words, reading the tea leaves, you know. So when it came to AI, the World IP Organization they were talking about AI, you know, like five years ago, right, and because they wanted to understand how do we patent AI and I was working on IP at the time in my public affairs work and I'm like, oh, this is super interesting, we need to be paying attention to this and we need a position statement on this. And you know, it was just.

Speaker 1:

I think also I think part of that now that I'm thinking out loud about it it's just, I'm not saying it's, it's trying not to be bored. You know so when you it's a loose message, right? You know so when you it's a loose message, right, exactly. It's like, well, if I'm just maintaining the status quo, then you know, I feel like I'm not trying. I feel like I would just get really, really bored. So I'm going to do a pet project, I'm going to do something on the side of my desk, you know, to advance a conversation or to get people to think, in part because I don't want to be bored, because if I'm bored then I'm just going to spiral.

Speaker 2:

You're going to leave. You're going to find another company? Okay, let's go.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:

But you know, it's an important character or trait of your personality, that sort of very much. Okay, I'm going to do this job, I'm happy. They're never looking for that extra fulfillment. And I always say that people who are the happiest are people who are continuously learning. Right, because when you're continuously learning, you're using a good part of your brain to do something different. Okay, I'm going to challenge myself with this. I don't understand.

Speaker 2:

Everybody is talking about AI. To challenge myself with this. I don't understand. Everybody is talking about AI. Ai is impacting every industry. Let me see how we can understand but also apply it to where we are and as a business, and then go and apply this from a commercial perspective for our clients and also then share it with the company, the team that you manage, and so on and so on. But this is why the character of leaders I see all the time they have that curious mind. Okay, what's next? Where can I find excitement? In the unknown, where most people are in the comfort zone, where the leaders are like you know what? It's something that I don't know about. Let me just learn about it so I can have new conversation, build something new and innovate Beautiful. So you're in London. We need to know how did you find yourself in innovate Right Beautiful? So you, you know you're in London. We need to know how did you find yourself in London, right.

Speaker 1:

So when I knew it was time for me to go and this was somewhere, you know, around the tail end of COVID and part of part of what happened is I had an argument with my manager and that's when I decided like okay, it's time for me to go, like I cannot work with this particular person, and um, so what I did and one thing my felt that fellowship experience taught me was that location, location, location, like location matters almost. It's like real estate. That's the rule of real estate, right? So what I did is I made a list of five cities and I told myself, okay, I'm going to find 10 people in each of these cities to network with. And so the cities were London, miami, dc, new York and San Diego, and I started networking in these different geographies and I didn't even get to 10 people in each before I started getting a lot of traction in London.

Speaker 1:

Less of a culture shock, you know, from going directly from Germany to US, like London was like the right good in between you know, some Western culture, I could find a wing stop, you know, but at the same time, I could also have a little bit of European culture and I could travel easily. So, yeah, so I think think you know the current job I have. I maybe started my interview process in August. I think. I signed the paperwork by end of September. By the end of that September I moved to London in January 2023.

Speaker 2:

And then, yeah, hsbc, was it the first move?

Speaker 1:

It was Ah, this is, we would need another podcast for this story but it was actually Silicon Valley Bank. So I joined Silicon Valley Bank UK and Silicon Valley Bank UK collapsed in March 2023, and it was purchased by HSBC for one, for one pound. Remember that? Yeah, exactly right. So now I'm part of hsbc. I really shook everybody.

Speaker 2:

I remember I mean, this wasn't miles away when that happened, it was not long ago but I remember that the what I love the most is that how everybody came together right to really try to fix this and people were thinking I'm banking, what's going to happen, and everybody really came together and that was something that I really love about the space, the tech space and what we really want to make aware, because we know the ecosystem is all of us and we all get affected by it, and I thought that was just beautiful to see.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, exactly, exactly. Ecosystem right, it's all of us and we'll get affected by it. I thought that was just beautiful to see, absolutely, exactly, exactly. Um, yeah, so many people reached out that weekend just to check on me personally and you know, I had just moved here and I mean, I think already by that sunday or monday, people were kind of offering me jobs, or at least offering me conversations about jobs. So I wasn't worried about myself and I think, like most of the people here, it was okay. What about the clients?

Speaker 1:

So, as I was preparing for work that Monday, that's when the news came out that HSBC purchased the bank and so, yeah, it was back to work and, yeah, I think the past year has been past year and maybe a few months has been really, really exciting. My work at the bank focuses on health tech, so I bank typically companies that have raised at least a Series A and yeah, I would say probably the UK's best health tech companies are in my portfolio and that's I mean we're a commercial bank. So, at the end of the day, it's opening up a bank account, it's making sure you have, you know, a really good deposit structure set up so you can extend your cash right way out. Get some interest on your funds, and then it's loans, you know. So financing to support your equity raise, and that's really the core of the work.

Speaker 2:

Can I ask you a question, dominique? What do you believe is the most preconceived ideas or misconceptions people have about related to the work that you do, honestly talking about businesses? But what do you think people need to get a grasp of and they haven't?

Speaker 1:

Well, the number one question we get asked is is do you invest?

Speaker 2:

yeah, that's so true, because banks are not good for being, you know, investors or maybe risky investors, and it can't be because it's people's money, right, all right, so people don't think about, okay, I'm going to start a business, I'm going to think about the bank to support me, this is where I put my money, and so on.

Speaker 1:

Right. So that's the number one question, and I think people get mixed up in that because we support startups and scale-ups and because we provide financing that supports equity. But it's not equity, it's debt, or what we would call venture debt, and the bar for venture debt it's actually pretty high. So we're not the kind of bank that's just going to give people loans and expect a founder to use their house or their car as collateral. We don't work like that. The collateral is going to be IP in the business. We don't work like that. The collateral is going to be IP in the business. We're going to de-risk based on the cash that you already have. We're going to de-risk based on the space. We're going to de-risk based upon the investors that you have on your cap table.

Speaker 1:

Probably what people should know, I think also for the UK, especially in healthcare, where companies have the most challenges going from startup to scale up. So I think part of it is because the venture capital trust system generally ends around series A and that creates a little bit of a scenario where companies have to be very creative for their Series B and their later fundraising rounds. And yeah, it's something that I think this ecosystem, that's the next step for this ecosystem to evolve, to scale up and I think so if I were to future cast, that's the next iteration for tech and definitely for health tech in this ecosystem. It's moving from startup to scale up and I think part of that is supported by UKRI. So I think they have five billion pounds available to deploy over the next up until 2030 to support scale ups. So there's already an Innovate UK.

Speaker 1:

The Angels in London and in the UK are amazing. So, like this early ecosystem, volume and activity is amazing. But we have to take this a step further, you know, to a real scale-up kind of a market. Yeah, so that's, that's what's next.

Speaker 2:

I love it. So what about you in terms of Dominic? You know the, the ambitious, the curious, the innovator and knowledgeable. And what? What is the? What is the legacy that you would like to build or continue to build? I mean, you, you're not old, so we're not going to say in terms of what's left. You're not old, so we're not going to say in terms of what's left of it so first you give me all the flattery, then you call me old.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, I think what's next? I think you know the last point around building an ecosystem. So I actually have a report coming out in the next few weeks talking about the space and moving from startup to scale up and with recommendations from for investors, for founders, to kind of take that next step. Uh, I think that's going to be part of it. I think everything else, wait and see. You know, I think I, you can tell us everything.

Speaker 2:

I'm confused. Yeah, I can't.

Speaker 1:

And this is public. You know, If you and I were just having a drink or coffee, you may get a little bit more, but everything else, wait and see.

Speaker 2:

You said you and my radar, and I will call you, Don't worry, you have this conversation. I said, dominica, it's such a pleasure to speak to you and I think we've learned so much about the journey of you know, starting from. You know from a very lovable and not so, not so wealthy, you know, not not coming from wealth, that's what I should say and then making it make sure that you tap into the opportunities available to you and you know the definition of work, work and you know the results will follow. And you know keeping that curious mind. Curious mind, that's where opportunities and growth happens being comfortable with the unknown and getting yourself out of your comfort zone and understanding where the market is going, but able to showcase that to really help your clients achieve and succeed. This has been a beautiful interview and I really enjoy speaking with you and I come with to have you back.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, flavellas, it's been my pleasure.

Speaker 2:

No, all mine To all my listeners. I hope that you enjoyed this episode. I think it's one of them that you have to listen to it twice, to be honest, we all have to listen to them twice, twice, to be honest, we all have to listen to them twice. And obviously, dominic is reachable on linkedin, but please don't harass him. But you know who. It's up to you and we might meet you meet him at the next. What's the? What's the thing that you call the, the thing where you can do public speaking.

Speaker 2:

Again, it's called oh, toastmasters, yeah again and I think it's a great way as well to learn. But I hope that you enjoy this podcast and I will see you very, very soon. See you next Sunday. Bye, Thank you for joining us on this episode of Black Rise. We hope that you found this conversation as inspiring as we did. Share your takeaways on social media and tag us as we wrap up. Remember that you can always stay connected with us. Join us on this journey of elevation, motivation and empowerment. Let stay connected with us. Join us on this journey of elevation, motivation and empowerment. Let's rise together, break barriers and create lasting change. Subscribe now to stay updated with our latest episodes and visit theblackrisecom to find out more. This is Black Rise, where excellence and impact converge to redefine the future. Until next time, keep rising.