AllAfrica's Juanita Williams talked with Nigerian entrepreneur Temie Giwa-Tubosun, who not only built her healthcare, technology and logistics company Lifebank from the ground up in Nigeria, but expanded to Kenya and Ethiopia within five years. Read AllAfrica's feature piece on Lifebank's Temie Giwa-Tubosun - here. See below the full transcript of the interview.
TGT: I started life bank because of a very difficult birth of my son. You know, before I got married, and started work, I'd already been very committed to healthcare, to building a better world for women, particularly women who give birth, that was sort of like my professional commitment. It wasn't personal at all, it was just, I felt like it was the right thing to do. And I did it. So I worked out at World Health Organisation UNDP, I worked on some health systems in the US. But it didn't become like a personal calling, and all-encompassing calling, until I had a very difficult birth with my child as well. And sort of like his birth was sort of like the inspiration to dedicate my entire professional personal life to trying to figure out a path to resolve a maternal death once and for all. I had discovered that the highest cause of maternal death was and it still is postpartum haemorrhage. Basically, a mom gives birth, and then she starts bleeding. And also, after birth, I was on bed rest. So I had a lot of time on my hands. And I was researching. And I also found that, you could say four out of five women were delivering, were going to die from postpartum haemorrhage. If you simply had blood in the hospital, the blood that matched their blood type for them ready to go. Because it's, it's quite a catastrophic problem, it's a very quick death. But if you simply had blood, you could stall long enough for the body to learn to clot. And for the, you know, for the woman to survive. So I just felt like those are strong odds that I could sort of, like build a business around. And you know, the single story of LifeBank is that we were going to get blood into the hospital, whenever my mom is giving birth, so that we can get that four out of five odds and save lives. So that's sort of like that's been our calling. And that's what we do. Of course, the business as you know, it does a lot more than that, you know, we've started medical oxygen, we've done medical consumables, we're looking at building an entire supply chain for medical supplies across emerging markets. But the inspiration behind that was like the single passion to try and rescue women in childbirth, by making sure that the blood they need was available in the hospital.
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JW: That's amazing, because the continent has quite a high maternal mortality rate. And my son was also born prematurely and was in hospital for a month so i can i can identify with your decision also to dedicate yourself to that kind of work. You you say that you you've expanded into medical oxygen as well. And I mean, it's you know, it's not a proper interview if we don't mention Covid-19 and how the pandemic has impacted your plans and your trajectory for the business.
TGT: Absolutely, like any business, well, anyone Covid-19 was quite a shock. And of course, we all had to respond in the ways we knew best. Luckily for the world, and for us, Lifebank had started the business, the work around medical oxygen a year before Covid-19 started. So the inspiration for that was the particular doctor who worked in sort of like one of this last mile states in Nigeria who died because the hospital where she actually worked, did not have medical oxygen. And I remember being really struck by a story and and I felt a dedication to try and figure out the existing supply chain. Build the same supply chain we had built for blood, build it for for oxygen as well. It was just, you know, that was a commitment that was the work. And when Covid-19 started, we had already built the relationship, we had built the system, we had built the structure, it was just a simple matter of scaling it to help our country, and also other countries as we respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. So for us, that's the key thing to know, is that, we had already built the model, we just needed to sort of, like expand it, invest in it. We were able to backwards integrate into actual manufacturing ourselves. And we've been able to build a technology that will help predict oxygen demand in hospitals. So these were all innovations that came out of Covid-19. And for us, we're really excited to continue to scale the work of distributing medical oxygen. We were able to move about 1000 cylinders of oxygen to isolation centres to hospitals who are serving Covid-19 patients, and we're able to partner with institutions to make sure that this was free of charge for Covid-19 patients, because it's quite an expensive undertaking. So we were able to sort of like do this impactful distribution system, but post Covid, and in this new normal, we'll continue to serve and grow. And we're working with over 1,200 hospitals now delivering medical oxygen, blood, medical consumables to them across three countries in Africa.
JW: You started in Nigeria, but like you said, now you are in other countries as well. Can you explain how how that expansion happened?
TGT: For me, I think I always had a commitment to women across emerging markets, right? I don't think my commitment was specifically only for Nigerian women or for just African women, I felt like this problem that we're solving and, you know, data supports, that this problem we're solving is not an African problem, it's a problem for the emerging markets, right. And the institution that we built, and the supply chain we've been able to build is around making sure that you build a supply chain that can scale, that is scalable to different countries. So as soon as we we felt that we had built this thorough business, we are sort of I worked out all the kinks, we now felt like able to expand out to other countries. So we launched in Kenya a year ago, you know, we're going to announce, that we've started operating in Ethiopia for about two months. But we're going to announce LifeBank Ethiopia very soon as well. So for us that sort of like what's very interesting, right? It is, it is just being able to do this work, rescue women, rescue children, rescue everyone that needs our help across countries. We're able to operate in over 12 states and communities. And we're really excited to continue doing that.
JW: And in this timeline, you said you invested but I know that there has been incoming investments, particularly with regard to Prosper Africa, and that investment. How has that investment helped push your company forward?
TGT: Right. So, you know, like any entrepreneur ... capital allows us to do uncommon things. Capital allows us to scale our innovation. So we're always looking at what is the right capital for us by being able to reach investors, we're able to like, do that real to the right investment, that was kill our business. For us. It's all about scale. It's all about proving this model showing that we can, you know, young Africans can gather together and build a business that reaches the last mile, and that gets large, right? So for us investment gives us that capacity to try new things, to expand our innovation, and really drive our impact across the world.
JW: Would you say that the expansion into other countries was driven by some of the investments that you've received?
TGT: Yeah, of course, we were able to partner with I mean, you know, expansion is quite expensive. Like anyone will tell you and you know, being able to get access to those investments allows us to do that expansion in a way that makes sense. You know, we've been able to partner with all different types of institutions, we've gotten, you know, equity, we've gotten debt capital, we've gotten grants capital, right? Non dilutive capital, for us we will continue to serve, like engage and continue to be creative in how we build the right capital stack, for the expansion we need to do.
JW: So if you were to I mean, I want to ask about the challenges that you that your company in your business has faced other than COVID-19 over the years, because you have been operating for quite a time? And yes, you say you need capital, but how do you as as the person in charge, what do you think, has driven you to be the kind of leader that you are?
TGT: You know, I think you've said, you know, facing those challenges, and watching myself, face those challenges, and to build something that is thorough, I think that givesa certain level of confidence that you can, you can continue to scale, right and grow. For me, you know, like anyone building something new in a market, like Africa, they will tell you, that is quite difficult. Right. And, and being a woman, a mother, that adds a certain level of difficulty to do the work, right. Okay, I think those that follows me, right, because, apart from doing this work, rescuing people, building the right supply chain, building the technology that powers the future of healthcare on the continent, I also have a need to show that people will look like me, can do important things, right? Can do great things in the world. And so that we can have a critical mass of young women who, who may be mothers, or maybe they are not, will look like us, you and I, you know, we can have them, you know, solving problems in their communities, because that's how we change the world. So I believe it deeply. And for me, that's an additional push to continue to go build this business, and show, you know, and be that sort of, like, example of what's possible when we do the work.
JW: And what would you say, when you started the business was, was your greatest challenge besides capital? Because I know that the money is usually the biggest issue when it comes to starting your own business, being an entrepreneur...
TGT: I think for me, apart from the capital that you mentioned, for me, in the beginning was infrastructure, right? You know, people will tell you that when, when a company like Amazon started, Amazon was able to easily plug into the infrastructure that was created for the US, you know, the US Postal Service, right? So it wasn't that Amazon had to build a delivery system, right? You know, they were able to just plug in their technology to like an infrastructure that's already present. But for us on the continent, we have to build our own infrastructure, right, because it doesn't exist. And that is quite, you know, taxing for a young person who's trying to build a new way of doing business. And it's quite taxing to your capital as well. Right. So infrastructure was a significant challenge. But now that we've been able to build that supply chain and figure out a way to make sure that is durable and strong. The other challenge we face now is having the right team and scaling our culture, so that you know the business can continue to scale and grow. So a lot of the things that I do now is you know, talking to people, making sure that we're encouraging our team, inspiring them to continue to grow the business and making sure that the culture of Lifebank is very strong, so that when you have Lifebank in Kenya, you have Lifebank in Ethiopia, Lifebank in Durban, you know, if you will, you will be able to have that same feel of what Lifebank feels like. It's a lot of work. It's hard work, but it's a work that allows you to scale very easily.
JW: At the moment is Lifebank, Nigeria, Kenya, and you started in Ethiopia, how many people are you employing at the moment?
TGT: Last time I checked - it changes every day - but last time I checked, we have about 163 people across the three businesses.
JW: Okay, and what kind of people are those? Are they healthcare providers?
TGT: I mean, it's it's quite a lot different types of people, we have pilots, because we use drones to deliver this critical supply. So we have some pilots, we have data people, we have technology, tech people, we have comms, we have delivery people, we have quite a lot of people who just like deliver from point A to point B. And then of course, we have medical experts, pharmacists, you know, people were, you know, dealing with blood, oxygen, engineers, technical engineers. I think Lifebank feels very, very different, right? It's not just one particular type of people. We have everyone from different walks of life.
JW: You take the product from the beginning. So where does it start? So a hospital in Nairobi needs blood. What is the process?
TGT: So the customer journey starts with first inventory. So we work with many suppliers, and they list their inventory on our platform. So everything starts with inventory. So from blood, to oxygen to stock bank, you know, to anything that we do starts with that inventory. And then the next thing is matching that supply that we've got into the demand that hospitals have. So hospitals can call in, we have a 24-hour call centre in all the three countries we operate in, we have hospitals can use our technology for hospices will have access to the Internet. And then for rural hospitals, they can use what we call the USSD shortcode. To request, right, so I suppose then say, I need this many oxygen, I need this much blood, I need this and that, and then our delivery system kicks in, we then match that request from the hospital to the inventory we already have. And then we go to deliver the product at the hospital. It's really that simple. You know, did what I just described has a lot of technology involved, right? There's tech around them, you know, we call it a marketplace, an agile marketplace. And of course, it requires have been quite a lot of people in our tech team working day in day out making sure that marketplace is durable and strong.
JW: Earlier you mentioned that you were using drones - how did you start doing that?
TGT: We don't think that drones should be used to deliver everything, we think there are some strong use cases for delivering via drones. For us, those use cases are cases where the patient doesn't have a lot of time to live. So therefore you want to use the fastest way. We think that using drones is very important when you're trying to reach a very hard to reach area. Sometimes it's like there's a giant mountain between the hospital and the supplier or there is a river there is, you know, whatever it is that makes it difficult to reach a particular locality. And then we think that drones are sometimes faster than say, going around a mountain, or like trying to cross a river, right? Drones can just fly over and arrive very quickly. So those are sort of like the use cases for us in terms of drones. To your question around how did we start it was just we saw that innovation, we had a significant strategy around when to use drones. We did a proof of concept in 2019 in Ethiopia. And now we're building out that capacity, that infrastructure, hiring pilots, getting drones in between our ports, to use this very important resources to reach the last mile. An additional reason why we're looking at drones is greening our, you know, infrastructure. We all have to work hard and make sure that we're saving the planet. So we are trying to also grow our infrastructure from using highly inefficient energy sources, to making sure that we're using battery energy that is more efficient. And that, you know, allows us to save the planet. So those are the kind of two things - drones are important when you're reaching the last mile, when you're reaching the hardest to reach places. And when you're trying to make sure that you're also using green energy, right? It's using more efficient energy sources to do the work that you do.
JW: And your future plans? At the moment, you're just starting out in Ethiopia, but for, for instance, if you were to speak with an investor, what would you say your future plans are, what would you say the next steps for Lifebank are?
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TGT: Oh, it's very simple, we want to continue to grow, grow in terms of the amount of countries we operate in, we have a critical mass of hospitals that we're looking to have. We started with 1200 hospitals, now we want to grow that number to higher and higher. We're looking at 10,000 hospitals, 20,000 hospitals, 300,000 hospitals, and grow exponentially. We're building a system that is highly scalable. And we want to continue to do that. We want to make our supply chain more efficient. When there's an opportunity to backwards integrate and actually produce some of the supply, we want to take the opportunity to do that. And we want to build a very durable marketplace, right? So when you look at Lifebank into the future, you're looking at a one-stop shop for hospitals to get all the resources they need. That is coupled with, you know, financing, distribution, and of course, that is driven by technology.
JW: And some of the technology for hospitals is not made on the continent. Do you have any intentions of possibly expanding into that?
TGT: So for us, we make all our technology on the continent, all our tech team, you know, in Lagos, or Nairobi, or Addis Ababa, so for us, we are a fully African team. But we also want to expand to the rest of the world, right? Like I mentioned earlier, the problem we're solving is a global problem. It's an emerging markets problem. It's not an African problem. So we already are looking at how do we expand to Southeast Asia to South America, or other places that are still emerging. And that can use an agile marketplace infrastructure for healthcare.
JW: I'm always fascinated by people who run businesses and how they remember everything to do with a business. And I think it's got a lot to do with passion, and caring about what what you do. I mean, especially what you said earlier about young women. I see that the team that I've been dealing with are all women, and I mean, that's a reflection of the business as well, that you care about those issues, and that you care about the environment as well. It's about development as well. And I think with businesses like yours, it's really still important to elevate them to show people that this can be done when you care about something. You know, when more than it's more than just about making money and making profits? Is anything else you want to say directly to investors, because I know that Prosper Africa has these rooms where you can go and talk to investors, and, you know, you've successfully gone through that process and received investment.
TGT: You know, to talk to investors, for me, it is, listen, look past the picture in front of you, right? Yes, I'm a woman. Yes, I'm African, I sound African, I look African. But focus on what we've built. Right? Many times, people look at you and say, I don't really actually quite see it, you know, I can't see this person building a large business, right? They can't see it - they don't know why they can't see it. But for me, my request to investors is look past who you're looking at, and look at what we've built in the last seven years, how we've grown, how we've proven the model, and how we've expanded. And for me that that is what matters, right? I don't sit here and say, you know, back when because I'm a woman, you know, I say back me when because do something that is great. Back me because we're going to be greater still, right, and we're going to prove once and for all that people who look like us can do this work.
For us in terms of any investment we get, our goal is to continue to expand it. Continue building technology that matters, continue to be at the forefront of innovation. And you know we have a significant higher R&D (research and development) budget and we're really excited to continue building forward looking innovation that we really, really solves problems across our communities. It's not enough to just save lives. We also want to save lives sustainably. And that's what we're trying to do.
JW: Thank you so much to me for your time.
TGT: It was great talking to you.
