A day in the life of Aster’s Alisha Moopen as she gets candid on her foray into healthcare

Gulf News

She is the Deputy Managing Director of Aster DM Healthcare that runs 697 facilities across seven countries, including nine hospitals, 96 clinics and 222 pharmacies in the UAE. A US-educated chartered accountant with a Big Four background in consulting from the UK, she is a Young Global Leader with the World Economic Forum, Founder & Vice-Chairwoman of the Dubai Healthcare Business Group and Chairperson of the Dubai Chapter of the Young President’s Organisation (YPO) that has 27,000 chief executives from over 130 countries on board. And yes, she is a doting mum of three, a committed wife and daughter and a fitness freak who loves to cook, read and travel too.  Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/uae/a-day-in-the-life-of-asters-alisha-moopen-as-she-gets-candid-on-her-foray-into-healthcare-1.91516457  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV  #UAEnews #dubai #healthcare

Transcript

00:00It's so fulfilling and it's such a nice, warm feeling, honestly, because we know that

00:07at the end of the day, every single touchpoint of ours is directly impacting someone's life

00:13positively.

00:17My day usually begins, I'm not a morning person, so I stay up very late, 7.30 is usually

00:27when my kids are going to school and they're like, I'm a mom of three.

00:32So it's really sweet because it begins with my two kids coming in, giving me a big hug

00:37and kiss and saying, bye mommy, we're going.

00:40So this wakes me up.

00:41So I usually get up with their hugs and kisses, which is nice.

00:46So at least by the time I wake up, the house is nice and quiet.

00:50But then all the, you know, the day starts busy because by that time I'm just kind of

00:55catching, I start the day with just kind of making sure I remind myself, okay, what

01:01all am I doing for the day?

01:02What are the meetings which are scheduled?

01:04Things have changed so much in the last two years, right?

01:06So for me, it's a real hybrid between online meetings because I manage a lot of the GCC

01:12business.

01:13So GCC business earlier when I was managing, it was more, how do I go out there every two

01:17months, every three months, and how do I kind of be on the ground?

01:21Whereas that's completely shifted.

01:23So now I'm able to be in touch with them on a daily, weekly basis.

01:26I do have a nice variation of connecting with the teams which are remote, as well as trying

01:34to be with the teams here.

01:35One of the nice things that's happened after COVID is now we go to them.

01:40We don't ask anyone to come to the corporate office anymore.

01:42We're like, we want to be again, closer to our people, closer to where the action is.

01:47It's a little bit more commute for me, but what is nicer is I'm closer to the teams in

01:54our own units.

01:56Internally, I probably have around four to five meetings in a day.

02:01And then I usually have three, four external meetings.

02:04So it's meeting with the key stakeholders.

02:07As a public company, we still have a lot of investors and those kinds of stakeholders

02:11that you engage with.

02:14And then some meaningful doctor interactions, senior doctors.

02:21So those are kind of the external facing meetings which happen and quite a few of them.

02:27I think one of the other interesting ones which has been coming more recently is with

02:31the shift we're trying to do with digital, there's a lot more conversation on what's

02:35happening in digital.

02:37And that involves meeting a whole lot of different set of stakeholders, which I probably would

02:42not have met earlier.

02:44I try to sort of block meetings typically from nine, nine-ish till around five o'clock.

02:53I try to then see how I can spend at least a couple of hours with the kids because the

02:58little one still goes to sleep at around 7.30 now.

03:01So that's my usual time to at least while he's there for dinner.

03:05So we try to do dinner together.

03:07It's becoming increasingly challenging to again, to get my teenage son there.

03:11He's like, mom, I'm not hungry.

03:12I'm like, yeah, you're always hungry.

03:15So that's a bit hard.

03:17And then I have my daughter.

03:18She's just eagerly waiting for dinner time because she likes that family time together.

03:23So I try to have sort of six to eight with the kids, five.

03:27If meetings finish by the time I get around to them, it's around six.

03:31So a couple of hours with the kids and that's when after that is when I go to the gym.

03:36So I have early dinners.

03:38We eat at 6.30.

03:39So my gym is usually 8.30 or 9.00, which is not recommended.

03:45But I've realized that I need to do something that works for me.

03:49I've tried to do getting up at 6.30, 7.00 and then I'm like dead before the day even

03:56starts.

03:57So for me, I'm like, this works.

03:58And I've done this for so long that I'm happy going at 8.30, I finish at 9.30, 10.

04:05And then I work a couple of hours after that.

04:08It helps me kind of reflect, think about what needs to be done, my prioritization.

04:15And by that time, again, the whole world is a bit quieter.

04:17So it's easier for me to kind of distill and focus because, you know, you're sitting with

04:23500 emails in the inbox and I'm not going to be able to respond to 500.

04:28But at least how do I choose the 20 that I need to attend to?

04:32I typically have a three week schedule, which is kind of locked in.

04:35The couple of other responsibilities that I'm engaged with, I mean, I'm the chairperson

04:40for the YPO Dubai chapter for this year, almost 100 CEOs in that group.

04:45And we plan a learning calendar for a full year there.

04:49For me as the chair, I meet once a month, at least for the board.

04:55I meet within my smaller group once a month as well.

04:59So that's two meetings right there.

05:02And then there are five to seven learning events that are happening every month.

05:08So it depends which ones relate to me and which ones I want to attend.

05:11I founded this group, the Dubai Healthcare Business Group, which has representations

05:16from all the healthcare providers within Dubai, which represents almost 80% of this market.

05:26And I'm the managing director for that.

05:29So that also kind of takes up a reasonable amount of time, hence the three week planning

05:34becomes necessary.

05:36Then I became part of the World Economic Forum.

05:39I'm one of the young global leaders.

05:40So again, that's a community which I'm reasonably active in, again, all healthcare

05:45agendas, but more on a global basis, whereas the Dubai Healthcare Business Group is much

05:50more on a regional basis.

05:51I still work over the weekends.

05:52I enjoy, I mean, for me, work really, it drives me.

05:57So I, for me, it doesn't feel like working.

06:02But I do relax over the weekend.

06:04I have, I grew up here in Dubai.

06:06I have so many friends.

06:08I am very active.

06:14And this is a constant tussle I have with, you know, with myself, because the whole idea

06:22of how do I make sure that my involvement is strategic, but also not just at a 30,000

06:29feet, but also having the pulse on the ground.

06:32And that's something which I've learned very closely watching the chairman and my father,

06:37because it's not important just to kind of have an idea and a vision of what we want

06:41to do, but it's really about knowing what's happening on the ground and what the pulse

06:46on the ground is.

06:47And especially in this world, it's changing so quickly, especially in healthcare, things

06:52are so dynamic.

06:54I think it's really important not just to kind of go on past trends, because that's

06:59what will happen when you end up being too far away from where the action is.

07:03At this point, where I've been in, where we're sitting at 35 years into the organization,

07:09we are very well established, we're quite big.

07:12So it's really very important to be able to strike that right balance, at least for me,

07:17what I try to do is make sure that I'm not micromanaging, but also I know what's happening

07:22so that I can be more aware about what are the best decisions to take, depending on what's

07:29going on in the world, and for the organization, as we see how healthcare is evolving and how

07:34people's behaviors are changing.

07:36It's so fulfilling, and it's such a nice, warm feeling, honestly, because we know that

07:43at the end of the day, every single touchpoint of ours is directly impacting someone's life

07:49positively, making them either cure, get better, or stay well.

07:56So we feel very, very passionate about this cause, and being able to be right there, positively

08:05being able to touch someone's life.

08:07I'm a chartered accountant, so I used to try and make myself think, this is really nice,

08:14I'm making sure the health of the economy is good, because I'm making sure that the

08:18health of the company is nice by all these balance sheets being audited well, and all

08:24the consulting work.

08:26But at the end of the day, for me, personally, it wasn't fulfilling enough.

08:31I needed something which was much more powerful, which much more resonated with me, and I guess

08:36part of it was I grew up in this family where it was all about what can we do in this community,

08:42how can we contribute, how can we serve.

08:45So for me, every morning, it's amazing waking up knowing that, hey, what can we do today,

08:54which means someone else will have a better day.

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