Ali Parsa

Ali Parsa is a British entrepreneur of Iranian origin.

He studied civil engineering at University College London and graduated in 1987. He stayed on to do a PhD, specialising in the physics of fluids. He was the recipient of the Royal Award for the Young Entrepreneur of the year in 1993 for founding his first business, V&G,[1] Victorian and Gilan (1990-1995). The firm built from scratch a quality media clientele including the Times, Guardian, Telegraph, Observer, Readers Digest, BBC, the National Magazine Company and the Thomson Group and grew revenue, profitability, and retained capital substantially year-on-year. In 1995, Ali received from HRH, the Prince of Wales, the Royal Award for the Best Young Business in UK, selected from a group of 14,600 young companies. Para sold V&G in 1995 to join Credit Suisse First Boston as an investment banker. He later moved to Merrill Lynch and then Goldman Sachs.

He set up [2] Circle in 2004 to become Europe's largest partnership of clinicians, with some £200m of annualised revenue, near 3000 employees and a successful IPO. Parsa is an advocate of more private-sector involvement in the NHS, believing it improves efficiency, profitability and quality of healthcare.[3]

After a successful Initial public offering [1] Parsa stepped down as Chief Executive in December 2012 to commit more time to other ventures involving social entrepreneurship.[4] Margaret Hodge MP claimed that he had been sacked, but he denied it. He agreed that as non-exec Director he would get £40,000 and that he had a 2.4% stake in the business.[5]

Parsa launched babylon (www.babylonhealth.com), a mobile healthcare app, in April 2014.[6] This is a subscription based health app that lets users book a virtual GP consultation with a professional clinician in seconds, have that consultation in minutes, and collect relevant prescriptions within an hour from a pharmacy of their choice. babylon also provides an in-app messaging service called Ask, and through this feature users can text any health-related questions to a healthcare professional, with answers provided inside three hours. The app is soon to launch Monitor, the most comprehensive health tracking service available on mobile. Through Monitor, users will be able to track their symptoms, their exercise, and their general health goals, it is designed to sync with existing health monitoring devices and apps. Through babylon users have access to healthcare professionals 12 hours a day, six days per week.[7] It has a monitoring system that encourages tracking of the health of the subscriber.

He was named by the Times among the 100 global people to watch in 2012, and by Health Service Journal among the 50 most influential people in UK healthcare. Parsa is the UK Cabinet Office Ambassador for Mutuals.[1]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Imagine Medicine". Retrieved 8 May 2014.
  2. ↑ "Once a physicist: Ali Parsa". Institute of Physics. Retrieved 8 May 2014.
  3. ↑ "Ali Parsa: Government should not be running hospitals". The Telegraph. 4 Aug 2012. Retrieved 8 May 2014.
  4. ↑ "Hinchingbrooke: Ali Parsa steps down as chief executive". BBC News. 4 December 2012. Retrieved 21 December 2013.
  5. ↑ "PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE". House of Commons. 10 December 2012. Retrieved 3 October 2014.
  6. ↑ "New venture for former Circle boss". Sunday Times. 2 June 2013. Retrieved 21 December 2013.
  7. ↑ "Ali Parsa's Babylon app puts a doctor in your pocket.". Wired. 2 May 2014. Retrieved 3 October 2014.

External links