Genevieve Barnard Oni: A Healthcare Visionary Transforming Medical Diagnosis in Nigeria

By Simeon Onoja Genevieve Barnard Oni: A Healthcare Visionary Transforming Medical Diagnosis in Nigeria

Genevieve Barnard Oni is the CFO/Co-Founder of MDaaS Global. The idea for healthtech came to her and her co-founder during their time at MIT. They wanted to make world-class medical diagnoses available to everyday people in Africa. And this desire to impact lives led to the launch of MDaaS.

Genevieve is currently running an MBA/MPA dual degree programme at MIT Sloan and Harvard Kennedy School, with a major in finance and operations. Prior to graduate school, Genevieve worked at the UN Development Program in Uganda, served as Program Manager for Babson College’s Global Healthcare Entrepreneurship program, and was Associate Director of the Kletjian Foundation, an organization working to improve global access to surgical care. She has an undergraduate degree in Public Health and African Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

Business Elites Africa sat with this healthcare visionary on some crucial issues.

What inspired the launch of MDaaS Global?

I am one of four co-founders, and I think each of us has our own kind of connection to this problem and some inspiration for why we wanted to work in the healthcare space.

I think for me, coming out of school and thinking about what I’d want to do with my career. I really liked the idea of baking something impactful into what I do every day and not working another job and saying, ‘Okay, you know, maybe in 10 years, I’ll get to switch into something that I feel is really impact-focused’. And so I felt like the healthcare space, in particular, is one area where you could really have an impact on people’s lives every single day. That was really attractive to me. I also was drawn to the healthcare space because there’s a lot of interesting innovation from time to time.

And the impact of that innovation is helping people to address health issues, helping them to live healthier, happier and longer lives.

How did you tackle funding in the early days of MDaaS?

It all depends on how how much fund you’re trying to raise in your seed rounds.

We started the company while we were still students at MIT. So two of my co-founders are also MIT graduates.

I think that was really great for the early stages because when you’re on campus and have access to lots of great mentors and booster resources, it’s easier to get some kind of initial funding to test ideas out. So a lot of our early funding came from competitions on campus and different kinds of applications that we submitted, which helped to pilot our passion into the early version of MdaaS.

Another place that we looked at was family and friends. Those are the people that love you and don’t necessarily need to know that you’re going to have a million or a billiondollar idea in the future, but they believe in you and believe in your passion for how you want to make the world better.

That was another big place that we were able to get some of our very early funding from. And then we also got some early funding from accelerator programs. So, we went through the Techstars program in 2018, which not only gives you some funding but also equips you with a ton of amazing tools to help you fundraise in the future and really think strategically about how to operate your business.

What’s your secret weapon for maintaining cash flow for the company?

As a business, cash obviously is the king. One of our core values at MdaaS is to always act on data and be a very data-driven company.

I think that is probably the biggest component of how we think about cash and how we ensure that we’re maintaining a good cash flow. We collect a lot of different operational and financial data every single day at our company. And that really helps us to kind of keep a constant pulse on what’s going on with our existing operations and how we’re planning for the future. I’m also the CFO of the company. I love doing cash flow projections and financial modelling, looking into different potential scenarios as to what the next month or a quarter or a year might look like.

So I think having that card in your back pocket, knowing what kind of changes I can make to my plan if we end up in a scenario where there are a lot of uncertainties or we’re not able to fundraise as quickly as we think we would, can be really helpful in every case.

Tell us about your new product SentinelX

Accessing and affording comprehensive diagnostic screening can help people understand their health better and make plans for the future. And that’s the idea with the Sentinel X product.

We really wanted to democratise access to preventive screening, ongoing care and support. So with this program, you can sign up, it has an annual subscription fee that gives you access for the entire year. And you get a really comprehensive diagnostic screening as soon as you sign up.

So you kind of get that value right away. You work with a doctor that helps walk you through all of your different results. We do a bunch of different tests, looking at about 65 different types of biomarkers. And then, after going through that screening and looking at the results, you work with the SentinelX team to figure out actionable steps that can address any issues that come up.

And then we actually check in with you every single month to see how the plan is going, where you need support, and if there’s a need for any repeat testing. How did MDaaS navigate the

economic challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic?

The past 18 months have been a period of a lot of stress and uncertainty. That’s something that we definitely experienced. So for us, you know, we did kind of experience a pretty big reduction in the number of patients we saw during all of those lockdown months.

That was around March, April, May, when movements were really restricted and people were having trouble getting to the hospital or health centre, even if they had an acute issue. We decided to pause some of our expansion plans to help kind of maintain our cash in the bank so that we could outlast the pandemic.

What has been your worst day as an entrepreneur and how did you deal with it?

I think this is like a human selfpreservation thing, I can’t think of any single terrible day that really stands out.

I think partially because your brain blocks those a little bit, so that you can get up the next day and keep going. I will however say one of the tough things I’ve struggled with is as an entrepreneur was uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but, as an entrepreneur, there’s basically uncertainty all the time.

Right. You’re creating something that’s new and has never existed before. And I think for me that was one of the most challenging parts of being an entrepreneur. There’s constant pressure of knowing that we have so many people now in our organization that are depending on us for their livelihoods and for their family’s livelihoods, that we have a lot of patients and doctors that are all depending on us to continue to deliver.

Photo Source: MDaaS

I think that one of the most wonderful things about the work that we do is knowing that we are able to impact people every single day. And, that in itself is another form of pressure you have to successfully manage.

What do you enjoy the most about being an entrepreneur?

A lot of the things that make being an entrepreneur really, really stressful are the things that make it really wonderful as well.

So it’s two sides of one coin. I love getting to work with my team. I love working with my co-founders as well as all of the wonderful team members. Building an organization from the ground up is extremely rewarding and gives you a lot of options in thinking about your clients as well as what you want the future to look like for your organisation.

How do you relieve stress?

Soga is my co-founder as well as my husband. We both last year got really into running, especially with the COVID-19 lockdown. We were basically sitting in our living room 24/7 and dealing with all of the stress and uncertainty that came with the pandemic. We found a lot of stress relief in running.

We’re part of a really wonderful run group in Lagos, where we meet up with friends and go for a run. I love that because it’s just this time where you can get outside, move your body and let your brain think about something totally different.

We also do home brewing. We make our own beer. And so that’s something that’s totally unrelated to the work that we do, and is really fun. You get to experiment, you get to create something. So that’s been another great way for us to spend time together as life partners and business partners

What would you say you admire most about him as a co-founder?

We’re similar in some ways, and then we are very, very different in other ways. One thing I really admire in Soga is his ability to step back and see the big picture. He’s the one who often reminds me that this is a marathon, not a sprint. And I think that part of his skill set is being able to really take a step back and find a different perspective. I think Soga is really great at finding the balance between the extremes of the work that we do.