Digital & Consumer Experience – Learning from Other Industries (ft. Shiva Mirhosseini)

Thanks for tuning to Digital Voices podcast, where we chat digital transformation, challenges, and opportunities across healthcare and life sciences. And now, your host, Ed Marx.

Welcome to another episode of Digital Voices. Super excited to talk about digital and consumer experience. We have just a great, great, phenomenal leader with us today to talk about this. And she comes with us with an amazing background, as you'll hear about. So I won't spoil anything as we get going, but we want to really focus on what can we learn from some of the other industries that are part of healthcare, some may not be, but how we can bring that into the digital experience for our patients and our members. And so really excited to talk about that. But first, Meaghan, wanted to ask you, what are some great digital experiences that you have outside of healthcare, like any sort of In retail or any other areas where you've had like this great experience that you kind of wish we could have in healthcare?

That's a tough question because I mean, I feel like everything is really digital now, right? But anything that really makes it more personalized for me, real-time data, you know, anything that gives me more control over whatever it is that I'm trying to do, whether it's, you know, my health or shopping, you know, personalized suggestions on things that I might like. I can't tell you just how helpful that can be.

Yeah, that's great.

Very indirect. answer, but, you know, digital helps in all— in so many ways, right?

It's kind of like you just kind of an expectation today, right, that you have. And yet when we go to our healthcare providers, it's not quite the same. And so that's really what we want to help change and why we have my friend Shiva Mirasani joining us today. And so hopefully I did all right on your name, Shiva, but welcome to our podcast.

Thank you. Thank you, Ed. I really appreciate the invitation. I'm really humbled to be amongst many wonderful guests that you bring to this podcast. So, uh, thank you for your time, but also most importantly, our audiences. It's nice to virtually and by voice meet everybody.

So, Shiva, we first met a year or so ago, maybe a year and a half. And so at the time, you were leading some digital practice at CVS, and we were putting together this virtual conference on Digital Voices. And you were one of our fabulous guests. And so we got connected there. And your message really resonated with our audience. We had 500 individuals, mostly chief digital officers or people who report up to them across the healthcare industry join us. And I know there was tons of interaction and commentary while you were speaking that was flying around there on social media. So I thought to myself, wow, I need to stay connected with you. You're a great, like I said, leader and thinker in the area of digital experience. And so I had to have you on our podcast.

Thank you.

What we always do, as you know, is we ask our guests what's on their playlist. So what songs are, are you currently listening to?

I have a 5-year-old son who is obsessed with tigers. So as you can imagine, Eye of the Tiger is, uh, is the thing that this song playing on my phone and, uh, in the house. So I love that song. And I actually, it's funny because of my son. I pay more attention to the lyrics and it's absolutely uplifting and beautiful. So it's one of those classics.

Yeah, no, that's great. Love it. What about your passion or life mantra? Is there something that— words that you live by type of thing?

Yeah. I mean, for me it's all about growth mindset. I love, again, and it's expressed differently by different companies. You know, Amazon says every day is day one. very much resonates with me. When I was at Wayfair, mantra was, you know, if you do your job right, your job is never done because there's always opportunities for improvement and iteration and innovation. And so, I really take that to heart as a professional, but also as a person, as a mom, as a, you know, thought leader, all about learning, continuous learning, continuously challenging myself, which I think if done right, really, you know, every day is day one and your job is never done.

Great advice. What about your story? So tell us a little bit about who you are. You can go as deep as you want on your personal side, professional side. But if someone were to say, wow, this person sounds pretty cool, I want to know more about her, how would you describe yourself?

I would probably start at the beginning with my story of being an immigrant coming to the US and speaking a word of English. I came here with my family when I was 19 and lost my dad to cancer. And I've written about this. He was misdiagnosed about a year after we arrived. And I think all of that was a pretty phenomenal and transformative experience so early in life. And of course, there's, there are a lot more amusing stories about immigrants. But I think for me personally, having so much change all at once and being introduced to a world where you can make it what you want was quite amazing at that early time in my life, really my formation. But again, going with that immigrant mindset, with that growth mindset, I mean, I'm really good at bootstrapping and reinventing and reimagining opportunities, both for myself, as well as companies that I've joined. And it's funny enough, if you look at my background professionally, you're like, oh my God, Shiva, you have been in all these amazing organizations in so many different industries. I mean, you have been in news media at Wall Street Journal, Fox. You have been in management consulting, investment banking, venture capital. And then in the past, I want to say 10 or 15 years, mostly for focused on digital transformation, but also in different kind of, you know, verticals from retail, e-commerce, wafer, or financial services at MassMutual or healthcare, you know, from a payer and retail side of the house, Aetna and CVS. And I'd say, yeah, I mean, my life personally and professionally has been a story in iteration. And I love that about it. I'm, I'm in the midst of a very exciting change right now as I left CVS and I'm helping transform, you know, startups as an advisor. I'm on the board of AAA, which is one of the best-known brands in the US with some 60 million members across the US and Canada, but also as an investor in high-tech, health tech, digital health, and really focusing on women leaders and women entrepreneurs and techies. It's more of a reaffirmation, if you would, a reiteration of what is true to my heart in terms of value, in terms of how I apply myself to the world. Again, the genesis of it is that growth and immigrant mindset is bootstrapping and building from, from the ground up, even if it is within large organizations. So in a way, I'm an intrapreneur by vocation, you know, having worked in large organizations, but always building new disciplines and programs and teams in those large organizations.

Yeah, Shiva, you have a great Great story. And what you've done with your story is just remarkable and obviously why I'm really happy to be your friend and have you as a guest.

Let—

you mentioned Wayfair. Let's talk about that a little bit now with when we think about consumer experience, digital experience, you know, are there any things from Wayfair that, that you worked on or that Wayfair was doing that might help in healthcare? Some projects you may have led?

There's a ton in retail that over the past decade or so, e-commerce has been happening and has been already applied in different shapes or forms to healthcare. And I've been one of those operators that brought kind of that e-commerce customer experience, that multichannel, if not omnichannel personalized experience that Wayfair really was one of the pioneers of. I was leading product management there, but working very much closely and side by side as a team with our data science team, because when it came to product discovery, it was all about personalization and really taking advantage of every kind of mouse scroll or movement on the website. And I'm sure across all of the social channels as well, to really personalize and put the right product in front of the right customer at the right time. And really, again, making every touchpoint and every connection matter. Because we live in a day and age that people are bombarded by a ton of data and distracted. And so if a brand has honestly the honor of getting a few seconds of eyeball or time of someone, especially comes through search, of course there's so much more anticipation for that kind of channel or that kind of experience to convert. But so again, going back to the genesis of personalization. I think Wayfair and our data science team and our product team did a great job of bringing that to play. And this is, you know, almost 10 years ago.

Yeah.

Fast forward to today. I mean, we, like at, at Aetna, we brought a lot of that to serving our 65-year-old plus in the Medicare community. And one of the products that I helped kind of develop was this need assessment tool, which was essentially by asking only 5 questions from You know, that part of the population, putting them in touch with the right product and making the product discovery, the health insurance discovery, a lot faster, easier, and more delightful for them. So that's just one example of that application of personalized experience.

It's funny that you mentioned, you know, one of the examples that you gave was from 10 years ago, because we still don't have that by and large in healthcare, that personalization, certainly not hyper-personalization. And I just think about all of the— what do we call them— digital front doors that you see today. They all look the same. They have like 20 different tiles. But you know what? I only use 3 tiles.

Yeah.

So why do you keep presenting me with these 17 other tiles? I could certainly find them if I need them, but it takes up all the screen space and it makes it for a difficult user experience. And you're like, man, I've been on this portal for 3 years and you still don't know that these are the 3 things that I look into. It's, it's simple things like that. And, you know, as you were talking, I was just thinking, just, I don't wanna be pessimistic. So we wanna, you know, we're gonna change here to be optimistic, but it's just like, wow, we still have a long ways to go cuz hardly anyone's really thinking about like—

That is so true. That is so true, Ed. And I think part of it is because the skill sets and, you know, we have talked about the great migration or just the few people, and I'm sure this resonates with your audience, the skill sets to apply those creatively, but also technically viable, you know, in a viable way to a healthcare consumer, it has been quite difficult. I mean, I've been on the receiving end of it, trying to recruit people because I built a product management team in the healthcare, you know, facing both the B2B and the B2C and also Medicaid, you know, serving the states. It's really difficult. And you apply that across all these different companies, but also— hundreds, if not thousands of startups that are also searching for those talents make it even more difficult. And I think that's probably why those companies that do a better job, it doesn't have to be the best or the greatest, you know, that's why iteration, even minute iterations matter a lot. They can actually capture the minds and hearts of the consumers and the members. And it goes a long way because NPS, You know, the Net Promoter Score has become a very large kind of type of valuable metric for even the healthcare organizations to look at what the experience at any point of time with the member, with the patient might look like. And it has its, you know, it has its benefits and shortcomings as well, because NPS is very episodic. At any point of time you're asking, you know, about someone's experience. But overall, I think that more of those retail metrics are really being transformed to this, the healthcare world as well.

Yeah. You made me think of a couple of things, but I want, I want to shift here in a second to leadership, but the gap for an engineer, for a developer that's looking for an exciting opportunity, and they're going to look at different industries and if they see an industry that's really far behind, not doing as like cool things that you might do in like the retail space, they might not be attracted to it. And then that gap becomes even wider is what I'm afraid. So you really have to, as a leader, you have to really go at the mission, I think, and appeal to individuals' desire to have meaningful work. And not that the other isn't meaningful, but certainly healthcare is kind of the next level, at least for me, and has been for me, you know, in terms of, you know, what I'm doing each day is helping to improve the life of someone, maybe saving their life. And so that's how we might appeal to them. And I think the hope is, as you were describing with NPS and then 5-star ratings, these things that are starting to impact reimbursement are going to kind of force healthcare to kind of step up our acceleration of digital transformation and maybe close that gap a little faster. So I have a lot of hope still. We have a little ways to go. And it's great to have individuals like you who've got that experience from the other side in consumer digital experience and can help bring that to healthcare and help other organizations. Shiva, you mentioned leadership and specifically women in leadership, and that's sort of an area of passion for you. What advice would you have for— it could be for any type of leader, but you mentioned for women specifically. So however you'd like to answer it, what advice would you have for women maybe earlier in their career to help them succeed and flourish?

The advice I would give myself if I was a 25-year-old or something like coming out college would be to really take the time to understand my passion in a very deep way, and then find ways to apply that in the world with the toolkits, be the education and all of those things, you know, in the most kind of meaningful way. And the reason I say that is because if you look at my career, for example, as an— as just one example, I have been in some of the largest, best-known brands in the world. Right. And I, you know, I'm really proud of the work I have done and accomplished with my teams. But as I look back, I feel like I have served kind of those organizations' missions and vision, but I have been living such a high-paced life that I didn't take the time to really understand what it is that Shiva is looking for. And now that I have my family and I have had a, you know, pretty what I consider, you know, respectable kind of career, I am purposely taking the time to really understand what it is that I care about the most. And really, again, today be day one, like I said at the beginning of the podcast, or, you know, today be the first day of the rest of your journey, make it matter. So my advice, especially given pandemic, given the fact that I think a lot of people have had somewhat of a setback, whether intentionally or not, over the past 3 years, is to celebrate that, to really intentionally use that time to find where and how you can make a difference in this world. Because there's no shortage of problems and there's no shortage of capital. I would say despite what you see in the stock market, there's a ton of capital still out there. And women in particular have a very different lens and vantage point to the problems that we have in the world, especially in healthcare. So I have in my Rolodex some of the most amazing women that I have been using their products, actually. Parsley Health, it's all about integrated healthcare for women. For example, there's a ton of startups really focusing on aging gracefully, whether it's with products or experience. There's this company called Be Me that is serving teenagers from a mental and wellness perspective. And they are oversubscribed just because of the kind of difference they're making in the world, especially post-pandemic. So my advice to anybody at any age, but especially the young ones, is to really take the time. Don't, don't necessarily get allured by the shiny objects that are available to you, but really understand, you know, who you are. This will serve you really, really well and how you want to show up in the world.

Yeah. That's great advice. Are there one or two things that you do personally, Shiva, like on a weekly, monthly basis to sort of sharpen your saw, like to keep developing yourself? Are there resources that—

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I think we are very fortunate as a generation to have so much at our disposal, whether it's audiobooks, which, you know, I try to finish a book a month. podcasts, either appearing, you know, having conversations like this or listening to naturally. And I can give you some names if you were interested, but also just continuous education. And it doesn't have to be just technical. It can be soft skills as well. But I'm going to take a course in blockchain and NFTs. This will fundamentally change the future as a digital, the next generation of essentially the Web3 platform is the thing that I think everyone should be educated about, no matter where in the organization you are, whether you're a marketer or on the tech side. And also on the soft skill side, you know, I have, I just finished last, late last year, my executive coaching certificate with Haas University of Berkeley, because coaching and understanding how to really connect with people and drive them to do what they can do best, kind of multiplying their impact is absolutely phenomenal for any leader to really accomplish. So those are some of the things I do educational-wise. But also, I would say the other thing is self-care. I don't care what you do, self-care is not an absolute must for every one of us, whether it's meditation, whether it's doing your, doing your golfing or getting a massage or whatever is the thing for you to take care of yourself so that you can show up 110% is the thing that I would highly recommend.

Those are great insights. You mentioned earlier in your journey that you also serve on boards and do some investment or advice, give advice to startups and things like that. I think a lot of individuals as they grow in their career sort of have a similar interest. How did you make this transition? How would you coach people who might have an interest in broadening their sort of career path like that?

Yeah, that's funny. I get that question a lot lately. I would say that with respect to boards, It's more of a, you have to crawl, walk, run type of thing. So, you wanna start with your close network. Of course, it's reciprocity. You have to give some time. If you know folks in the startup community or in different organizations, just to, even from a practice perspective, like how to give advice and how you can help others. I would say that's the very first beginning step. And you can start that even in your 20s. You don't necessarily have to wait. But getting on the board of a company, whether it's private or public, it's mostly about networking. So I would say, you know, if you are 110% deployed on your job, make sure you take, you know, maybe an hour a month and just devote that to networking. You can start with startups. I bet everyone on, on this podcast, the listeners have something very special to offer to startups. So make that known on your LinkedIn. Make that known to your community and volunteer a little bit. And then you'll have probably a board of advisory role soon enough. And then you can connect, convert that potentially in a private or a larger company to a board of director role, because some of these, most of these roles are unpaid. And when you get to board of directors, they're usually compensated for, but I wouldn't do it just for the monetary aspect of it. It's really, for me at least, how do I add value? How do I multiply my and the community's impact? In a meaningful way.

Shiva, after being on, doing all these things that you've done with the boards and investments, startups, things like that, are there one or two things that you learned from that that you've been able to give back the other way? So, right, so typically you're coming with all this knowledge and experience and you're helping these organizations, but I wonder, as being part of those organizations, if you haven't learned a couple of nuggets. Oh, a ton.

I think that's part of the the value of it, especially when you are a board of advisor and it's really an opportunity to learn and polish your skills. I was advising this one company, they are in the space of optimization, like A/B testing, multivariate testing, but they apply AI. It's purely AI. And they do thousands of permutations for like one scenario and they find the best way to deploy it and talk about personalization. I mean, they really knock it out of the park and they work with some of the biggest brands out there. I have learned so much from them just from what it takes nowadays to, you know, one of the applications of AI in order to personalize a digital experience and how far we have come along over the past just 5 or 6 years. And this is just one company. There are multiple AI optimization startups out there. So that's just one example. If you look at the digital health world, I mean, I advise everybody to just check out this Sorry, the CB Insights 2021 list of tech startups in digital health. There is a ton of companies that you could get connected with if you wanted, just from a networking perspective. And if I know anyone, I'm happy to put your audience in touch with just to get the conversation started. And again, if I can facilitate a connection or a networking, it will be absolutely my honor because at the end of the day, To your point, both sides will learn a great deal.

That's a great point. It's really an opportunity to give back to one another. I've learned the same thing in the last few months. I've been on my first health system board. And I feel like, yes, I'm adding some value, helping them with their digital transformation acceleration. But at the same time, I'm learning so much about the inner workings of health systems that I never knew before, even though I sat on the C-suite for so long. And it's just a different perspective when you're on the board. So I highly recommend, like you are, that individuals, you know, start serving on boards and helping out organizations. And ultimately, it's really for the common good. You know, it's to accelerate digital transformation and, you know, help save people's lives and improve quality of life, those sort of things.

Absolutely.

Shiva, in the last almost 30 minutes, we've talked about a lot of different topics from music, from your story as an immigrant. Then we talked about consumer experience outside of healthcare and then inside of healthcare. We talked about Leadership and women in leadership. We talked about boards and investor points of views. Is there anything that we need to double down on or anything that I didn't ask that we should end our time together with?

I'm a committee chair at the ANA, Association for National Advertisers, and we did an annual study, a survey of all the marketers. And one of the things that stood out that I think it's good to just point out to here is how much hypergrowth roadmap and hypergrowth companies need to experiment with new technologies. So for our audience here, and when I was at CVS, I did the same thing, just being an advocate for change. You know, you don't have to necessarily even see it all the way through. I mean, it would be ideal if you would, but even if you can start the conversation, let's experiment around this application of AI. in this part of the IT organization or in that part of the, you know, clinical research aspect of it. Let's bring NFTs or, you know, this application of blockchain in our optimization of, you know, whatever the operation of the particular parts of the IT might be. Irrespective of where you sit in the organization, my recommendation is to be an absolute advocate for continuous experimentation, because you never know how you can make a significant difference. And if we don't plant those seeds from where we sit, and every seed is very significant, even though it feels like many layers behind kind of the CEO seat, I think that goes a long way. And if there are enough of us to do the same thing and really advocate for those types of technological experimentation and change, then you'll end up having a culture that is always evolving and is not afraid to fail, is not afraid to learn. And that's the kind of organization that I celebrate, that I have in my experience seen really stand the test of time.

That's great insight. And I love the charge that you gave us to be advocates for change. And even if you won't be there to see that through, or you don't have the control to see it completely through, you have a part in it. So, Each part is really important.

So, absolutely.

Yeah.

This was so rich in terms of learning. I know our audience really appreciates it. I know I did. I took a bunch of notes as we were talking. I really appreciate your friendship. I appreciate what you've done for our industry coming with these other ideas and being an advocate for change and being a change agent. And so certainly, I know you're available for individuals who are interested in connecting with you, and we'll put it in the show notes how to connect with you and how you might be able to help other organizations.

It was my pleasure, Ed. It was so nice to see you again. And congratulations to you and team as well on your book, on your new roles. It's truly an honor to be connected with you and your audience. Thank you so much for the invitation. And I wish everyone the best of day and then the weeks ahead.

All right. That's a great way to end it. Thanks everyone.

Thank you for listening to Digital Voices Podcast with Ed Marx. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast. Subscribe on your preferred streaming service and leave a rating and review. And most importantly, thanks again for listening.