A Global Remedy

The Executive Multidisciplinary Action Projects (ExecMAP) course at Ross ignites a new passion in Rob Barrow, MBA ’10 — global healthcare.

Rob Barrow, MBA ’10, came to the Ross Executive MBA Program because he was looking for a new challenge. “The program was more to stimulate me than to check a box for an employer,” he says. Since graduation, however, he has become his own employer.

Barrow has launched two companies, with a third in the works. Each is in healthcare, a field the former auto executive was largely unfamiliar with prior to starting the program at Ross. But his Executive Multidisciplinary Action Project (ExecMAP), which focused on globalizing a robotic surgery device, exposed him to what would become his new career. Barrow says he was drawn to the project because he saw parallels between the automotive and healthcare industries as healthcare becomes more globalized. “I came out of an industry that’s been international for some 20 years. Healthcare is not there yet, but it’s starting to move in that direction. I thought I could add value as that transition occurs.”

For more than three months, Barrow and his Ross teammates immersed themselves in ExecMAP, working with healthcare providers in both the United States and India. “We met with the CEO of one of the largest healthcare providers in India,” Barrow says, “and we committed to him that we would complete the project. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to deliver a first-class business plan.”

Opportunity Knocks

Despite the intensity of the ExecMAP experience, Barrow relished the opportunity: “It’s rare that one can step into another industry or sector for three months and learn the ins and outs. The challenge with ExecMAP is that you’re in a real business environment.” Barrow’s team visited a number of hospitals in India as part of their project, and what Barrow saw in his travels ignited a passion for global healthcare. “The project became the incubation period for my own healthcare consulting firm,” Barrow says.

Barrow realized he could add value to the healthcare industry on a more permanent level, and he launched his first business in October 2009, as the ExecMAP course concluded. The company, BPL International LLC, is a management consulting firm focused on international emerging market growth strategies for large-scale healthcare providers. The name is derived from an ExecMAP experience that found Barrow and his teammates doing research in a rural Indian village called Shivgarch, where the residents lived on less than $1.25 a day. According to the World Health Organization, this places them below the poverty line (BPL). “A small amount of money being infused by a large healthcare provider was making a staggering difference in that village,” recalls Barrow. “That experience stuck with me throughout ExecMAP and ultimately became the name of my company.”

Since graduation, Barrow has spent a lot of time in India, working with local partners as well as potential investors, and helping one of his clients become a global player in the healthcare market. He says the strategy-driven curriculum at Ross has been a key differentiator in what his company can offer. “Research and analysis-backed strategy is missing in so many companies. People may come up with an idea and say, ‘That’s our strategy,’ but there’s no real analysis behind it.

“The fascinating thing was taking those strategic tools I learned at Ross and applying them to launching my business,” Barrow continues. “I have used some of the exact templates I learned in my classes, and it’s provided huge value to my clients.”

Venturing Further

The team-based approach of the Ross EMBA Program also influenced Barrow’s business model: He preaches to his clients that collaboration can and should be a main driver. Barrow argues that in the business of healthcare, the emphasis on lean processes mirrors that of any large manufacturing company. And he sees international collaboration as a key cost-reduction measure. “It’s not just U.S. companies pushing their products and technology into emerging markets. It’s also what we can learn from places like China and India in terms of how to do things cheaper, and how we can apply that to healthcare.”

Barrow’s belief in the need for global collaboration ultimately led to the creation of another business. “One of the areas where we really started to see an unmet need was international collaboration between physicians, particularly in areas of sudden, complex illness where people don’t know how to find an evidence-based second opinion,” he says. Barrow’s company seeks to consolidate data from physicians around the world, and once again, analysis is at the core. “We’re seeking not to just find the best physician to give the patient a diagnosis,” he says. “We want to use evidence and the significant amount of data out there that looks at the illness and the different treatment options. Our approach is to pull both the physician’s expertise as well as the evidence-based global databases together to give the patient a more holistic view.”

Practicing What He Preaches

Barrow isn't just pushing collaboration on the part of his clients — it's at the heart of his own success. He has partnered with fellow EMBA graduates Hannah Hensel, MBA ’10, Dr. Mahendra Bhandari, MBA ’10, and Uma Pishati, MBA ’09, on a number of ventures. "My partners have the same mindset, since they've also been through the program and were on ExecMAP teams," says Barrow. "They are acclimated with the strategic tools, know how the business plan ought to run, and understand firsthand what drives my passion. This collaborated effort gets us to market so much quicker."

With the growth and changes in the healthcare industry in the U.S., Barrow feels his companies are well-positioned for growth. “The cost pressures, the number of people now eligible for healthcare under the new legislation, and the increasingly aging population all present huge need — and huge opportunity for us.”

The fact that he’s partnered with fellow Ross alumni makes the opportunity even sweeter. “Teams in the EMBA program are no different than a business or a family,” Barrow says. “Everybody has different desires and perspectives. The successful teams learned how to work through all of that and become effective leaders. I think the fact that we’ve all had that same leadership development experience — that same understanding of who we are and what value we bring — helps us collaborate more effectively as business partners.

“Between the knowledge and the network, I have paid back the cost of my MBA many times over.”

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