In a fascinating move, Digital healthcare startup Amarlab named its Chief Business Officer Nafeesa Chowdhury as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company and its Vice President of Operations and Service Delivery Mokhlesur Rahman Mijba as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the company.
This is a major and usual change for an early-stage company in Bangladesh and comes amid a time when Amarlab is looking for a path to its next stage of growth.
Announcing the change, Amarlab Co-founder Tazin Shadid writes in a social media post: “Congratulations to Nafeesa Chowdhury and Mokhlesur Rahman Mijba on their new roles at AmarLab. Nafeesa will be the new CEO of AmarLab and Mijba will take on the role of Chief Operating Officer.”
Ms. Nafeesa most recently served as AmarLab's Chief Business Officer. Prior to AmarLab, Nafeesa held numerous senior management positions in the financial sector for over 18 years. She has worked for global organizations like HSBC and specialized in consumer and corporate banking, risk management, and regulatory affairs.
In her new role as the CEO, Ms. Nafeesa will bring in operational and business management leadership skills to champion AmarLab's vision of making healthcare diagnostics easy for everyone.
Mr. Mijba joined Amarlab as the Vice President of Operations and Service Delivery. Prior to Amarlab, he worked as the CEO of Priyojon Healthcare. He has extensive experience in the digital healthcare industry in Bangladesh and has been recognized by several renowned Bangladeshi organizations including the BRAC Urban Innovation Challenge, Utshogro Foundation Bangladesh, and Toru Institute of Inclusive Innovation.
In his new role as the COO of AmarLab, Mr. Mijba will be working with partners, diagnostic labs, hospitals, and service providers to continue our work of building a healthy Bangladesh.
The announcement also said Amarlab’s two founders will transition to new roles and remain active in day-to-day operations after the change. Amarlab co-founder Dr. Ishtique Zahid will be leading a new data science effort at the company as its new Chief Data Officer and Amarlab Co-founder and CEO Tazin Shadid will transition to a new Executive Chairman role where he will be looking after the technology, growth and international expansion initiatives of the company.
Founded by Tazin Shadid and Ishtiaque Zahid in 2017, Amarlab provides at-home diagnostic test services in several major cities in Bangladesh including Dhaka and Chattogram. While starting as a consumer healthcare services provider, the company has launched several B2B solutions. It works with corporates to provide employee healthcare benefits through corporate partnerships. It has also launched a product for hospitals where it enables hospitals to deliver home collection pathology solutions. In partnership with other healthcare services companies, AmarLab also helps customers access other relevant healthcare facilities such as medicine delivery, doctor appointment, and so on. With the new changes, the company says it now plans to work extensively with healthcare data. We’ll be keenly following the developments at the digital healthcare startups in the coming days.
