Becoming the 1st COO of Vezeeta

In this edition of Industry Voices, we sat down with Ola Aly El Din, a clinical pharmacist by education whose career has taken her from community pharmacies in Cairo to becoming the first COO of Vezeeta, MENA’s largest healthtech startup.

From Community Pharmacies to Healthcare Giants

Ola’s path into healthtech wasn’t something she mapped out from the start. “Honestly, I did not see myself at the intersection of healthcare, tech, fintech, and data,” she reflects. “What I was sure of was my passion: I loved the biology of the human being, and I always had this drive to help others and to help patients.”

That passion began in community pharmacy in Cairo, where she interacted directly with patients and saw their struggles every day. “It teaches you empathy, but it also shows you the limits of access to healthcare in our region,” she says.“I was always wondering why access to healthcare is so difficult, especially in our region. That question was always in the back of my mind.”

From there, Ola joined MSD, a multinational pharmaceutical company, as a hospital medical representative. She spent her days in hospitals, working closely with doctors to introduce new medical products. “It gave me exposure to the field, to the real struggles of healthcare delivery,” she recalls. 

Her next step was IQVIA (then IMS Health), the global leader in healthcare data and analytics. “I consider IQVIA my school,” Ola says. “I learned discipline, how to scale big operations, and the processes that power a global healthcare leader.”

Step by step, her career provided her with a rare mix of frontline empathy, large-scale operational discipline, and deep industry knowledge —a combination that would later define her approach at Vezeeta. 

From Structure to Scrappiness

For Ola, moving from IQVIA to Vezeeta meant bridging two worlds; one that taught her structure and discipline, and another that empowered her to innovate at speed. “At IQVIA, I gained a strong foundation in process discipline and long-term planning, where every initiative was carefully mapped out. At Vezeeta, I found the space to move quickly, experiment, and innovate. Two very different experiences that complemented each other and shaped how I approach building teams and products.”

In her first meeting with CEO Amir Barsoum, she was struck by the ambition: “He spoke about setting bold goals to accelerate transformation in the healthcare industry, and more specifically in the pharmaceutical industry. In large multinationals, we typically planned in three-year cycles.”

That energy was what convinced her to make the leap. In her very first days, she pitched an idea for an e-detailing product and was told simply: “Yes, do it.” No committees, no delays, just execution. “That was the moment I realized this was my chance to witness healthcare shift from traditional to digital, and to be part of it.”

Friends thought she was taking a risk by leaving a secure regional role at IQVIA for a startup. But the scale of Vezeeta’s ambition, and the promise of driving real transformation, convinced Ola that the rollercoaster ahead would be worth the ride.

It was the shift from predictability to purpose and from structure to scrappiness that drew her. This set the tone for Ola’s years at Vezeeta.

Digitizing The Pharmaceutical Industry Workflows

Ola joined Vezeeta in 2017 as Business Development Director, with a mandate to reimagine one of the pharmaceutical industry’s most entrenched practices: the medical rep’s clinic visit. Traditionally, representatives would visit clinics, spending hours convincing doctors about new products, a costly and time-intensive process. Ola’s vision was to enhance this model through digital and innovative tools, transforming how doctors access information while enabling pharma companies to deliver their message more effectively, at lower cost, and in a more user-friendly way.

Her approach went beyond business development; she essentially acted as a mini-CEO for the product. Ola would gather insights from clients about their pain points, bring those insights back to the team, collaborate with product to design solutions, brainstorm marketing strategies to engage doctors, and coordinate with operations to implement them. 

The result was Vezeeta’s e-detailing platform, embedding pharmaceutical content directly into the Vezeeta for Doctors app. Instead of endless clinic visits, companies could now deliver articles and product details in an engaging, specialty-specific way. “I didn’t know the exact solution at first,” Ola admits, “but I knew this workflow and sector had to move toward digitization.”

Transitioning to VP of Business Development

By 2021, Ola had a much broader remit as Vezeeta’s VP of Business Development. Her responsibilities now spanned multiple stakeholders: hospitals, labs, insurance, government entities, and even e-pharmacy partnerships.

Her journey at Vezeeta began with driving regional expansion. She spearheaded the rollout of a web-based booking solution tailored for hospitals, successfully onboarding leading institutions across Egypt, Kenya, and Nigeria.

Instead of starting with smaller entities, she set her sights on top-tier hospitals, confident that their participation would drive wider adoption across the market. Convincing the first hospital took seven months of relentless effort, as she navigated skepticism, operational hurdles, and entrenched practices, but her persistence paid off, paving the way for broader expansion.

From there, Vezeeta continued to expand its product portfolio, adding telemedicine, online pharmacy orders, and at-home test bookings, with the goal of becoming a seamless, single point of care for all digital outpatient services. As VP, her role had transformed from a focus on a single digital solution to leading cross-sector initiatives that shaped Vezeeta’s growth across Egypt, Africa, and the Gulf.

Scaling across products and markets

Managing a diverse portfolio of products across multiple countries requires a careful balance of centralization and localization. Ola explains that at its core, Vezeeta is centered on empowering patients with data and technology to engage with different healthcare stakeholders throughout their journey.

To expand successfully into new markets, Vezeeta deploys dedicated expansion teams. These teams spend months on the ground understanding the local healthcare dynamics, regulations, and cultural nuances. This groundwork ensures that the core product, developed centrally by a unified R&D and engineering team in Egypt, remains scalable while allowing for minor, country-specific customizations.

Localization goes beyond technology. Marketing teams on the ground ensure messaging resonates with local audiences, reflecting cultural and linguistic differences even within Arabic-speaking countries. This model allows Vezeeta to replicate its platform efficiently across regions, maintaining a consistent technological backbone while adapting to the unique needs of each market.

Leading Through Turbulence

At a time of macroeconomic uncertainty in Egypt, marked by devaluations, the company faced a critical turning point. Growth was no longer the sole priority; profitability, scalability, and sustainable operations became paramount. This was when Ola stepped in as Vezeeta’s first COO.

She, alongside CEO Amir Barsoum, led a comprehensive restructuring, consolidating departments, re-evaluating every product line, and pivoting business models to drive the company toward cash-flow positivity. Tough decisions included scaling back high-burn initiatives such as Vezeeta as a Provider (VAAP), where the company operated its own clinics and pharmacies. Instead, the focus shifted to doubling down on the marketplace model: clinics, which had already been successfully operating on the platform and remain a core part of it today, and pharmacies, which transitioned from Vezeeta-owned outlets to an asset-light model where independent pharmacies were onboarded to offer bookings, orders, and services directly through the platform.

Ola also tackled operational efficiency, strategically cutting costs in areas like digital marketing and reallocating resources toward building Shamel, Vezeeta’s new subscription-based affordability platform. “Shifting from growth-focused to profitability-driven required difficult but necessary tradeoffs, yet we were able to achieve that balance within a year,” she notes.

Recognizing the need for more affordable healthcare, she championed Shamel as a solution that provides patients with steeply discounted access to care. The product also marked a strategic shift from transaction-based revenue to a recurring revenue model. Built on Vezeeta’s existing technology and leveraging its connections to healthcare practices, Shamel became a “startup within a startup,” launched through careful planning and cross-functional collaboration, and has since emerged as Vezeeta’s “hero” product.

Central to her ability to lead through turbulent times was her team. By setting clear objectives, fostering high ownership, and trusting her teams’ expertise, Ola was able to simultaneously drive major company restructuring and successfully launch a new product, achieving both ambitious goals because of the team she empowered.

Building on Momentum

With the major restructuring complete and Shamel successfully launched, Ola has shifted her focus to scaling and sustaining growth. Today, Vezeeta is profitable and cash-positive.

Now, the company is moving more deliberately, balancing steady operational execution with strategic planning for the future. Ola and her team are exploring how to ramp up Shamel, considering potential complementary solutions, and evaluating opportunities to replicate the model in other markets, including the GCC and African countries. The focus is on driving healthy, profitable growth, moving proactively rather than reactively, and ensuring that Vezeeta continues to scale efficiently while building on the momentum of its restructuring and “hero” product launch.

Shamel: Where Healthtech Meets Fintech

Building on Vezeeta’s mission of accessibility, Shamel was designed to make quality healthcare affordable for the majority of Egyptians who pay out-of-pocket, as only 4–6% of the population have private insurance. Shamel is a subscription-based platform that grants patients access to a broad network of providers, including single-clinic doctors, top-tier hospitals, labs, scan centers, and surgical packages, at steeply discounted rates. Every service is digitally priced and booked on the app, giving patients full transparency on before-and-after costs.

Shamel also integrates fintech solutions to make healthcare more affordable. Through partnerships with Visa, Nymcard, and leading banks, patients can access installment plans— essentially a “buy now, pay later” option for surgeries, in-clinic services, and more. Vezeeta has also launched V-Pay, a payment gateway and digital wallet within its app, enabling patients to pay seamlessly and securely through the platform.

The platform also extends to corporate solutions, enabling small and medium enterprises to provide healthcare access to employees who might not have private insurance, or to supplement existing coverage with elective care options like dentistry, bariatric procedures, and physiotherapy. Beyond SMEs, Vezeeta has forged major B2B2C partnerships with telecom giants such as Telecom Egypt—alliances that allow Shamel to reach millions of users directly and deliver affordable, digital healthcare at scale. By combining subscription-based pricing, digital payments, and flexible financing options, Shamel represents a new paradigm at the intersection of healthcare, technology, and financial services.

Leveraging AI to Enhance Healthcare

Vezeeta is harnessing AI solutions to transform both its operations and the patient experience. On the operational side, engineers use AI co-pilots to automate and enhance processes, accelerating product launches by 40% and improving overall efficiency. 

For patients, AI-powered tools such as prescription transcription digitize handwritten prescriptions and automatically itemize investigations. Upcoming features, including intelligent chatbots, will further simplify how users find doctors or services, making healthcare more accessible, efficient, and personalized.

Through these initiatives, Vezeeta is cementing its position at the forefront of healthtech innovation, delivering faster, smarter, and more patient-centric digital healthcare.