WoW Woman in Fintech and HeatlhTech I Jen Estherby, HealthTech Lead at Barclays Eagle Labs

Jen Estherby is the HealthTech Lead at Barclays Eagle Labs, The Home of UK Start-Ups. 

Their network of coworking spaces, mentors, and learning tools, as well as their events and growth programmes for ambitious businesses, helps the UK’s start-up community scale and succeed. They’re supporting the promotion of new and emerging technologies designed to improve independent living, health management, increase prevention and deliver precision medicine.

With demand in the health sector growing and reaching near-critical levels, they’re bringing together industry experts, innovators, academics and health and social care providers to support the transformation of the healthcare industry through collaboration, innovation and technology.

Jen has worked in the banking sector for 17 years across a number of client-facing roles having started her career in retail banking. For the past 8 years, Jen has worked in a number of transformation roles creating new innovative initiatives and is one of the founding team members of the Eagle Labs programme. 

Since the launch of the Eagle Labs programme, Jen has managed a number of new projects including expanding their physical network and setting up and implementing their HealthTech Industry programme for the last 3 years which is now a national proposition. 

Jen is passionate about Diversity & Inclusion awareness and leads colleague training to ensure they are better educated and informed for their Eagle Labs members.  

Jen, tell us a bit about your background and your projects so far.

Although I have been in the banking sector for the last 17 years, I would say I have had a very varied career with many different roles. I have been customer-facing, led large teams, set up new projects and driven new culture and innovation into departments to transform the way the bank does things. Despite not having a background in healthcare, I have really loved setting up the HealthTech industry programme and have learnt so much in the last 3 years so this has been my more notable role. 

How did you get into this industry? Has it been an easy industry to get into or have you had many challenges?

A few years ago we identified that emerging pockets of the Healthcare industry were coming up with innovative solutions to help improve independent living, health management, prevention and deliver precision medicine and that this was an area that would attract investment.

Through Eagle Labs’ experience of creating regional ecosystems, we decided to bring together industry experts, healthcare corporates, academics and startups and encourage them to collaborate in order to transform the industry and have been able to successfully create a thriving community of HealthTech businesses. 

The exciting part for me personally was that even though every industry is different, all entrepreneurs ultimately follow a similar path and require similar types of external support to succeed.

How long did it take you to be where you are now? What was the biggest obstacle? What are the challenges of being in the industry you are in? 

We launched the HealthTech programme three years ago so we have spent all of that time building our ecosystem and physically meeting new businesses and building new programmes and partnerships. The pandemic meant we needed to shift our offering to ensure we could still build and engage with our community but do it virtually and although, at the start, it felt like a huge challenge but has actually allowed us to reach far more businesses and networks. 

What are your biggest achievements to date?

We’ve seen some of the HealthTech businesses from our network win in this year’s Barclays Entrepreneur Awards which was a particularly proud moment for me as these nationwide awards attract nominations from all industries and regions. I was also lucky to be the face of the Barclays Offset Mortgage television advert some years ago which was a great experience to be involved in. 

What are the projects you are currently working on?

We have recently renewed our partnership with the Yorkshire & Humber Academic Health Science Network where we support the Propel@YH Digital Health Accelerator that provides innovative organisations developing digital health solutions with access to a structured course of support and advice aimed at enabling accelerated company growth and increased market presence. 

We have also just published our first HealthTech Thought Leadership report on The Age of AgeTech which you can read here.

Is the #WomenInTech movement important to you and if yes, why? 

Yes, At Eagle Labs we’re passionate about championing female founders to increase the diversity across our network and create opportunities for female founders. We launched our Female Founder Connect series 2 years ago by bringing together female founders across all industries to encourage them to connect, collaborate, learn from and inspire each other. 

We have also seen a steady rise in the number of FemTech businesses emerging and I and my team are passionate about supporting this sector. Hence our recent partnership with Woman of Wearables and we are really excited to dive deeper into this sector and get to know the businesses and how we can support them through our proposition. 

 What will be the key trends in your industry in the next five years and where do you see them heading?

In terms of HealthTech, we think female health technologies (FemTech) will get more traction and investment in the next five years. For example, when you look at menopause and fertility in particular employers are starting to understand the impact these can have on their workforce and are exploring how they can better support women going through them. This is all a good move to allow the start-up community to scale. 

I also think there will be a lot of focus on the recovery from the pandemic and how technology can play a part in managing the backlog and ensuring efficiency is applied to processes going forward. 

What is the most important piece of advice you could give to anyone who wants to start a career in this industry?

The advice I would give start-up businesses is to build a strong network with other like-minded entrepreneurs. It is so important to share the experiences of when you have hit bumps in the road as you might save someone else the pain and could avoid some future challenges yourself by learning from others. 

I also recommend that when it comes to starting your fundraising journey, to really dedicate and invest time in learning, networking and developing your pitch - practice makes perfect.  

 Who are three inspirational women in your respective industry you admire?

• Dr Natalie Getreu

• Dr Helen O’Neill

• Deirdre O’Neill 

I would have to say the ladies at Hertility Health are leading the way for female founders and FemTech businesses in my opinion. When the business started one of the co-founders was pregnant and continued to push the boundaries during and after having her baby. They celebrate other women in business and have made it their mission to get people talking more about fertility from a young age and produce such engaging content as well as a truly innovative product. 

Find out more about Eagle Labs on their website.

Connect with Jen on LinkedIn.

Follow Eagle Labs on Twitter.

This interview was conducted by Marija Butkovic, Digital Marketing and PR strategist, founder, and CEO of Women of Wearables. She regularly writes and speaks on topics of wearable tech, fashion tech, IoT, entrepreneurship, and diversity. Follow Marija on Twitter @MarijaButkovic and read her stories for Forbes here.