An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Always question the so-called experts: sometimes you’ll find they don’t know as much as you think they do.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Abir Sen.
Abir is Co-founder and Co-CEO at Gravie where he focuses on making sure we’re well positioned and fully equipped to meet the needs of our members. Abir was the founding CEO of Gravie and led the company through 2019.
Prior to founding Gravie, Abir was co-founder and CEO of Bloom Health where he led the team that pioneered the private exchange model of financing health benefits. Prior to founding Bloom Health, Abir was co-founder and president of RedBrick Health. Under his leadership, RedBrick Health launched an industry-leading health earnings system, created innovative products and achieved health improvement results that far surpassed its competitors. Before founding RedBrick Health, Abir co-founded Definity Health where he was involved in the creation of the personal care account, the predecessor to the health savings account.
Abir began his career at Deloitte Consulting where he advised managed care organizations and integrated delivery systems on mergers, acquisitions and turnaround strategies. He has also worked as an advisor to Fidelity Investment’s health and welfare departments where he helped launch their benefit consulting business.
Abir earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from Lawrence University and his MBA from Harvard Business School. He’s on the board of directors at Allina Health, the board of trustees at Lawrence University, and he’s a member of several other boards, including the Animal Humane Society and The Compassion Museum.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I grew up in India and came to Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin for my undergraduate studies in economics. I was recruited on campus by Deloitte Consulting, which is where I started my career. The first project I was assigned to was in healthcare. I liked learning about the healthcare industry, but I disliked consulting — I lasted only 9 months at Deloitte, and then I left with a group of people that all worked at Deloitte to start our first company, Definity Health. Since then, I have co-founded 3 other companies, all in healthcare, with Gravie being the most recent one.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
The health insurance industry as it stands today is a product of wage controls that were put in place during World War II, where there was a freeze on increasing wages, but an exemption for insurance and pension benefits. Moreover, when Congress rewrote the tax code in 1954, it enshrined forever generous tax advantages for employer-sponsored health insurance. Fast forward seven decades, and now we have a system where your employer often has more say over your healthcare than your doctor does. This is an insane situation, and one we here at Gravie are looking to fix.
Gravie is reinventing health insurance from the bottom up. We are focused on designing a system that works for consumers and their doctors while, at the same time, providing a win for other stakeholders like employers and brokers. Gravie is providing the healthcare services that consumers want and need as opposed to having a healthcare plan filled with services that the average consumer may never use but, nevertheless, they pay for.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
At the very first client meeting I attended at Deloitte, the client turned to me and rattled off a list of deliverables he wanted for the next meeting. In a panic, I realized I had neither pen nor paper and had to borrow both from the client. While funny now, it was mortifying then and taught me about showing up prepared.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
Some of the people who have influenced and helped me are:
- My economics and government professors at Lawrence who helped me believe in myself, even when many others did not
- The person who interviewed me as part of my business school application and, within the sixty minutes of the interview, imparted advice that I carry to this day
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
I think the word “disruptive” is often used incorrectly. I use the word as defined by Clayton Christensen (among others) as a smaller company that can successfully compete against much bigger, established competitors, by devising a business model that makes it difficult or impossible for the incumbent to respond effectively.
With this definition in mind then, disruptive innovation is always good because while it “disrupts” the incumbent, it does so because the market at large embraces its product (presumably because they find it valuable) over that of the incumbent.
However, if you use disruptive in the common language sense, then sure, there are often companies who disrupt that end up doing more harm than good. Mortgage-backed securities (or specifically, collateralized mortgage obligations or CMOs) are an example. They disrupted the financial and housing industries in the 2000s, which ultimately of course led to the crash and Great Recession in 2008 and ended up hurting a lot of people.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
The three best words of advice I’ve received are “enjoy the journey”. I have come to realize two things. First, the destination that you think you are shooting for today is probably not going to be the destination you will shoot for tomorrow. Second, once you reach said destination, you are going to realize that it isn’t as fulfilling as you thought it would be and a new destination will present itself. Since this cycle is never ending, you might as well enjoy the journey!
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
No idea! I have my hands full with Gravie at the moment!
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
“The Fabric of the Cosmos” by Brian Greene, which explores the origin of the universe and the nature of reality from the standpoint of physics. It puts things in perspective and reinforces how nonsensical it is to take ourselves too seriously.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Always question the so-called experts: sometimes you’ll find they don’t know as much as you think they do.”
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
A movement that inspires people to bring more kindness into their lives. A few years ago, my wife and I started a nonprofit organization called The Compassion Museum (well, she started it and I tagged along). The goal of the organization is to help people lead better lives by viewing the world through a lens of compassion. If interested, you can find out more about it at www.thecompassionmuseum.org
How can our readers follow you online?
They can’t! I still prefer one-to-one human communication and for that and various other reasons, have stayed off social media.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Meet The Disruptors: Abir Sen Of Gravie On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
