Relentless Customer Leader Podcast

Chris (00:02.119)
Well, I'm here with Hans Kyle and it's great to see you again, mate. It's been a little while, but great to see you over the screen at least.

Hans Keil (00:11.212)
Yeah, it's great to see you too, Chris.

Chris (00:13.588)
Thanks for taking the time to talk to me today. So the Relentless Customer Leader podcast is really about sort of talking about journeys of leaders and how they sort of began their leadership journey right through to where you are today. And so probably a good place to start with is, how did you develop an interest, I guess, in business and in ultimately leadership and what were the early influences when you look back?

Hans Keil (00:42.466)
Yeah. good question. I think as I reflect back, probably go back to growing up on a farm, I think, you know, when you live on a farm, you start working at a very early age. And, so for me, that was around six years old, just getting out and having to do, and, you know, that shapes work ethic shapes what you do. And, you know, for me, it was.

I don't know how to describe it, but it wasn't the life that I wanted. You know, I appreciated, you know, the hard work, what you needed to do, but it definitely motivated me to study harder and think about what opportunities were. You know, one of my fascinations as a kid was maps. And I had them all over my room as a kid. And they were kind of the window on the rest of the world that I just couldn't see and, wanted to sort of get into. so that kind of drove me through.

know, elementary to high school. and I joined the coast guard when I was 17 years old reserve and went to New Jersey through boot camp. And then again, it was that rude awakening in life, but it was also opening up a door to possibilities. And I spent 15 years in the coast guard doing various roles, but what drew me to it was search and rescue, helping others. So again,

it's who I am in terms of service and helping others. So I kind of identified with that early and I, the coast guard was one of those manifestations of that just to go and, and save people's lives. So anyways, that probably was sort of the set me on that trajectory of work, helping others and that interest in sort of exploring the world. So, guess those are the earliest things that influenced me.

Chris (02:21.844)
Yeah.

Chris (02:33.386)
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah. Something that we actually have, we haven't talked about, but I had an early experience also on a farm. So I spent about six weeks on a farm and it was really hard work. was milking six, I think 600 cows every morning. And that really, that really sort of sent the message that maybe I don't really want to do this for the rest of my life. So I had sort of an early experience that probably shaped me in.

in a similar way.

Hans Keil (03:03.47)
Right. Yeah. I 15 years and, we had everything from milking to, you know, crops to you name it. It was just nonstop and it was every day. There was no days off. So it's again, it's an incredible experience and you never want for anything because food is plentiful because you're growing it. but it's also limiting. We went through a bankruptcy toward the end. think that has shaped me as well.

Chris (03:17.8)
Yeah.

Hans Keil (03:31.98)
In terms of those experiences and knowing all that hard work sometimes doesn't come to fruition. know, it's, there's a system that you have to work with. And I think I learned that at a young age as well. So, so many lessons that I drew from that.

Chris (03:45.702)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, when you think about your career, you mean, you've been in a range of different industries, know, healthcare, life sciences, now genomics. You know, have there been in that journey sort of defining moments for you in those different roles that sort of have led you down different paths or how do you think about the way in which that journey sort of weaved itself over your career?

Hans Keil (04:13.314)
Yeah, I guess the first thing I would say is there is no master plan, at least for me. I think maybe some people have a master plan if they go into law or medicine or things along those lines. I certainly didn't. it was influences, was opportunities, doors open that have, I think, shaped where I am, who I am and where I am today. So I think it was the Coast Guard opening up that door to the world.

And then going to university and studying international affairs, wanting to go into diplomacy. And then my first job when I was in Washington was with the department of commerce. I could never have this and it was an agency that got zero tax dollars. was self -supporting. So I had to run as a business and it focused on technology. So those were two things that I hadn't been seeking out in my academic pursuits that were presented to me.

You know, figure out how to sell to other government agencies and understand the world of technology. And I just got swept away, especially by technology and the power and what it could do and how it could connect. And I never looked back, you technology has been a major theme in my life ever since. And again, it wasn't something I was seeking out. It was just what you gravitate toward and what interests you and drives you, probably the best way to describe it. And sometimes you just have to go with

Chris (05:38.942)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now you've grabbed those opportunities, that's for sure. In terms of your different roles, I mean, you had a long career at Perkin Elmer and sort of on the digital side and then also customer service, I imagine, was an interesting experience for you. How did that sort of factor into your own way of sort of developing a leadership style and engaging teams?

Hans Keil (05:42.829)
Yes.

Hans Keil (06:05.066)
Yeah. Perkin Almer for me was, how do I put this? mean, of any job that has shaped me the most, you know, 18 years at one company is going to do that. And I was fortunate to have amazing mentors who helped guided my career opportunities to move in different directions. So just an amazing experience overall. I think, you know, one of my first lessons at Perkin Almer from a customer centricity perspective is.

I was in charge of e -commerce for selling our reagents for, for scientists. And we built this amazing experience of what we thought was amazing experience and no one came, no one used it. And so I went out in the field with our sales reps for six months and I visited all our customers, scientists, procurement agents, you name it. I learned them inside and out and what was working, what was not. And we built out a feature set that.

Got us to a hundred million dollars within five years from zero in terms of where we started because of paying attention to customers, listening to them, listening to the stakeholders around them, the salespeople, customer service, you name it. And, know, I think that has shaped me since in terms of always going deeper, getting into the details, whether it's your team that you're leading, whether it's the customers you're serving. If you're.

If you're not willing to roll up your sleeves and go out there and see them in their environment and understand that you're not going to succeed. So that was an early lesson for me that I, I always apply again and again.

Chris (07:43.604)
Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of pain, isn't there, in putting a lot of work into something, putting your heart and soul into it and it not working out. so there's a big lesson.

Hans Keil (07:53.442)
Yes, I was very disappointed. This was a beautiful e -commerce experience that we built and nobody was using it. So yes, that was disappointing, but you've got to learn from your failures and hopefully turn them around if you can. But don't repeat them. But yes, was hard. But now I know. Now I'll go make another mistake.

Chris (08:00.175)
Yeah.

Chris (08:14.76)
Yeah, yeah. When you think about, you know, customer centricity, customer centric culture, I mean, how do you think about that in the different contexts that you've been in? And how does it differ or how have you seen it sort of manifest itself differently in different environments?

Hans Keil (08:39.938)
I don't, yeah. Trying to think, is it different? mean, at the end of the day, if you understand the people that you're trying to serve, whether they're customers, team members, stakeholders, I think there's probably some commonality in all of that. And I'm trying to think of my healthcare experience. You know, what I would say is different. If I think about a U S healthcare, and my experience in a for -profit company is structure.

matters, the systems in which you operate matter, and they can be limiting. And you have to adapt to that and do the best that you can. I think I've also learned the of the higher you go up in terms of leadership and teams that you influence, the more you can do. And you shouldn't get frustrated if you can't, know, if you're a lower level manager or even, you know, a C level that's not the CEO.

You can't change the entire company. What can you change? What can you influence? So I think those are things, you know, depending on the situation, which you're in that deviate that you've got to think about that environment, which are operating. But when it comes to people, we are who we are, you know, yourself as a leader and those who you're interacting. So I think that's pretty common in terms of, you know, no matter what, you know, just be you and engage and good things will happen when you kind of have that.

approach. Yeah, good question.

Chris (10:10.666)
How have you approached things in terms of going into new organisations hands, in terms of your own sort of style of engaging with a new group of people, a new team or being in a new organisation? What type of approach would you take to that?

Hans Keil (10:27.948)
Yeah, listen. So every time I've started a new role, whether it was at Perkin Elmer, moving into a different area or moving from Perkin Elmer into a healthcare system in Michigan, you've got to go in a listening tour and understand the dynamics at all levels and figure out the players and how things are being scored.

You know, what the game is in that respect and what success will look like. And then figure out what you're going to be able to contribute, figure out what your team members are going to be able to contribute and how you're going to influence and shape that and pick your battles in terms of what you need to do. So I think it's fundamental, right? Just sizing that up and seeing what you need to do. I remember starting at the healthcare system in Michigan, Beaumont Health.

I was being told through the interview process, it's a great team that you're going to be inheriting, but they just don't get all the work done that they need to. all right, so I'm hearing this theme. So what's going on behind the scenes? So you sort of have these clues and you have to go pursue them. And what it ended up is they had 21 intakes for work for the IT team, which is obviously not tenable. You need one stream and prioritization and deciding.

as a whole, what do you do? So again, basic fundamental portfolio management just wasn't there. So again, listen to those clues. You know, this is not rocket science in terms of what you need to do and then start moving forward. But and then learning what you you can't do it yourself, like rely on your team to be able to move this ball board, enable them to do that. so those are the lessons I've learned. I'm trying to get better and better at it every time I go through this kind of a pollution.

Chris (12:19.23)
Yeah. Talk a bit more about Beaumont Health and you you're working on patient experience and enabling that through technology and so on there. And no doubt it's a very big system. It's large scale and you know, there's a lot to sort of be thinking about there. What were sort of some of the experiences you had in terms of trying to enhance that patient experience?

Hans Keil (12:37.453)
Yes.

Hans Keil (12:44.494)
Yeah, great question. So Beaumont Health is in Metro Detroit, four billion in revenue, 37 ,000 employees, eight hospitals. It's the largest hospital in Michigan at the time. It's even larger after a merger now. And what I'd say is, first, let's go back to the comment I made around sort of the system. US healthcare is not customer centric. Shocker. It is

Chris (13:11.316)
Yeah. Yeah.

Hans Keil (13:14.05)
multi -layered bureaucratic incentives working across purposes. So that means even the, you know, the team itself at a health system, all the leaders have different incentives that they're working toward that don't always, in fact, never align in some cases. And right down to it, we want to be there for the patient and all the people want to be there for the patient. The system gets in the way of that. And, you know,

The COVID pandemic was a good illustration of when those things can get swept away for a second. You see the heroism, you see what can be done and it's quite amazing. But then that creeps back in. So my lesson was if you want a better patient experience, and I do like the term customer versus patient, then what are the things that contribute to a poor experience? Like where are we falling down?

So you start with the team, start with, you know, what are the nurses, you know, having to navigate, what are their challenges? Because they are the frontline. What about the environmental staff and others? So what are the things you can do that improves their workday, their 12 hour shifts, so that they can be more focused on their patients, higher quality, better engagement. So it's the basics like that. that is what you, again,

At a level like this where it's pretty basic stuff, you've got to sort of build it up from there. so the first thing I, you know, I did is find the dollars to replace antiquated, cards that carry the computers around called workstations on wheels. And, because it was just wasting people's time. So I get just basic things like that. And if you can do that, you can boost morale, you can improve the experience and then you go after your next target. So.

You can't do it all in one day. but again, pick your battles, see where the pain points are, get them addressed. And sometimes that customer experience has to start closer to home in terms of where some of those pain points are. So that was experience at Beaumont.

Chris (15:23.146)
Yeah.

Yeah. And, yeah, I you were there during COVID really at the heart of this pandemic, being in that healthcare system. I mean, what were some of the challenges that were thrown at you during that period? What sort of stands out as being the things that were really quite difficult to deal with and overcome?

Hans Keil (15:33.122)
I

Hans Keil (15:48.366)
Yeah, that is part of my work life that I will never ever forget. I started there in January of 2020, so a couple of months before the pandemic really struck. So I only had that amount of time to learn health care. And then all of a sudden, was funny, I was hearing from my colleagues at Perkin Elmer Global Company, so people in Europe and in Asia telling me this is worse than you think.

I don't know what it was like for you and others, but we had this kind of like, it's not going to be bad. It's going to be a couple of weeks. We're going to get over it. Like there's no way we could have fathomed what this was going to be, but I was getting these signals and talking to the rest of the leadership team and saying, these are the things we need to do. so one of the first things I did was prepare our IT team so that when, it happened, and I think it was like March 7th or eighth that we were starting to get our first

patients and the panic was starting to creep in, we were ready. So again, listen to those signs, use your network, prepare, and then play to your strengths as well. That's what I learned. know how testing, I know life sciences, I have connections there. So it was, again, it was like being in a war. I don't know how else to describe it. We would have our daily meetings, talk about more account.

talk about the number of patients coming in, having to set up these outside testing centers. There were no tests. So one thing I did was call up my old CEO and said, can we get some testing platforms for the antibody testing? Because there was no PCR testing and launched a program to test 22 ,000 of our employees that turned into a research paper. And that

I'm very proud of that because that gave peace of mind, great research insights as well. So again, these were things you could never imagine you would typically do in your work life that you got to do. And again, I think the lesson for me is do what you can do based on your experience and play to your strengths. So that's what I did and try to make the impact wherever I could.

Chris (18:04.212)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And when you think about your journey now, so you've had this incredible career in the corporate world, in large scale organizations, and now you've transitioned to become a co -founder. How did that journey start and what was the sort of trigger and sort of story behind that?

Hans Keil (18:31.298)
Well, it started at Beaumont as well. I was pretty frustrated with, I still am today because it hasn't changed, with US health care and all the barriers that really are thrown in the way of having a proactive approach to health care. It's very reactive. On average, the health insurers in the United States cover lives for three years. So it's a very short

game in terms of optimization of healthcare for the most part. And there things we try to do in terms of more value -based care to think about proactivity, but it is hard. It is definitely a world of reimbursement and sick care. And again, I am not one to accept things like that. If you're, I joined the Coast Guard to save lives, kind of wired that way.

So I started a program to do sequencing in primary care offices across Metro Detroit. And with that program, met Dr. Robert Green, who's at Harvard Medical School, who's now my co -founder. And for a year and a half, we set up that program with our team at Beaumont, all the researchers I'd worked with through the pandemic and the projects I did there and forged those relationships and the clinical staff, and then his team of experts to help us shape that.

And we got funding from our donors, from our philanthropists for the foundation, raised a couple million bucks. And we tested a thousand people in these primary care offices and we found 180 people with a genetic condition that they did not know they had that's going to change the course of their life. And that's exactly who I am. I want to deliver that kind of experience, that kind of insight.

and make a difference. So as Robert and I did this, we decided, you with my background in perconelmar, which is a leader in screening newborns for different genetic conditions and Robert's work doing research in that space around early sequencing to find these treatable conditions, we decided to found nurture genomics so we could go faster so that the science that exists

Hans Keil (20:51.726)
today can be standard of care today, can be used by pediatricians and families because it's frustrating. It's going to be a long road to get to these 800 conditions that we should be delivering insights on that we do maybe 60 max today. It should be today we're doing it. So that inspired me to take this leap of faith and do something I never expected to do, a startup.

you know, after a career in these corporate roles, it is a very different life, I can tell you that, but it is worth it.

Chris (21:28.02)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think plays to all of those strengths that you've talked about, right? Because it does require you to be right in the mix, right? Right up close and engaging with customers all the time and getting feedback and closing the loop. Yeah.

Hans Keil (21:45.838)
all the time. And, you know, quicker iterative cycles, with, you know, with not much of a, of, you know, a runway in terms of what you can do. And so you have to be very calculated and focused, but it really does come to back down to that customer centricity and listening to what customers want in our case, parents, because they're paying for the service, which is again, is not the typical healthcare experience, which is part of the battle is.

It's not typical. Why would I do this? I've got to convince parents that this is worth their while and I've got to listen to them and understand them. Like I've never had to do in my career to be honest, to be able to activate something that is so brand new and just not commonplace. But you know the benefit is there. This is going to happen and I do think we can accelerate that adoption. But it won't happen without being

Chris (22:30.868)
Yeah.

Chris (22:38.73)
Yeah.

Hans Keil (22:42.156)
just laser focused, relentlessly focused on that customer experience and their needs and how you communicate it. yeah, know this is everything I've done in the past. You know, this blows that away for sure. And I'm still learning, still trying to get.

Chris (22:49.93)
Yeah.

Chris (22:56.582)
Yes. What's some of the, I guess, is there some interesting feedback that you've had that sort of comes to mind when you've been talking with those parents about the offer? Because the offer is really a screening offer, isn't it, to help parents understand how healthy their child is and where there might be some risk factors, essentially, as I understand it. Is that right? Yeah.

Hans Keil (23:19.278)
Yeah, exactly right. So again, you know, from a purely clinical and scientific perspective, you know, we all get this on our team. And sometimes that's always a danger, right? Because like, why don't you get this? You know, there are 800 conditions out of Robert's research that he showed that, you know, there's treatments available. If you do sequencing early and you find out that there's a risk factor, you know, that there's a variant that's present, you know, it's not

predetermined that you will have that condition and there's ranges depending on the condition. But there's a high likelihood and we've tried to, you know, we've picked 400 ish to begin with that have that higher likelihood early onset around three or under where it does make a difference to get these insights and act now. So if, as I tell you that and you know, listeners hear that, of course it's common sense. We should know we should be doing that. But as you start to try to tell a parent this,

You know, it is how much time do I have with a parent to convince him or her that this is worthwhile? And then what is that reaction within the parent? It's I did prenatal testing. I don't need to do this. And again, that's not the case. I can go into why my pediatrician is going to find these things and I don't need to worry. Pediatricians often miss these things. And again, it's not a slight on pediatricians. They're not trained in this. These are difficult things to find.

And the average diagnostic odyssey is five years, but that's something in the future. That's not going to happen to me. These are rare conditions. So there's so many things in our busy lives where we put off being proactive and doing these things. And what we're going to need to do is move upstream and figure out, okay, what do you care about? How can I better connect these dots and at least have you make a more informed decision if you want to do this or not.

Chris (24:46.772)
Yes.

Hans Keil (25:16.326)
and then hopefully trust in what we're doing and how we're doing this and managing the data and providing this at a clinical level, not in a recreational level, like some of the other products that are out there. So I know the things that we need to overcome to be able to win, I think I do, to win them over. And those are the things that we're working on now. And I think starting to get a little bit of traction and some good insights.

but it's a long road to make such a big change. But those are the things that are coming to light. And again, it's not about the science or the clinical aspects of this. Like this is established. It's the human factor and it's the engagement. it's being able to, again, like I said earlier, listen and then create those feature sets that will make a difference. So again, not rocket science and stuff, Chris, that you know very well.

Chris (25:45.332)
Yes. Yep.

Chris (26:07.56)
Yep, yep.

Chris (26:11.986)
Yeah, yeah, well, this is, is, you know, these are the challenges all come down to, to humans, right? And how we respond to these ideas and, and yeah. When you think about your own sort of professional life and being able to balance different priorities of family and career and the different parts of your life, how have you managed to sort of keep on top of that?

during these different moments in your career that have been certainly extreme and at different points.

Hans Keil (26:48.472)
Yeah. Yeah, definitely extreme. Like when I was in Detroit, my family didn't move because not because of the pandemic, we thought there was going to be a merger of two health systems. So I said, stay put and by the way, this pandemic thing, maybe it's something. And so we ended up being split apart for two years. So, so, you know, that was difficult and you had to work hard in terms of that connection. It is never an easy thing. but it is.

Chris (27:15.306)
Yeah.

Hans Keil (27:18.072)
You know, I'm fortunate to have an amazing family who've always been supportive of the things I want to do, but it's also you having to make sure you're carving out time and doing as much as you can to stay engaged and balance that. And it's something I really believe in, you know, for people to work for me as well, because I've had some workaholics who just go too deep into things and threaten to burn themselves out.

That balance in life is important. Yes, you have to work hard and that's important. And, you know, when duty calls, it calls, but figure out that balance because that's the most, you know, family is the most important thing in life. so, so I definitely have learned that lesson. I'm not saying I've always been the best at it, but I recognize it and, and we do our best to try to connect the dots. So, so far, so good on that, on that front.

Chris (27:58.11)
Yeah, yeah.

Chris (28:11.998)
Yeah, yeah. No, no, I think it's a key is just just the awareness of it too, isn't it? Because it's easy when you're a driven executive, the way that you have really driven your career in a certain direction and you obviously are passionate and love it. It's easy to be absorbed by that, right. And everything else goes away. So, yeah.

Hans Keil (28:30.232)
You hit totally.

Chris (28:36.874)
probably a few questions just to finish up on here. In terms of thinking about other leaders that are wanting to emulate a career like yours and develop their own leadership capabilities and so on, what sort of advice would you have or how would you think about sort of advising people that wanna develop their own customer -centric and engagement sort of leadership skills?

Hans Keil (29:05.112)
Yeah, yeah, good question, I think.

I think authenticity comes to mind and it's more than just a word. You have to break it down for who you are. and, I've been through so many of these sort of self -assessment tests and, with myself, with teams that I know who I am. You I I'm the coach or, you know, I'm the one bringing people together. I know what my strengths are. know what my weaknesses are and just.

try to be the best version of who you are. Cause yes, you can change elements. You can optimize, you know, I'm more introverted and I can be extroverted when I need to, but of course it drains energy from us introverts. So when you know these things, you know, you can do your best to optimize it, but you can't change who you are. So I can start there with who are you? and then I've always, you know, again, you know, I if I fell into this or I in terms of figuring it out, but yeah.

you have to hire or structure the team around you for the gaps. Maybe the gaps that you have as a leader, maybe the needs within an organization, but you have to really think carefully about that team, especially your direct reports, and figure out how you create a sum that's greater than the parts in terms of what you are as a team and how you work together and how you as a leader trust in them. And because they are making up for the

the gaps that you have because we all have them. So I think if you start there, that's a good thing to do. And again, for me, it's been transparency and painting the big picture for everybody across the organization and doing skip levels as I got more senior in my career and really having a pulse on what's going on. You for me, one of the leaders that I try to emulate and I never will is Colin Powell.

Hans Keil (31:05.544)
I got to meet him once and read a couple of his books and just blown away at the effort he put into getting to know the troops, the rank and file, never listening to his direct reports because he knew they were going to filter things and bring in their own bias and he needed to have the complete picture. But he was secretary of state. He told the story when he was presenting to us at a small group that I was a part of.

Chris (31:05.887)
Yeah.

Hans Keil (31:35.33)
that he would go and talk to the people who park cars in the State Department, parking garage, and he'd learn about who came in early, who left, what was going on. These people had a story to tell. They kind of had a finger on the pulse of things. And it was amazing, all these little things he did to be able to have sort of that command of what was going on. I'll never be at his level, but I certainly try to take from him and I try to certainly imbue that in the people that

Chris (31:57.31)
Yeah. Yeah.

Hans Keil (32:04.994)
for me.

Chris (32:06.59)
Yeah. No, that's a great, that's a great point, Hans. I mean, it's something we're talking before that we started the podcast about the MRI. And, you know, one of the challenges that most leaders have is getting to the truth, right? Of what's going on in the organization. And so, you know, I think that's, that's one of the elements of the MRI. Why it's valuable is actually you get the truth because it's anonymous, it's confidential. You actually hear.

the truth and it's very hard once you're the top guy in a large organization that brings something to the conversation, right? And it's difficult to defilter that.

Hans Keil (32:48.02)
Absolutely. To me, that is a key of success. And, you know, sometimes it makes your direct reports uncomfortable because they feel like you're not trusting in them if you're going around them. So you have to bring them on this journey and understand, help them to understand sometimes because not everyone's wired that way to accept that and act on that. But if you can, it makes all the difference in the world because I mean,

that word is appropriate. It's the truth, right? It is, or at least closer to the truth, let's put it that way. I never think we get a hundred percent to the truth, but if you get a wider perspective, you get closer step by step to it. You know, what's really happening.

Chris (33:30.324)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The other thing we talking about was AI and the influence of AI that's quite mind blowing at the moment in terms of its development and how it can be applied. How are you thinking about AI and the way it might be applied to what you're doing and maybe in leadership and different areas of work?

Hans Keil (33:56.45)
Yeah, no, yes, AI is the term de jure for sure. You know, I, it's funny, I mean, these elements have been around for a while. they're, you know, neural networks, you name it. You know, it's just these LLMs that have made it more accessible to the masses and have amazed us that how can it put all these pieces together? I think for us in healthcare, there's going to be an aversion to

a black box that hasn't been tried and tested and rises to the standard of care that we need and we can believe in. So I think we have to be careful with it step by step as we move forward. So some of the initial things is how does it help us become more efficient as a team to create some of these documents or experiences? But what I'm finding is, and I'm actually part of an accelerator called C10 Labs that focuses on how to create an AI first company.

And it doesn't need to be some crazy capability. It could be very pragmatic, simple elements of engagement. How do we do a better job of engaging, in our case, with parents to bring them on this journey to say, hey, here's a way to uncover these hidden health risks? Not talking jargon, science, but connecting with them in a way that's going to resonate and

you know, helping to sort of collect these pieces of the puzzle and AI is, you know, can do a good job of putting this together in a way that is actionable for them. Maybe creates a better conversation, you know, document, you know, points to ask your pediatrician. So things aren't missed in that next visit. So it really is a way to go downstream, connect, and then, you know, hopefully get to the point where they go, yeah, sequencing makes sense. I want to go deeper and understand these risks.

it's a journey and it could help to bring that journey to life in ways that we couldn't do before, and scale that more quickly. So I think that's sort of the front end. think the backend is going to be interesting, although we've got a ways to go in terms of the analysis of these variants. You know, the genome is very complex. We only understand a snippet of it, you know, in its totality and

Hans Keil (36:17.728)
AI is going to help us go deeper and deeper into this and get to better, know, more wider applicability of what the genome is saying and how we can act sooner and act more widely. So it's going to be fascinating, but that's going to be a longer journey, but it will happen. So start with the basics, you know, in whatever space you're in, think about the basics and how you onboard it.

but have that vision for where it can go. That's what this accelerator and my experience in the startups has taught me today.

Chris (36:51.458)
good, This sort of all the questions I had for you are for the conversation hands, but was there anything else that you wanted to share about your journey and about what's going on at the moment that we've sort of maybe haven't touched on?

Hans Keil (37:07.264)
I my reflection on my career, because I was thinking about this before we met, like I said, go with the flow in terms of these opportunities that are presented to you throughout your career. And good things will happen. I didn't have a master plan of the things I wanted to do. And what I've found in life is you get these opportunities and you sort of just keep

applying the things that you've learned and it gets better and better into the state where I could, you know, be doing a startup and, you know, thinking about all these elements from this, you know, I've gotten there and didn't talk about it, but I've deep into cybersecurity when I was at Perkin -Albert. It's being applied now to what we need to do. Data privacy is so key to this. You know, so I feel like I'm bringing things to this game that can help us actually succeed because it is a complex problem. So,

So I just encourage people to think about that on their career journeys and how they engage and build and trust in their teams is so key. And it's so key in a startup. So I guess those are the parting words of advice that I would have.

Chris (38:22.068)
That's awesome. That's awesome. Thanks so much, Hans. That was great. Great to hear the story and it's great to see you on a new trajectory.

Hans Keil (38:29.496)
Great to see you too. Yeah. Thank you so much, Chris. And thank you for everything you've done. because there was a point, you know, when I was at Perkinomar where you helped me out a ton for the things I was doing, in the informatics business, building out a chemistry software tool that again, another story where I had to learn that from scratch. And, again, you helped us to see what we need to do for the customer and really evolve a product. so I, get.

I saw your work up close and personal and appreciated it and know you're doing amazing things now.

Chris (39:03.668)
Yeah, it was a lot of fun, Hans. It was a lot of fun.

Chris (39:10.002)
I'll just stop the recording there, mate.