It’s been a tough year for executives across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia — especially for those in the healthcare sector.

“To be completely honest, throughout the past six months most decisions have been exceptionally challenging,” said Dr. Ahmed Ezzeldin Mahmoud Abdelaal, chief executive of Cleopatra Hospitals Group, which operates six hospitals in the Cairo area in Egypt. In May, Dr. Ezzeldin was at the helm when the group converted two of its facilities into Covid-19 treatment and isolation centers.

“The transition had to take place in a very short time frame and there was no room for error,” said Dr. Ezzeldin, who has been voted the No. 2 healthcare CEO in亚博赞助欧冠’s2020 Emerging EMEA Executive Team.

First place in the healthcare sector went to MLP Care chief executive Muharrem Usta, who leads Turkey’s largest healthcare provider. Usta said the safety of his staff was a top priority at MLP, which has 30 hospitals in 16 Turkish cities and has been involved in the treatment and diagnosis of patients with Covid-19, as well as public health messaging.

Both chief executives say the coronavirus has accelerated their companies’ digital transformations. Under the leadership of Dr. Ezzeldin, Cleopatra Hospitals has introduced new technologies to enhance back office and patient services. Patients can now take part in digital consultations using a proprietary app, as well as book home visits and diagnostic services – all without stepping foot in a clinic.

根据USTA的说法，当冠心病袭击时，在MLP医院的数字转型已经很好。但大流行已经加快了对新服务的测试，尤其是由于锁定而无法出门的患者的远程访问。现在，MLP期待了医疗保健人工智能的新时代，旨在推出一个新的AI中心，USTA表示，将“将我们的临床技能达到更高的水平”。

[II深潜：These C-Suites Stayed Strong in 2020]

It’s not just healthcare companies that have accelerated their transitions to digital services during the pandemic. Igor Shekhterman was this year’s top scoring chief executive in the consumer category as CEO of X5. Under his watch, X5, a leading Russian food retailer, used new digital processes to cope with consumer demand and changes in behavior.

“This year has been all about tough decisions,” Shekhterman said. “I think [the one] that will leave the greatest mark on our business will be commit[ing] significant resources to rapidly expanding online and other innovative businesses that had been developing on a much more conservative timeframe.”

Alexey Kornya，II’s top scoring media, technology, and telecommunications CEO, said his company Mobile Telesystems Russia has doubled down on longer-term initiatives to boost efficiency in-house.

“In business, as in other areas of life, the toughest decisions always concern people,” he said. Kornya was juggling moving large numbers of personnel to remote working at the same time as network loads surged in residential areas due to people staying home.

“Our customers were increasingly relying on us to keep them informed, employed, and in touch with friends and family,” Kornya said. “So it was absolutely critical that we provide robust, reliable connectivity.”

Shekhterman expects the challenges of this year to continue into 2021. Chief executives across healthcare, retail, telecommunications and other industries must straddle the digital divide, making sure offline services are safe and efficient, while grasping the extent to which changes to customer behavior are permanent, he argued.

谢赫特曼说：“这项提出它的公司将成为2021年及以后的大奖赛。”

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Igor Shekhterman

X5 Retail Group

消费者

今年您的部门最大的挑战是什么？

随着俄罗斯的大流行蔓延，我们必须迫切地采取措施，使我们的员工和客户安全，同时应对前所未有的需求飙升和消费者行为的变化。Thanks to X5’s robust business processes and the strategic digital transformation that was already underway, we were not only able to maintain smooth operations and keep store shelves stocked when demand peaked ahead of the lockdown in Russia – we have also massively expanded our digital business, with online revenue increasing by 311 percent year-on-year in 1H 2020. In addition to scaling up our existing online supermarket business, we also rolled out new express delivery services that offer customers delivery to their door from local stores.

What was the toughest decision you made in 2020?

We had already been implementing major changes behind the scenes to lead the gradual shift in food retail towards online and other new formats. Fortunately, this meant that we had the IT infrastructure, the in-house know-how, and the business processes in place to accelerate development and roll-out of some of these new services and technologies. It was tough to commit to changing our plans so significantly, but we are an agile business despite our size, and I think that it has paid off.

How is your company innovating?

We are using our own big data solutions, for example, to manage assortment and pricing in our stores. We have developed both the hardware and software for the cashierless checkouts we are installing in stores. Our courier-based express delivery system leverages the X5 technology platform to enable customers to order goods from a local store and have them delivered to their door within an hour. But we see opportunities to significantly expand the reach of our business by innovating further and doing more to help our customers throughout their journey to buy food, from planning to purchasing to consumption.

What is the greatest challenge that lies ahead for 2021?

Without a doubt the greatest challenges will be responding to the economic and behavioral changes that will result from the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. In this context, the challenge will be to make sure our offline stores are operating safely and efficiently, while understanding what changes in customer behavior will be sustained beyond the end of the pandemic and which ones will be short-lived. The companies that get it right will be the big winners in 2021 and beyond.

2021年你看到了什么机会？

X5 has gained new customers throughout 2020, thanks to changes in customer behavior and our ability to adapt quickly to offer customers safe ways to buy their food in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. We have also emerged as the leader in online food retail in Russia thanks to our expansion of existing businesses and the fast roll-out of new offerings. Our opportunity in 2021 is to make the right strategic adjustments to keep these new customers while continuing to serve our existing audience, and to further expand our use of online and innovative technologies to enhance the way we interact with our customers.

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Dr. Ahmed Ezzeldin Mahmoud Abdelaal

Cleopatra Hospitals Group

Health Care & Pharmaceuticals

今年您的部门最大的挑战是什么？

The outbreak of Covid-19 and the consequent shock to the global economy have posed and will continue to pose significant operational challenges for the group, but they have also opened up significant opportunities for future growth in segments of the healthcare market currently under-penetrated in Egypt. Our challenge in the past six months and in the coming year has been and will be to seize these opportunities and ensure we continue to lead the Egyptian healthcare industry.

What was the toughest decision you made in 2020?

要完全诚实，在过去六个月内，大多数决定都特别具有挑战性。然而，这是对我来说都是最困难的人，同时最有价值的是我们的决定，可以将两个设施转换为Covid-19治疗和隔离中心。过渡必须在很短的时间内发生，并且没有错误的空间。在短短的三周内，两种设施都完全运行。从那时起，我们已经治疗了超过300个Covid-19疑似或阳性患者，帮助缓解政府运营设施的压力。

今年您的业务有任何意外的机会吗？

虽然Covid-19大流行已经悲剧,哈哈s impacted all of us both personally and professionally, it has also opened up important future growth opportunities for CHG. In light of the changing market dynamics, we have introduced multiple new digital and home visit services to facilitate access to our medical services for patients unable or unwilling to visit our facilities in person during the crisis.

How is your company innovating?

The group sees digitalization as a key driver of future growth. In today’s increasingly digital society, digitalization is playing a consistently larger role in allowing companies to remain a step ahead of their competition, and the healthcare industry is no exception. In recent months, we have greatly expanded our digital service offering, adding new features to our CHG App which allow our patients to conduct video consultations and follow ups and book home visits and diagnostic services directly from their phones. In the coming year, we will be further expanding our offering to ensure we continue to lead the industry on the digitalization front.

What is the greatest challenge that lies ahead for 2021?

Since inception, our growth strategy has focused on growing our hospital’s platform through strategic acquisitions and expansions. While this has seen us achieve exceptional results, in 2021 we will be shifting our focus towards driving growth across the group’s other various revenue streams to capitalize on the potential offered by our diagnostics, polyclinics, and pharmacy platforms.

2021年你看到了什么机会？

The biggest opportunities in 2021 will come on the back of a recovering Egyptian economy as the impacts of the pandemic subside. With the Egyptian government’s increased support for the healthcare sector, we are optimistic about what is to come in the new year.

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Muharrem Usta

MLP护理

Health Care & Pharmaceuticals

今年您的部门最大的挑战是什么？

There is no doubt that the greatest challenge of 2020 for our industry and even for the world was the Covid-19 pandemic. This new type of virus, which is very contagious and has high mortality rates, has dramatically altered the lives of people and institutions. Our industry has taken a defensive crisis management position in order to combat the uncertainty of the virus and its destructive impacts. In order to combat the pandemic, on the one hand, we took part in the diagnosis and treatment processes of Covid-19 patients; on the other hand, we worked hard to reduce the spread of the virus through informing the public correctly under the leadership of our senior physicians.

What was the toughest decision you made in 2020?

在MLP Care上，我们可以通过我们的“敏捷医院管理”哲学来处理每次挫折并采取适当的行动。这个特色功能使我们能够在短时间内适应大流行的新情况。然而，如您所知，大流行时期对医疗保健专业人员来说是非常危险的......我们在密切关注我们的医生和护士的工作条件之前，我们已经比以往任何时候都致力于这个问题的时间，以履行我们的职责，特别是在可持续性方面服务和公共卫生。

今年您的业务有任何意外的机会吗？

我们一直在积极地投资于电子交易nsformation for the last two years. The Covid-19 pandemic allowed us to test some of the alternative service channels that we were planning to implement in the near future. In recent months, we have served people who cannot or do not want to come to hospitals due to movement restrictions, especially patients with chronic diseases, with virtual doctor interviews.

How is your company innovating?

[以及]数字转换,(我们)也very excited about the projects in the field of clinical artificial intelligence, both within our organization and with our collaborations. One of our goals is to launch an Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence that will enable us to take our clinical skills to a higher level.

What is the greatest challenge that lies ahead for 2021?

There has been pressure on foreign currency exchange rates since 2018... We cannot ignore the possible disadvantages of the macroeconomic headwinds, which felt more due to the pandemic, for the companies with foreign currency debt like ourselves.

2021年你看到了什么机会？

The number of people with top-up insurance increased by 499,000 in the last 12 months. Based on these figures, more people preferred to have health insurance during the pandemic period, and therefore we anticipate that this interest will contribute to the growth of this revenue segment in the upcoming periods. Also, we expect that our foreign medical tourism revenues will regain its strong growth in 2021. The number of private hospitals in Turkey is 577. Currently, only 67 of them are operated by relatively large private hospital groups. We anticipate that the number of M&A transactions in the healthcare sector [will] increase driven by the pandemic. There will be lucrative consolidation opportunities for our company going forward.

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Pavel Grachev

Polyus

金属和采矿

今年您的部门最大的挑战是什么？

With the spread of Covid-19, I firmly believe that the single greatest challenge this year, affecting not just the mining sector but all industries, has been in keeping our people safe and protecting our local communities. The remote location of many mining operations, including our own assets, in addition to the shift nature of our work, has presented numerous tough challenges in reacting to the pandemic. Making swift decisions and taking all necessary measures has been a tough challenge globally.

今年您的业务有任何意外的机会吗？

We have always taken a prudent financial approach, and our goal is to optimize our production costs whilst modeling our business conservatively. Therefore, considering the weakened U.S. dollar amidst the pandemic, negative inflation-adjusted bond yields and geopolitical tensions, gold has enjoyed its longest winning streak this year, which we have naturally benefited from at a scale we could not have predicted.

How is your company innovating?

Polyus actively promotes a culture of innovation within our organization for two main reasons – to improve efficiency, and to maintain our high safety standards. We have been rolling out remote-control systems for our operations for several years, and are now using drones for 3D mapping of our operations. These drones enable us to access those areas of our mines that are hardest-to-reach, and we use the mapping data to create digital twins of our deposits.

What is the greatest challenge that lies ahead for 2021?

在2021年，我们希望为世界上最大的绿地存款之一进行Sukhoi Log的可行性研究结果，随后提出了资产的最终投资决定。存在许多具有挑战性的因素，必须考虑在一个像Sukhoi日志的项目的开发中，正常执行其执行只是一个关键因素，同时考虑到项目的复杂性及其资本密集的要求。因此，管理该项目的潜在发展可能是采矿专业终身的最令人垂涎​​的挑战。

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Alexey Kornya

Mobile TeleSystems

Technology, Media & Telecommunications

今年您的部门最大的挑战是什么？

与大多数公司一样，我们在确保业务连续性时面临重大挑战，因为我们将大多数员工转移到遥远的工作时。然而，与许多行业不同，我们也必须同时应对大幅提高需求。网络负荷飙升，交通流量正在转向住宅区。我们的客户越来越依赖于我们，让他们了解，就业，并与朋友和家人联系。同时，MTS不仅仅是一个连接提供商。我们在其他行业运营 - 就像银行，零售和媒体 - 其中一些基本上受到大流行影响的影响。我们采取了一个有针对性的方法来解决每个细分市场的具体挑战。在金融服务中 - 我们看到最大的影响 - 我们对投资组合风险保持敏锐的目光，同时对员工负责和赔偿做出艰难的决定。在零售方面，我们配备了个人保护设备的员工，并开始将步入式客户筛选到我们的商店。在媒体中，我们枢转了我们的产品，与俄罗斯领先的艺术家一起推出了现场沉浸式VR音乐会。

What was the toughest decision you made in 2020?

在商业领域,在生活的其他领域,toughest decisions always concern people. In 2020, we were faced with stark choices about where, how, and with whom we should work. MTS was one of the first large Russian companies to begin shifting employees to remote work. While we were juggling all of this, we also realized that the current environment would further accelerate digitalization and sharpen the focus on productivity. So we doubled down on our longer-term initiatives to boost efficiency — from automating workflows to streamlining decision making and optimizing our organizational structure.

今年您的业务有任何意外的机会吗？

In our core business, the growth outlook has been limited. We understood that the crisis gave us a rare opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to our customers beyond a simple financial relationship. For example, we provided free access to official health resources, launched a free mental wellness hotline, extended connectivity services on credit, and provided free connectivity for healthcare workers. It’s often said that “hard times reveal true friends.” We wanted our customers to know that we would stand by them when it really mattered. In some sense, this was the biggest business opportunity of 2020.

What is the greatest challenge that lies ahead for 2021?

At MTS, we continue to move at pace on our longer-term transformation — shifting from a single- to a multi-product business model built around a digital ecosystem of world-class products and services.

2021年你看到了什么机会？

To me as a CEO, I find it important to never lose sight of the big picture. Despite short-term uncertainty, my long-term outlook remains bright. Connectivity is more essential than ever, and digital transformation is accelerating like never before. Everywhere you look innovation is spreading — from contactless payments to video streaming, telemedicine, home-based fitness, and cloud-based workflows. What was once bleeding edge is now mainstream. And I’m confident that those who stand ready to embrace that future will be best positioned to capture the tailwinds in the years ahead.