Quick Facts
Biography
Ali Parsa is a British entrepreneur of Iranian origin. He is the founder and CEO of digital healthcare company Babylon.
Career
Early career
He studied civil engineering at University College London and graduated in 1987. He stayed on to do a PhD, specialising in the physics of fluids. He was the recipient of the Royal Award for the Young Entrepreneur of the year in 1993 for founding his first business, V&G, Victorian and Gilan (1990-1995). The firm built from scratch a quality media clientele including the Times, Guardian, Telegraph, Observer, Readers Digest, BBC, the National Magazine Company and the Thomson Group and grew revenue, profitability, and retained capital substantially year-on-year. In 1995, Ali received from HRH, the Prince of Wales, the Royal Award for the Best Young Business in UK, selected from a group of 14,600 young companies. Parsa sold V&G in 1995 to join Credit Suisse First Boston as an investment banker. He later moved to Merrill Lynch and then Goldman Sachs.
Circle
Parsa set upCircle in 2004 to become Europe's largest partnership of clinicians, with some £200m of annualised revenue, near 3000 employees and a successful IPO. Parsa is an advocate of more private-sector involvement in the NHS, believing it improves efficiency, profitability and quality of healthcare.
Babylon
Parsa launched Babylon, a mobile healthcare app, in April 2014. Babylon is a subscription health service provider that enables users to have virtual consultations with doctors and health care professionals via text and video messaging through its mobile application.
He was named by the Times among the 100 global people to watch in 2012, and by Health Service Journal among the 50 most influential people in UK healthcare. He was the UK Cabinet Office Ambassador for Mutuals.