REGINA MARIA setting standards in the healthcare sector

Fady Chreih, the CEO of REGINA MARIA, believes that resilience must be woven into the very fabric of the company’s structure, and he and his team have managed to consistently follow this principle, with visible results. He spoke to Business Review about the importance of leadership in effectively managing both positive developments and challenges.

By Anda Sebesi

What is your leadership style and how does it support your company’s performance?

I believe in servant leadership and try to be a scholar of its principles. Fair partnerships, strong values, financial discipline, and clear objectives—these are the key factors that have guided me in the 11 years of leading REGINA MARIA. I strongly believe that sharing a common set of values is essential, especially when it comes to people who are directly involved in C-level decision making, and this is how we have been building REGINA MARIA, growing it from a small local business to a European model. In the past decade, REGINA MARIA has reported a 12-fold increase in revenue and a 40-fold rise in EBITDA. We have set a solid foundation of quality in health services, and we will continue to do so, both locally and regionally. We’ve successfully exported REGINA MARIA’s leadership structure and business model to Serbia, where several key members of our management team are directly involved in shaping the growth of MediGroup. In 6 years, our expertise has taken the business there from EUR 38 million to EUR 75 million, and MediGroup has consolidated its position as the largest healthcare private provider in Serbia.

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What were your main professional achievements in 2023?

2023 was a full year for us, with growth reported across all important segments. Our portfolio exceeded 830,000 subscriptions, we reached over 10,000 employees and collaborators, our all-time patient total went above the 6.6 million landmark, and our turnover reached almost EUR 400 million. But welcoming the Dr Leahu Dental Clinics to our network was definitely one of the greatest achievements, especially if we’re looking at its potential, because it allows us to explore a new business sector and expand the range of medical services we provide for our patients.

What were the biggest challenges your business sector faced last year and how did you navigate them?

To start with the more obvious aspects, 2023 was definitely marked by inflation, which affected all sectors—and just like every other organisation in all business sectors, we were forced to adapt to the increasingly high costs. Luckily, we have continuously proven that we are a resilient and mature company, having learned to adapt to continuous challenges and to always consider both sectorial and macroeconomic risks when evaluating our next steps. Adaptability is key for any leader and management team that wants to navigate safely through the ongoing and sequential crises we’re all facing nowadays. To move forward, resilience must be woven in the very fabric of the company’s structure—we’ve managed to do this at REGINA MARIA and the results are visible. In the 11 years under the current management team’s leadership, REGINA MARIA has expanded—both organically and through 51 acquisitions—to over 300 locations all over the country, and has so far invested over EUR 250 million in the development of medical infrastructure.

Goals for 2024:

• Continue investing in digital solutions and services that put patients first and give them unprecedented access and full transparency to medical services and information.
• Sustainable growth – expanding the network in terms of locations and services and aligning them to REGINA MARIA’s standards of quality.
• Maintain a strong financial discipline, especially in the current socio-economic context, which might present new challenges on top of the ones we’re already facing.