Wealth Management : BNP Paribas Global Prize for Women Entrepreneurs

The first ‘BNP Paribas Global Prize for Women Entrepreneurs’ awarded to Dr. Laura Melis for her work and commitment towards improving her patients’ care experience in the medical sector

BNP Paribas Wealth Management selected from a pool of international candidates Dr. Laura Melis, an Italian healthcare entrepreneur, as the first recipient of the ‘BNP Paribas Global Prize for Women Entrepreneurs’. Dr. Laura Melis was nominated for her exceptional achievements in combining economic performance, positive impact on society, innovation and promotion of entrepreneurship in the medical industry.

 The award is the first global recognition that celebrates outstanding woman in entrepreneurship and was created together with FCEM (Femmes Chefs d’Entreprises Mondiales), the global women entrepreneur network covering 120 countries. The projects of 22 candidates from 11 countries were meticulously studied by a jury composed of leading women from Europe, Asia-Pacific and the US.

 “In my entrepreneurial vision, my goal is to provide the appropriate assistance and quality of life to the greatest number of patients. We achieve this objective through new care models that combine sustainability, effectiveness and quality,” explained Dr. Laura Melis, laureate of the prize, at the award ceremony held during the 65th Annual Congress of FCEM in Rome. “I’m very honoured to receive this award which encourages me and my teams to build further on the ambition that we all share.”

 Dr Laura Melis graduated in medicine and specialized in physical medicine and rehabilitation. She contributes regularly to scientific research and is often invited to speak at medical conventions on physical medicine, rehabilitation, orthopaedics, traumatology and reconstructive cosmetic surgery. Since 1997, she has been managing a healthcare group, which now includes 12 subsidiaries, 130 employees and more than 300 professional collaborators.

“At BNP Paribas Wealth Management, we support business creation by understanding, serving and celebrating entrepreneurs through various international programmes and reports, such as the Global Entrepreneur Report or the Women Entrepreneur Programme at Stanford,” added Sofia Merlo, Co-CEO of BNP Paribas Wealth Management. “We wanted to go one step further to celebrate women entrepreneurs at an international level. The ‘BNP Paribas Global Prize for Women Entrepreneurs’ was therefore created to highlight the role women entrepreneurs play for future generations, to inspire future entrepreneurship and to promote women in the entrepreneurial space.“

About Dr. Laura Melis’ accomplishments

Committed to Developing Social and Healthcare Inclusion

Amongst Dr Laura Melis’ various achievements in the health and social sector, Dr. Melis won a competition to facilitate the inclusion of disabled people in the professional world. In 2009, she signed a letter of agreement with the city of Rome for a training programme in this field and published her book “Physical and Rehabilitative Medicine: A Response to the Territory”. One year later, she developed for the City of Rome a fall prevention programme for the elderly.

Accelerating a Family Business to Bring It into the Connected Age

Dr. Melis’s commitment to healthcare is a family story. In her career, her family has played a key role but mostly her mother. From an early age, Dr. Melis worked alongside the general management of her family’s group to learn each sector of the business. This experience helped her achieve structural and technological changes and organic growth for the business that she is now leading.

Over the years, Dr. Melis has grown the business to include new sectors such as hospitality facilities for families of acute care patients. Dr. Melis is currently managing 12 subsidiaries, including two clinics, a long-term care facility, medical laboratories, a research foundation, and the latest start-up company Sanitbook.

Sanitbook is a digital solution that helps patients manage their healthcare and medical regimes thanks to an online health file, that is always organised, up-to-date and accessible from anywhere in the world. It is a major step in Italy to better leverage e-Health.

 The Best Healthcare, Regardless of Patient Status

Over the past decade, Dr. Melis has driven her corporate strategy to focus on developing new solutions for healthcare needs. For instance, newly acquired facilities are completely restructured so that they meet patient care needs and pricing policies have been put in place for the economically vulnerable that cannot access high cost private care.

Over the years, the group has continued to reinvest its profits in new technologies and services to ensure sustained growth based on service quality.

 Sector Leadership Thanks to Constant Innovation and Training

Dr. Melis is always seeking to improve the service quality her company is offering to patients. Teamwork is key to achieving that goal and staff is encouraged to innovate, by creating new services, streamlining processes, developing solutions across the entire healthcare value chain from a patient’s first perception of a need until the resolution of the health issue.

The group has always focused on the quality of human relationships in the workplace, even as it has grown over the years.

Staff have access to a myriad of training opportunities which can open doors to new opportunities within the company.  The group also hires and trains young people just starting out in the professional environment and has agreements with several schools to provide professional training in various health domains.

About BNP Paribas Wealth Management

BNP Paribas Wealth Management is a leading global private bank and #1 Private Bank in the Eurozone. Present in three hubs in Europe, Asia and the US, over 6,600 professionals provide a private investor clientele with solutions for optimising and managing their assets. The bank has €358 billion worth of assets under management (as at 30 September 2017) and was elected “Best Private Bank for Entrepreneurs” in 2016 and 2017.