Innovation begins where it benefits everyone

And I believe we believe that technology amplified by AI can have a systemic impact on our health and the life of Earth. Professional

HEC was a fantastic opportunity for me to meet people, open doors, and also discover what is a good entrepreneur.

Yes, technology can change the life of patients and health professionals. Yes, AI can amplify all of that, can open a new world of possibilities for health professionals and patients.

Ladies and gentlemen, before anything else, let me begin by thanking you Stanislas for being with us tonight. It is truly an honor to welcome you back to HEC. Now, dear audience, let me start with a simple question. Who here has ever used Doctolib, or at least has ever heard about it? Almost everybody. And that's normal because Doctolib is trusted by over 80 million patients and hundreds of thousands of health care professionals across France, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. From medical appointments to vaccination campaigns, it touches millions of lives every single day. This is Doctolib, simple on the surface, revolutionary in its impacts.

And behind this achievement stands a man, likes New York Shadow, an HEC graduate, a former high-level tennis man, a visionary entrepreneur, and above all, a man of rare humility. In a world where many entrepreneurs love the spotlight, the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates once wrote, wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity. Medicine has always been about trust. Trust between patient and doctor lies in a precious bond often in moments of vulnerability, but trust alone could not solve universal frustration, slowness, complexity, and waiting lines. A system that at times seems to run against the clock of modern life, and you chose to change that status quo.

In 2013, you co-founded Doctolib with Steve Radley, Even Schneider, and Jesse Burnell, with a vision that was both revolutionary and radical to make health care easy, fast, and human. But your story begins much earlier. Before being an entrepreneur, you were first an athlete, several times junior champion of Paris.

You were raised in a family with sports, with a second language. Even your grandmother became world champion of tennis at over 85 years old, and under court, you learned discipline, resilience, and rigor. Lessons that would later fuel your entrepreneurial journey. At 17, a back injury put an end to your dream of a professional career, but rather than a failure, it became a turning point.

You entered HEC Paris in 2006 after a demanding class, and it was here that you sharpened your curiosity, your taste for action, and your patience for entrepreneurship. Barely out of school, in 2010, you launched OM Capital, a fund dedicated to digital startups. There you helped shape success stories like La Fourche, Baline, and Weekend Desk.

And through these experiences, you reached one conviction: technology must serve people. Every detail then came Doctolib. Within 10 years, the company became a European unicorn, valued at over a billion euros by 2019, and a crucial player during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in vaccination campaigns.

The road, of course, has been full of challenges: convincing practitioners, reassuring patients, navigating regulations. But as Aristotle once said, we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit. And it is that habit of rigor, perseverance, and hard work that has allowed us to turn an idea into a revolution.

And beyond the entrepreneur, there is the man, a husband, a father of young children, balancing family and leadership. In 2022, together with your wife, you created Ola, a philanthropic fund dedicated to children’s wellbeing and education. So that is the duality of Stanislas New York Chatto: athlete and strategist, investor and builder, and CEO. A man able to work on several legs without ever losing balance.

Tonight, HEC debates has the honor of welcoming back one of its own, an HEC graduate who has become one of the most influential entrepreneurs of his generation. So, dear audience, open your ears and your minds. Here is the story of a man who has changed and continues to change the way we access health care.

Thank you. Probably the best presentation I have ever had about me. So thanks so much. True story. You did a very good job. Thank you. But probably too much for me. I'm super happy to be with you tonight. Happy to speak here. First time since 15 years for me on this campus, a big pleasure, because obviously plenty of things started for me here.

Met all my best friends. Played soccer three times a week. Learned plenty of things. So I wanted to spend a couple of minutes before giving the mic to you to talk about my entrepreneurial journey and also about some of the learnings I had during that entrepreneurial journey, if okay. For all of you.

Yes. Cool. I hope you will understand my German, French, English accent. My entrepreneurial journey, as you said, started not at HEC, but way before when I tried to become a tennis player because during 10 years I tried to become a tennis player, playing tennis several hours a day with a goal: become a world tennis champion with habits, work hard, make things happen, learn new things.

And so I think it started here because for me, being an entrepreneur is not someone who is creating their own company, it is someone who has a project and makes it happen. My entrepreneurial journey continued after HEC, and I entered HEC because I wanted to do two things: build things and have a positive social impact.

I had zero idea about the sector, zero idea about technology. Basically, I just wanted to build things and have a positive social impact. And I said to myself, HEC is the way. And so I came in, did a junior entrepreneurs program, my first real company that I ran, 700,000 euros. I don't know if some of you worked at the junior entrepreneurs today.

Then I had the opportunity to work with an entrepreneur in Vietnam, to do entrepreneurship. And at OM Capital, I had the chance to create a startup, and a couple of ventures. So my entrepreneurial journey at HEC was not four years, but eight years of learning.

And after that, 11 years ago, I wanted to do something meaningful for my life. And so I selected health care, and I had the opportunity to say to some of you, I had zero network, zero knowledge about health care. And so 11 years ago, I spent time in medical practices and hospitals, six months as a medical assistant, six months as a secretary, just to understand how health professionals work, just to understand patient problems, just to understand how to treat a patient.

Obviously in parallel, I studied a lot. Health systems. And after a couple of weeks, I understood clearly what I wanted to do: two things. Goal one: help health professionals reshape the way they work, help them to have a better work life, help them to provide better care. Goal two: help people have better access to care and live health care better. And so that was the beginning of my journey. I had zero idea about a business model, a financial plan, just wanted to have an impact for health professionals and patients. Just wanted to build the best technology on earth for health professionals and people.

So my entrepreneurial journey is everything about user and technology. And that leads to what I wanted to tell you tonight about some of my learnings of the past 11 years. If I try to sum it up: learning one, I learned over the past decade that to create a great project you need first to work on things which matter.

And so, yes, I believe health care, education, and food housing. Solving problems which matter is life-changing. My principle of living or advice number one for all of you is work on things which matter. My learning, principle number two, is about user centricity. I said it briefly when I introduced my entrepreneurial journey: my first slide at Doctolib was not a business plan, not a financial plan. It was a one-pager about what I dreamed to achieve for health professionals and people.

So I wrote down 11 years ago, my dream for health professionals: better work life, less workload, less pressure, less burnout, provide better care, provide care differently, continuous, preventive, remote, cooperative, with new tools to deliver better clinical outcomes. Being user-centric for every entrepreneur is critical. Whatever your future job, be obsessed with your end user. At Doctolib, we are obsessed with health professional and patient satisfaction, user experience, and benefit. A hundred percent of our decisions are connected to user impact. All processes, all ways of working are connected to user benefit.

So advice number two: be obsessed with your end user. Advice number three: technology. We discussed before. The future of some of your jobs will be about technology, not only managing it but building it. Maybe most of you don't have a software engineering background; I didn’t. But I learned over 11 years how to create a product vision, do product discovery, build products, define scalable and modular technology, and improve engineering velocity.

If you want to change the world, you need to build systemic technology, not just a layer on top. Europe is complex because most systemic technology is American or Chinese, but you have the talent to do that if you focus and think big. If I had a child at HEC, I would tell them to become a product manager after HEC for two to three years, but also become an expert in AI and technology. Not only to speak about it but to prepare datasets, annotate datasets, understand prompt engineering, understand RAG.

Learning four: think big. At the beginning I was incremental. I worked super hard, improving things every day, piece by piece. Over the past years, I realized I needed a two-year and five-year endgame and work backward from it. First define a bold north star, thinking big, then work backward toward that endgame.

Yes, we are in Europe, but we can dream big. Dream big about your projects. Last advice: humility. 15 years ago I couldn't speak at all because of my stutter. I had extra time during exams, and I ended in the top 10. HEC gave me the chance. I thought I couldn’t work in a normal company, so I created a company. I worked twice as hard to achieve my dream. You don't need to stutter to learn humility and hard work, but it's key if you want to achieve something big and have a positive social impact. Listen, work hard, learn from others. My personal motto: learn three things a day and apply them.

HEC gave me my best friends, sports, and education. You are lucky to be here. You have a responsibility: think big, dream big, make things happen, work hard, put technology at the center, solve big problems.

Thank you, Mr. Nto, for sharing today. Before HEC, you were one of the best young tennis players. What helped you most to become an entrepreneur? Confidence, network, and learning user-centricity and tech aspects. HEC gave me confidence, network, and learning experiences.

Dr. Lib, now Doctolib, expanded fast before the pandemic. COVID-19 accelerated scale and visibility. Managing public and private interests is possible: a private company can serve general interests. We are purpose-driven and focused on helping health professionals and patients. COVID was a rollercoaster managing vaccination and testing campaigns. Focus on user and technology led to short-term losses but long-term impact.

Doctolib became mission-driven in 2023. Mission: improve people’s health and daily life of professionals. Technology suite expanded; users grew to 80 million patients and 300,000 professionals. Staff grew to 2,800. Mission unchanged: solving problems that matter.

AI is central. AI assistant for general practitioners launched: transcribes, summarizes, codifies, and pre-fills consultations. Billing assistant, codification tools, health observation assistant, parent app for pediatric advice. AI for chronic disease and personalized recommendations. AI is revolutionizing healthcare, enhancing professionals and patients without replacing humans.

Environmental impact considered: 360-degree internal project reduces carbon footprint. User acquisition: strategy of in-field visits and quality product experience. International expansion is stepwise, technology first. Responsibilities shared: practitioners decide, AI provides support. Venture capital experience helped understand startups early.

Even as a non-technical founder, being technically literate at product-manager level is key. Finding committed co-founders and technical team essential. Focus on user, technology, and mission. Work hard, love what you do, enjoy daily life.

Doctolib IPO possible in the future, financing is a tool to invest in people and technology. Advice to students: work on things that matter, dream big, think user-first, embrace technology, work hard, and enjoy your journey.