From founding team to scale and exit.

Building the technology, engineering team and digital experience behind Telenor Health, from a new digital-health venture to a business that subsequently exited to Grameen Trust.

MY ROLECo-Founder & Chief Technology OfficerENGAGEMENTMarch 2016 – December 2019

THE ORGANISATION / CONTEXT & SCALE

About Telenor Health.

Telenor Health was established in 2015 as the health subsidiary of Norway’s Telenor Group. Its first service, Tonic, launched in Bangladesh in 2016 through Grameenphone, combining health advice, telephone consultations, hospital discounts and financial protection.

This was a new venture with the reach of a major telecom group behind it. Telenor reported 214 million mobile subscriptions and NOK 131 billion in revenue for 2016. Tonic was initially offered to Grameenphone’s 57 million customers; a Telenor report published in November 2019 described five million Tonic customers in Bangladesh.

Sector: Digital health / mobile-enabled care
Location: Norwegian parent; Bangladesh launch
History: Established 2015; Tonic launched 2016
Scale: 5m Tonic customers reported in 2019

Sources & context

Parent-group subscriptions, Grameenphone distribution reach and Tonic customers are separate measures. The figures above are dated historical context, not current totals.

Zero to scalea founding technology role

Digital healthcare and micro-insurance

Exitto Grameen Trust

A person holding a smartphone over a card reader for contactless payment — Illustrative photograph, not a record of this engagement. CardMapr.nl / Unsplash ↗

01 / THE CONTEXT

What needed to change.

Build a digital-health and micro-insurance business from zero in a market where connectivity could not be taken for granted. There were no customers and the venture was still at founding-team stage.

02 / MY RESPONSIBILITY

What I was there to own.

Engineering, technology architecture and platform scale.
UI and UX, project management and digital marketing.
Building the technology function as part of the founding team.

a rack of electronic equipment in a dark room — Illustrative photograph. Tyler / Unsplash ↗

03 / THE WORK

From the problem to the work.

01
Build the foundations
Joined at approximately employee number four and built out the technology stack.
02
Grow the function
Built the engineering organisation and led the platform as the business scaled.
03
Connect product and growth
Owned UI and UX alongside project management and digital marketing.

04 / THE OUTCOMES

What changed.

The business subsequently exited to Grameen Trust, following its growth from a founding-stage venture to healthcare at scale.
Helped build a digital-health business from a standing start to serving millions of customers.
Built and scaled the engineering function and technology platform.

A note on these outcomes

The company profile uses Telenor’s dated public reporting. Other customer totals vary across my CV and interview, so they are not substituted for the published 2019 figure. The Telenor symbol identifies the parent brand; it is not a recreated historical Telenor Health logo. The exit to Grameen Trust is recorded in my September 2026 interview and CV; no transaction date or valuation is asserted here.

05 / TAKE IT WITH YOU