Saul Kornik (Kena Health): Solving South Africa’s Healthcare Crisis

02/22/24 • 74 min

In this episode, we’re humbled to sit down with Saul Kornik, the visionary Founder and CEO of both Kena Health and Healthforce, the technology ventures solving the gap in the country’s health infrastructure by making affordable care accessible to hundreds of thousands of patients across South Africa.
Both ventures have achieved significant traction, with Kena Health raising both $2m in venture capital and winning the MTN Business App of the Year award in 2023 - and Healthforce facilitating over 3.6 million nurse consults since inception in 2018. Things are only just getting started for Saul, on his mission to make healthcare available to millions of people across the continent.
We talk about:
Saul’s upbringing and early career.
The pivot from financial services to a career of purpose.
Saul’s 15-year journey in African healthcare.
A deep dive into the country’s healthcare dilemma.
Solving one of the continent’s hardest problems through patience, partnerships and technology.

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Connect with Saul on LinkedIn:
/ saulkornik
Connect with Mathew on LinkedIn:
/ mathewmarsden

The Startup Club Podcast dives into the stories of South Africa's leading tech startup founders and investors, their journeys of innovation, failure, resilience, and triumph and is an initiative of Startup Club ZA - the country’s fastest-growing tech startup and investor community. If you're passionate about entrepreneurship, innovation, solving hard problems, backing the change-makers and co-creating a better country, then you're invited to join us! 🇿🇦
Connect with us:
Website - https://www.startupclubza.com
LinkedIn - https://za.linkedin.com/company/startup-club-za
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/startupclub.za/

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Connect with Saul on LinkedIn:
/ saulkornik
Connect with Mathew on LinkedIn:
/ mathewmarsden

Previous Episode

Badi Sudhakaran (VALR): Building the Financial System of the Future

In this episode, we’re humbled to sit down with Badi Sudhakaran, the brilliant Co-Founder and CPO of Africa’s leading crypto exchange, VALR.
Since its founding in 2018, VALR has grown to become the continent’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, processing more than $10bn from more than 500K customers.
The company has also successfully raised more than $55m from leading investors and is now eyeing a new wave of growth through its expansion to the Middle East.

We talk about:

Badi’s upbringing and early career
Living and working across 3 continents
Using technology to serve humanity
The decision (and risks) of starting VALR
Competing with a giant in the market
The company’s exciting prospects

Connect with Badi on LinkedIn:
/ badisudhakaran

Connect with Mathew on LinkedIn:
/ mathewmarsden

Next Episode

Karidas Tshintsholo (Khula): Fixing Africa’s Agriculture Supply Chain

In this episode, we’re humbled to sit down with Karidas Tshintsholo, CEO and Co-Founder of Khula!, the pioneering agritech startup dedicated to empowering smallholder farmers through access to markets and financing.
Founded in 2016, the business now enables the trade of thousands of products from hundreds of local & international suppliers on its platform and is changing the face of the agri-supply chain for good.
Khula is a graduate of the Google for Startups accelerator, a past winner of the MTN Business App of the Year and has raised considerable investment from the likes of PepsiCo, AECI and E Squared Investments. But, for the companies’ founder and CEO, the Khula story is one of immense resilience, fuelled by a passion to create sustainable solutions for underserved markets.
We talk about:
Karidas’s humble upbringing and entrepreneurship as survival.
Dropping out of university to become a full-time founder.
Identifying opportunities by deep-diving the problem.
Understanding the country’s agri-supply chain inefficiencies.
Solving for one of the continent’s largest opportunities and convincing the right stakeholders to come along for the ride.
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Connect with Karidas on LinkedIn
/ karidas-tshintsholo-0301bb78/
Connect with Mathew on LinkedIn
/ mathewmarsden