Part 2: How Viren Shetty of Narayana Health is building a career free of ‘groundhog days’

Welcome back to Episode 37 of First Principles.

If you’re here to find our latest edition of the First Principles Newsletter, here you go!

A few weeks ago, we had a wonderful conversation with Viren Shetty – the executive vice chairman of Narayana Health.  Narayana Health – formerly called Narayana Hrudalaya – is a hospital network that’s also listed on the stock exchanges. 

Today’s episode is the second part of our conversation with Viren. In part 1, Viren talked about healthcare in India – something he described as an “assembly line.” 

If you remember listening to it, you’ll know that Viren has both intricate knowledge and undeniable intuition about the healthcare landscape in India. We discussed Viren’s ambitions to fix healthcare in India and where Narayana Health is headed. 

That led us to why Viren holds this mission so close to his heart, in this second part of our conversation.

What led him to healthcare? What drives him to wake up and do this, day after day? In our opening, you heard about Viren’s innate pattern recognition superpower, which is very different from his father Dr. DeviShetty’s.

So, how did he build this intuition? And how does he use it to run a vast hospital network?

Viren answers all of these questions with stories from his life, career and even from the hospitals where he grew up. 

This is episode 37 of First Principles—The Ken’s weekly leadership podcast.

P.S. Please recommend your favourite books for the First Principles community here!

What is First Principles?

First Principles is a weekly interview podcast comprising authentic, candid, and insightful conversations between some of India’s most accomplished founders and business leaders, and Rohin Dharmakumar, The Ken’s CEO & co-founder.

From personal philosophies, mental models and decision making frameworks, to reading habits, parenting styles or personal interests, each episode will delve into what makes each of these leaders unique.