Roy Jakobs: Technology, Leadership and the Future of Healthcare

Recorded at the World Health Summit in Berlin, this episode features Roy Jakobs, CEO of Philips. He started his career at Shell, moved to Elsevier and joined Philips in 2010. In 2022 he took over as CEO, at a time when the company was dealing with a recall, had stopped growing and needed a new direction. Roy talks about how he strengthened the foundation of Philips and changed the way the company innovates. Today, he says, innovation has to start with a concrete problem in the clinical workflow, not with the technology itself. That also applies to AI: frontier models alone will not make healthcare better. Philips is therefore becoming an open platform that combines hardware, software and AI, because hospitals are overwhelmed by the number of vendors and radiologists often work across eight different screens. We also talk about bringing care closer to patients, for example with a helium-free MRI that fits on a truck, and about why real change in healthcare only happens when doctors, reimbursement, regulation and technology move together. At the end, Roy shares the career advice he gives his own sons. This episode is for anyone interested in leadership, AI and the future of healthcare.