Anna Cecilia Frellsen: Much More than an Entrepreneur
Top 10 Most Inspiring CEOs to Watch Out For in 2022
Maternal mortality is one of the greatest
health inequalities in the world. 99 % of the 800 women, who die every day of
causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, live in low and middle-income
countries. In addition, 14000 babies also lose their lives before, during or
soon after birth. However, this global tragedy of maternal and newborn
mortality can actually – in the vast majority of cases – be prevented. And it
is not necessarily just about medical equipment and building big hospitals. The
key to preventing maternal mortality is simple: The woman has a skilled birth
attendant by her side when she gives birth. With the vision of “no woman should
die giving life,” Maternity Foundation focuses on training midwives and other
skilled birth attendants on how to handle life-threatening complications. Led
by Anna Cecilia Frellsen, CEO of the company, Maternity Foundation aims to
reduce maternal and newborn mortality in low-and middle income countries.
A long Road
Anna joined Maternity Foundation in 2013,
and her main focus has been on expanding Maternity Foundation’s global reach
and impact by using innovation and technology as a driving force. It has been a
transition from a more traditional NGO working on the ground in Ethiopia to a
global digital program across sub Saharan Africa and SE Asia.
Anna believes that their greatest challenge
– which is probably also their greatest achievement – is finding the right
model for Maternity Foundation in terms of how to bring their programmatic
know-how to scale. “Our focus is on how to most effectively implement digital
maternal and newborn health tools such as our Safe Delivery App into existing
health programs. We work primarily through partners rather than setting up
offices with our own staff in each of our priority countries – and this makes
us exponentially able to reach many more skilled birth attendants with our
trainings. So in many ways we have disrupted the traditional NGO way of
operating,” Anna said. She also thinks working with multiple partners –
including large NGOs, ministries of health, universities, the UN etc. – in
almost 20 different countries can obviously be challenging at times, for
example in terms of striking the right balance between standardizing their
services on a global level and adapting to the national guidelines and needs in
their partner countries.
With every problem that anyone battles and
wins, comes the achievement moment to cherish. For Anna, her greatest
organizational achievement is probably building a strong team of almost 40
colleagues in Denmark, Ethiopia, India and the US. Also, she is proud of how
they have established Maternity Foundation as a global player within the
maternal and newborn health field. “This has been quite a journey! The first
time we went to the UN General Assembly in New York five years ago we had to
knock on many doors to get ourselves invited to meetings and events. This year,
we were asked to present at UNFPA’s campaign event,” she added.
Focusing on Capacity Building
“While nearly every country and region have
improved maternal and newborn health over the last two decades, girls and women
– particularly in developing countries – continue to face significant risks
during pregnancy and childbirth. Giving childbirth should NEVER be with the
risk of losing your own life. That is a basic human right. That is why
Maternity Foundation aims to ensure that no women and their newborns should
risk their lives during pregnancy and childbirth regardless of where in the
world they are,” shared Anna on the mission of Maternity Foundation.
Maternity Foundation’s approach is to focus
on capacity building of health workers and midwives in developing countries –
and to use innovative approaches and technologies to have the strongest
possible outreach and impact. It has been working in Ethiopia for more than 10
years, building capacity of health workers and midwives and empowering women
and their communities to seek skilled care during pregnancy and childbirth.
Implementing digital health tools
About five years ago, the Maternity Foundation
team started exploring how to use the mobile revolution to reach even more
skilled birth attendants – even in the most remote areas. It is Anna’s
experience that at many health centers across low- and middle-income countries,
there may not be electricity or running water, but the health worker will often
have a mobile phone in his or her hand. “Hence, building on our programmatic
expertise, we developed the Safe Delivery App in partnership with Copenhagen
University and University of Southern Denmark. The Safe Delivery App includes
simple, intuitive animated instructions that guide the health worker in how to
handle childbirth emergencies. It includes quizzes, a description of practical
procedures and drug lists that midwives and health workers can always refer to
– either on the job, in their spare time or as part of their training,” Anna
further added.
Today, the app has been downloaded over
55,000 times and is being used in more than 40 different countries, with
Ethiopia, India, Ghana, Laos and Myanmar being some of Maternity Foundation’s
focus countries. The team has also started working in emergency and refugee
settings, currently in Ethiopia and Somalia.
Working Towards a Goal
Anna has a business background with an MBA
from IESE, seven years as a consultant at Mckinsey & Company as well as the
CEO of a startup. Anna’s competencies are broad and strategic rather than
within a specific area of expertise. However, her team of Maternity Foundation
is made of a group of very smart specialists – within medical and clinical
areas, global health, development programs, communication and IT. Her role is
to make sure that all these different areas of expertise work together to
contribute to the same goal, which is to ensure a safer childbirth for mothers
and newborns.
When asked how she manages to balance
between professional and personal life, Anna answered, “That is always a tough
one that I think most of us struggle with. For me the most important criteria
is flexibility and that I get more energy out of my work than vice versa. In
many ways my work place is global. Many meetings are Skype and I travel quite a
bit, but when I am home, I prioritize to work from home at least one day a week
and take many calls from home. This flexibility reflects the working culture at
Maternity, where many of us have families and smaller children.”
Digital Learning will be the Key!
Going into next year, Anna believes digital
learning holds a lot for the future in terms of tapping into the next
generation of digital innovations, including VR, AR, AI etc. Furthermore, she
considers herself proud to be a part of Maternity Foundation. Anna concluded by
saying, “we have a huge potential in changing the way that health workers are
training and how they can become better at handling emergencies during
childbirth.