Dennis Aizobu

Perspectives on healthcare, leadership & innovation

Ideas, analyses, and reflections from 25+ years at the intersection of health systems and leadership.

Mentorship Dec 5, 2024 8 min read min read

What I Look For When Mentoring Young Healthcare Founders

Last year, I received over forty mentorship applications in four months. Most of them led with their business model. A handful led with the problem they were trying to solve. Those were the conversations I could not stop thinking about.

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Leadership Sep 3, 2024

Building Systems That Outlast You: A Leader's Guide to Institutional Legacy

A few years ago, I revisited a programme I had led for nearly five years — long after I had moved on. What I found when I got there told me more about the quality of my leadership than any performance review ever had.

Leadership Jul 21, 2024

25 Years in Healthcare: What I've Learned About Leading Through Uncertainty

In 2014, I was managing a multi-country malaria programme when Ebola shut down three of our markets within a week. I had no playbook for that. Nobody did. What happened next taught me more about leadership than any training programme I had ever attended.

Thought-leadership May 8, 2024

The Pharmacist's Expanded Role in Africa's Health Ecosystem

I have watched patients walk past government clinics — empty, locked, or simply too far — and into a community pharmacy instead. The pharmacist who receives them is doing the work of a GP, a counsellor, and a supply chain manager, often for a few hundred naira. We need to stop pretending this is not happening and start building systems around it.

Thought-leadership Feb 12, 2024

Why the Total Market Approach is the Future of Healthcare in Africa

Somewhere in the mid-2000s, I sat in a Lagos warehouse surrounded by boxes of subsidised malaria nets that would never reach the people they were meant for. That afternoon changed how I think about healthcare markets — and why charity alone will never be enough.