Entrepreneur Feisal Nahaboo headhunts former Avicenna Group executive director Bharti Patel to Alitam executive board

In yet another sign of the growing confidence in the vision of Alitam, the 100-plus pharmacy store consolidation, its founder and CEO Feisal Nahaboo has today announced his latest high-profile signing to the executive board—former Avicenna Group Executive Director Bharti Patel.

Bharti Patel, the former group executive director of Avicenna, has been appointed to the executive board of the Alitam Group, it was announced today.

Patel, who was part of the leadership team at pharmacy group Avicenna until late 2021, brings with her a unique wealth of experience spanning pharmaceuticals, multiple retail and independent pharmacy, homecare and NHS primary and secondary care.

Bharti’s early career flourished at giant Lloyds Pharmacy, where she rapidly rose from a prescription medicines buyer to Director of Procurement within a short period of eight years, successfully managing a budget of £1.4billion across all retail procurement, own label sourcing/development and pharmacy marketing.

She boasts a strong track record of creating value through outstanding strategic, commercial and operational performance for major UK, European and global organisations within the healthcare sector.

She is also widely renowned within the industry for her strong leadership, commercial acumen and ability to ‘join the dots’ to create opportunities for innovation and strategic partnerships.

Patel is the latest big city name to be personally headhunted by Alitam founder and CEO Feisal Nahaboo, and joins a growing list of industry luminaries to sit on the board.

These include chairman Sir Ken Olisa OBE, deputy chairman Dhruv Patel OBE, CFO Zachary Brech, the former MD of Credit Suisse, and Antony Isaacs, former MD of HSBC Global Banking and Markets, who serves as a consultant.

Nahaboo says that with Patel now on board, Alitam is further strengthened in its ability to deliver its transformative multi-billion-pound ‘Pharmacy of the Future’ concept.

This will see a chain of  powerful ‘Super Pharmacies’ launched across the UK and Ireland within the next decade, offering more GP-type services to help reduce the overburdened NHS and, by so doing, establishing the world’s first truly preventative healthcare system.

Nahaboo said: “Some of the UK and Ireland’s top brains are flocking towards Alitam at the moment. Bharti is one such big-hitter, and Alitam offers an opportunity for her to fully realise her incredible talents.

“The synergy of her experience and skills and the Alitam offering is quite remarkable. Through her extensive experience in the multiple retail and independent pharmacy sectors, transformational change is not new to her and the knowledge and expertise she has built up over the last 20 years will enable Alitam to benefit as it seeks to implement wide-ranging cost-efficiencies and deliver new revenue streams to the pharmacy sector and beyond.

“Bharti is a highly respected figure who brings a wide range of high-quality industry connections to her new role. These will be of great benefit to Alitam, helping bolster our own commercial credentials.

“She is highly self-motivated and enthusiastic, and with her ability to work solely, and as part of a team, she is a natural fit for our already impressive Alitam board.

He added: “I’ve headhunted Bharti now as I know we will have her at her best. We will be working together closely on our strategy for integrating new pharmacies, achieve cost efficiencies and continuously improve our bottom line.

“Most crucial of all, however, will be her help in building our preventative healthcare network.

“Bharti is uniquely placed to help us identify reputable suppliers of preventative healthcare services, negotiate terms and help the board—and all Alitam pharmacies—implement these vital services.

“Preventative healthcare is at the heart of my vision for Alitam as the ‘Pharmacy of the Future’. With Bharti’s appointment, the people of the UK and Ireland look set to benefit from this sort of healthcare even sooner than we had planned.”

The pharmacy brainchild of Nahaboo, Alitam is his second Overnight Multiple Merger Model (OMMM) concept, which involves the consolidates of large numbers of individual companies in record time, in order to drive up standards and profits in saturated industries such as pharmacy and accountancy.

OMMM's are low-risk, and offer high PAT (profit after tax). Nahaboo’s first OMMM, named after his children Zein and Nadine, saw him merge 122 independent accountancy firms in just 256 working days, to create leading accountancy firm Xeinadin.

According to the Irish Times, Xeinadin went on to post revenues in May 2020 of £110.3million, and earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation (asset repayments) of £39.9million—a figure far higher than that typically seen in the sector and representative of the type of growth which typically takes 50-100 years to achieve.

Xeinadin have since continued to flourish, recently commanding a valuable chunk of private investment from private equity firm Exponent.

Alitam founder and CEO Feisal Nahaboo says that Bharti Patel is the latest in a string of top business brains to join Alitam.Alitam founder and CEO Feisal Nahaboo says that Bharti Patel is the latest in a string of top business brains to join Alitam.
Alitam founder and CEO Feisal Nahaboo says that Bharti Patel is the latest in a string of top business brains to join Alitam.

Nahaboo has announced his appointment of Patel as he prepares his second OMMM, Alitam, for significant private investment, with the pharmacy group planning to acquire 100 additional pharmacy stores in the UK and Ireland over the next two years.

Speaking of her appointment to the Alitam board, Bharti said: “I’m honoured to be joining such an impressive board—one carefully composed to synergise a broad range of business-critical skills.

“While I will be bringing my experience and know-how to the table, I’m also pleased to have this opportunity to learn from such luminaries as Sir Ken Olisa, the former MD of Credit Suisse Zach Brech, and Antony Isaacs former MD of HSBC Global.

“Most of all, however, I’m so excited to be able to support the radical change our pharmacy industry urgently requires.

“The healthcare sector continues to face unprecedented demand on its finite resources and Alitam’s vision and model creates a groundbreaking platform for transformational change to deliver high-quality, patient-centric services to our communities.

“I have long believed that you have to build today to create space for tomorrow; and this model creates that opportunity in the healthcare sector to meet the needs of tomorrow, today.

She added: “I’ve been monitoring Alitam’s progress, and the flurry of reports and announcements, showing just how much of an impact Alitam is set to make on our nation’s health.

“I love the vision of CEO Feisal Nahaboo and his determination to make change happen at pace through bringing a highly influential, skilled and agile executive team together to deliver.

“I will work tirelessly to support him, the board and all our pharmacies, in delivering better healthcare and wellbeing to all.”

For more information about Alitam, visit www.alitamgroup.com. For more information on the OMMM model, visit www.ommg.co.uk. For more information on Feisal Nahaboo, visit www.feisal.co.uk.