Ameera Shah is the promoter and managing director of Metropolis Healthcare Ltd., a chain of diagnostic centers with a loyal customer base across India, South Asia, Africa and Middle East. Metropolis delivers over 16 million tests annually and is rated amongst the top 1% laboratories globally for its quality systems and protocols. For the last 20 years, Ameera has focused on delivering sustained growth, built and led corporate functions, including finance, strategy, business process optimization, innovation, investor relations etc. Under her leadership, Metropolis raised the bar of diagnostic accuracy, technological equipment, customer experience and research driven, empathetic service. She has been responsible for corporatizing Metropolis by setting protocols, hiring expert professionals for the management team and also bringing together a fully actualized board.
Named amongst ‘Asia’s Most Powerful Women in Business’ by Forbes Asia and ‘Fifty Most Powerful Women in Business’ by Fortune India, Ameera is recognized as a global thought leader in the healthcare industry. She has also played an instrumental role in changing the pathology industry landscape in the country. Following the imposition of the nationwide lockdown, the 40-year-old entrepreneur found herself at the centre of a maelstrom, trying to help her company ramp up its coronavirus testing capacity amid the severe disruption. For years, she fought the stereotype that young women lacked seriousness, as she transformed her father’s small pathology lab into a listed company valued at nearly $1bn on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Now, she knew it was critical to manage her own emotions and keep a cool head to face the onslaught.
“Thankfully we know how to operate in chaos,” she recalls. Testing kits, reagents, protective equipment and other necessary items were in short supply, leading to fierce competition by rival labs for stocks. “It was a struggle,” she says. “Ten of us were all fighting for the same chemicals and nobody was giving consistent supply.” Government testing policy was another frustration. While New Delhi urged private labs to scale up, state and city governments had their own testing criteria - often highly restrictive. “
While battling government authorities over access to testing, the entrepreneur also had to devise ways for Metropolis to withstand the financial shock of lockdown, as nearly all medical services - except emergency care and coronavirus treatment - were suspended, a huge blow to private healthcare businesses. Ameera worked “day and night” with lawyers to prepare arguments against the order. It was finally rescinded, though many states have since imposed price caps on coronavirus tests. By late April, the strain had left Ms Shah “bone-tired”.
Metropolis’ roots lie in the in-house lab of a small 10-bed private nursing home run by her grandfather, a prominent Mumbai doctor. In the late 1980s, her pathologist father, Dr Sushil Shah, moved the lab into bigger, independent premises. She leveraged her father’s reputation, and the frequent but mistaken assumption that he was driving the project. As the network grew, Metropolis
also built a high-tech centralised laboratory in Mumbai to carry out the most sophisticated tests of samples collected from across India.
