hearX Group - Female Executive of the Year in Europe, the Middle East & Africa

Company: hearX Group, Pretoria, Gauteng
Company Description: hearX Group is an impact-driven digital health company, passionate about healthy hearing. hearX has grown exponentially since inception in 2016, and offers world-first clinical hearing health solutions. Using smart tech, AI & big data, hearX has built a suite of smart solutions to detect, diagnose & treat hearing loss & has reached 191 countries & 1.5 million people in the past 5 years.
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Female Executive of the Year in Europe, the Middle East & Africa

Nomination Title: Seline van der Wat

Seline is a vision-driven, innovative, strategic thinking and passionate visionary. As an Industrial & Systems Engineer, she started her career in 2010 in the renewable energy field as Project Manager, designing, constructing and managing greenfield hydro power plants in South Africa and Zimbabwe as one of the few females in the field at the time. She moved up in the ranks quickly, and was managing over a billion South African Rands worth of project assets. Passionate about technology, she transitioned into the tech industry thereafter.

In 2017 she joined the hearX team as the Projects Lead, leading the team in terms of strategy, business development, product and system architecture, data analysis and reporting to mention a few. With her strong business sense, will to execute plans, and leadership skills, it came as no surprise when she became General Manager at hearX only 5 months later. Passionate about organisational design, Seline built out the team from 7 people, to the 91 we have today, on a limited start-up budget. Seline ensures equality within the team, with a range of cultures and a healthy balance in genders, especially on a management level. In 2020, Seline became the first female executive at hearX.

Seline was headhunted by hearX management at that time to join the team to assist with the scale up strategy and implementation. As an industrial and systems engineer, Seline took charge of operations and technology, to ready it for scale, taking on more departments and spheres as she went. Her approach garnered much support within the team as she championed personal development and buy-in from every team member. By the time she was promoted to GM she was responsible for all strategies and functions except finance and sales. It was under her guidance that the valuation of the company multiplied from $8 million to over $86 million, on the back of attractive and scalable systems and solutions.

Seline’s ability to lead effectively got hearX attention not only in front of investors and stages, but led to hearX attracting top talent. One of Seline’s true gifts as an Executive is her ability to motivate and lead a team in the midst of intense budgets, extreme deadlines, and constraints. Since joining, hearX has grown from 2 products in 6 countries, to 16 products across 191 countries - only four years later. Seline has successfully helped hearX raise over $24 million.

A few things that makes Seline stand out from the crowd is her ability to build exceptional teams, her passion for equality, and her drive to use tech to change the world in a sustainable way, with lasting impact.

Seline’s big heart for people and the advancement of women makes her exceptional in connecting with them on a professional and emotional level, spotting their talents, helping them believe in their capabilities and making them part of a team. Since Seline joined the hearX team she has helped grow the team from 7 to 91 employees within only 4 years. Seline ensures equality, diversity and inclusion within the hearX team with a range of cultures and a healthy balance in genders, especially on a management level. She is a way-maker, somebody who stokes the fire of change, innovation and stirs teams into motion. Seline helped develop and grow technology that is first of its kind - especially in a developing nation.

While our impact figures were at a mere 11,000 when she joined, she has helped the company scale to the point where it has touched the lives of over 1.5 million people by providing them with access to affordable hearing health in over 191 countries. Under her leadership, client churn rate has slowed to almost 2% on the B2B side, Return Rates on the B2C side are a quarter of the industry standard, and revenue per employee has skyrocketed.

Kindly see the attached PDF's as well as the list of awards below won by hearX, under the guidance of Seline, since July 2019:

OH&S New Product of the Year Winner | 2021
hearTest Occ Health won the 2021 Occupational Health & Safety New Product of the Year award.
https://ohsonline.com/pages/product-awards.aspx

MEA Markets African Excellence Awards - Global Leaders in Digital Health Solutions | 2021
This award recognized hearX as a 2021 Global Leader in Digital Health Solutions.

MTN Business App of the Year Award – Best Health Solution | 2020
This Award recognised Lexie Hearing as the best solution.

HexGn Top 100 Health and Medtech Startups for 2020 HexGN | 2020
hearX Group made the top 100 list.
https://hexgn.com/top-100-health-and-medtech-startups-for-2020/

ASME ISHOW Top 8 Finalist | 2019
hearX’s hearScope was chosen as one of the top eight finalists.
https://thisishardware.org