Dr Rachel Melsom is a tireless and enthusiastic quadruple threat: doctor, media executive, investor and change agent. She embodies the portfolio career – founding Medical Matrix Consulting, to pursue system change in global aging. After becoming a Doctor in 2012 and equipped with her previous experience in PR, Media and investing, she has become a catalyst for social change within the business sector, predating today’s ‘hot’ ESG moves. In particular, she galvanized the Tobacco Free Portfolios efforts in Europe, and helped move billions of euros of investment funds out of tobacco. She was able to connect ‘passive’ pension funds with the real impact that investment had on people’s lives. Conversely, she’s now applying the same thinking to channeling investment funds towards more worthy ends – for example by investing in ageing tech, creating ‘Silver Linings’ to bring more investment to the ageing and longevity space.
Silver Linings
Dr Melsom, together with industry veterans Sally Bridgeland and Hugh Wheelan created Silving Linings as a “think > do competition for brainwaves and business plans”. They are hosting a competition (UK based but entries from around the world are welcome) to find promising business plans that will make care for older generations more ‘sustainable and scalable’. With the Covid-19 pandemic exposing our inability to take care of society’s most vulnerable citizens, the race is on to find bold, practical solutions that can be implemented within senior care. The contest seeks to find ‘investable’ and ‘implementable’ ideas that can be used to improve the quality of life and wellbeing for elderly people. Dr Melsom, thinks there’s a need for more creativity and imagination in solutions for senior care, and wants to move away from ‘old fashioned retirement’. Instead, we need to rethink and rewire some of the outdated systems that we see today. The competition deadline is January 9, 2022 all information can be found at: Silver Linings: home and potential candidates can request to join the official LinkedIn page for the competition here: Sign Up.
About the Author
Stephen Johnston MBA is a co-founder of Aging2.0 a global innovation platform for aging and senior care, founder of Fordcastle, an innovation consultancy and a member of the Future Agenda, the world’s largest open foresight initiative. Stephen serves on the board of Music and Memory a New York 501c3 nonprofit focused on improving the quality of life for older people, He is co-author of Growth Champions (Wiley, 2012), a book about sustainable corporate growth. He has an MA in Economics from Cambridge University and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Fulbright Scholar.