TREAT
References from this period: 4 LinkedIn recommendations, full text. They vouch for the role, not for any one claim.
Proof points: 5
| Role | Product | Situation | Task | Action | Result | Year | Skills |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PM/GM at LEO Innovation Lab | TREAT TREAT, an app addressing underlying causes of inflammatory conditions through personalised nutrition advice, delivered as a decision-tree chatbot with nutritionists behind it. LEO Innovation Lab's first and flagship product. | The flagship product had a lot of attention, but was in trouble behind the scenes: massive tech debt, massive churn, no prioritisation, flaky metrics, unclear reporting lines and responsibilities, and no pathway to profitability. | Parachuted in with a 6-month mandate to stabilise it and assess viability. | Everything was on fire. Let some things burn and watched long enough to see which big patterns were broken, then started at the top of the funnel and worked through. Paused the service to refactor faster. Defined the value proposition and put KPIs into the daily workflow so the team steered by numbers. Set an experiment-led rhythm. Two levers: finding the fit before sign-up, and finding the fit inside the product. | Halved customer acquisition costs. Increased activation 7x. Both levers worked. | Nov 2016 - Aug 2017 | healthcare, ways of working, growth, activation, retention, funnels, experimentation, KPIs, roadmap, launch, 0 to 1, team leadership |
| PM/GM at LEO Innovation Lab | company all-hands the monthly all-hands | Optimising the onboarding funnel at LEO Innovation Lab, on the hypothesis that more notification opt-ins would raise activation. | Test a contextually-triggered opt-in shown at exactly the right moment. | The split test won on conversion but activation barely moved: the opt-in sat too late in the funnel. Rolled out a simpler opt-in early in the funnel, lifting net activation, and presented the mistake at the next company all-hands. | The monthly all-hands changed from presenting vanity metrics to mistakes made and lessons learnt. | Nov 2016 - Aug 2017 | healthcare, growth, conversion, activation, funnels, experimentation, launch |
| PM/GM at LEO Innovation Lab | TREAT team TREAT team, about 15 people including a product lead and a product manager | Brought in to troubleshoot the flagship product. The existing team were passionate but struggling to fight fires, and already had their own product lead and PM; it needed delicacy to keep their passion and expertise while helping them out. | Take over the team without losing it. | Started as a consultant for the first month, then proposed as the lead with the team reporting to him; that needed trust and humility, so the team got the option to veto. They went ahead. Fires, chaos, blurred reporting lines, people problems; the service paused to refactor faster; morale at rock bottom. Kept the faith: new cadences, new ways of working. | The team came out the other side intact and stronger, with real trust, and then halved acquisition costs and 7x'd activation. | Nov 2016 - Aug 2017 | healthcare, ways of working, activation, retention, roadmap, launch, 0 to 1, team leadership |
| PM/GM at LEO Innovation Lab | TREAT closure TREAT, LEO Innovation Lab's flagship product | Six months in, the metrics were transformed: acquisition cost halved, activation up 7x. The product had a lot of attention inside the lab and was the first thing LEO Innovation Lab had launched. | Answer the second half of the mandate: is it viable? | Looked at the unit economics rather than the growth curve. As customers increased, nutritionist costs grew with them. The 1:1 model did not scale, and the technology to replace the nutritionist did not exist yet. Recommended the business be closed. | The recommendation was accepted and Tom wound the project down, preventing further sunk investment. Turning around the metrics is not the same as proving viability; sometimes the right call is to stop even after making things better. | Aug 2017 | healthcare, ways of working, growth, activation, retention, roadmap, launch, 0 to 1, team leadership |
| PM/GM at LEO Innovation Lab | LEO lab model LEO Innovation Lab as an operating model | LEO Pharma could see digital disruption coming to healthcare. Its answer was an arm's-length innovation lab: better to disrupt ourselves than let a competitor do it. Keeping it separate made sense: different thinking, different ways of working, experts from all sorts of fields. A true melting pot. | Build and ship ventures inside that model, and get them home to the core business. | They did. The lab was incredibly agile, with rapid learning cycles and brilliant peers, but too remote: the innovations struggled to find a home in the core business. | The lab worked in isolation; the parent ship sailed on unchanged, and the model was not sustainable. Disruption cannot be outsourced to a separate unit and grafted back on later; the parent has to change too. That conclusion took Tom to Novo to try the harder bet from inside. | Nov 2016 - Jan 2020 | AI, computer vision, pharma, healthcare, patients, prototyping, incubation, ways of working, turnaround, startup, team leadership, remote |
Tell me about TREAT
source: Tom's own account
TREAT was a pioneering app addressing underlying causes of inflammatory conditions via personalised nutrition advice. It was the first product launched by LEO Innovation Lab, and it was underperforming.
I was PM/GM (Nov 2016 - Aug 2017). I was parachuted in with a 6-month mandate to stabilise and assess viability.
Key achievements:
- Brought the team onside and established a clear focus and experiment-led work rhythm
- Halved customer acquisition costs, increased customer activation by 7x
- Defined product value proposition and integrated KPIs into daily workflow
- Recommended business be closed, preventing further sunk investment
Direct answers
- A struggling psoriasis chatbot app with everything on fire. Worked with nutritionists to fix a struggling diet coaching app: rebuilt from the ground-up, established metrics. 7x activation. Then closed product.
- Analysed business fundamentals, and following recommendation to the board successfully wound down the business. Reporting to the C-level team. (2017)
- Experiment programme at TREAT, Nov 2016 to Aug 2017: established formal process for experiments; integrated KPIs into daily workflow; an experiment-led work rhythm; increased activation 7x through structured experimentation. One bad read caught: the notification opt-in split test, high conversion rate × tiny audience = marginal impact[LEO.R1.STORY.FEELS]. At Novo, weekly demos and experiment sharing across product teams[NOVO.R2].
- The TREAT numbers: 7x activation is the one Tom is surest of; the halved acquisition cost was per signup, fairly sure, but it was a while back[LEO.R1].
source: Tom's own account, direct answers
Related
- TREAT: tell me about the TREAT turnaround LEO.R1.TURNAROUND
- Skincoach: tell me about Skincoach LEO.R2
- TREAT: tell me about the time you optimised the wrong thing LEO.R1.STORY.FEELS
How did you turn around TREAT?
source: Tom's own account
I was brought in to troubleshoot the flagship product "TREAT".
It was the first product to launch, and had a lot of attention. But behind the scenes it was in trouble: massive tech debt, no prioritisation, flaky metrics, no roadmap, unclear reporting structure, massive churn, no pathway to profitability.
The product had an existing team of 15 people, including a product lead and product manager. They were passionate but in over their heads. We needed to be delicate - keep their passion and expertise while helping them out.
I started as a consultant for the first month. After that, it was proposed I become the lead with them reporting to me. This required trust and humility from everyone. I gave them the option to veto - but we went ahead.
What followed was intense. Fires, chaos, blurred reporting lines, people problems. We paused the service to refactor faster. Team morale hit rock bottom.
But we kept the faith. New cadences, new ways of working. We came out the other side not only intact but better and stronger - with real trust.
Related
- UK2 Group: how did you turn around the US marketing UK2.R1.USTURNAROUND
- Skincoach: tell me about Skincoach LEO.R2
- Ask: are you a people manager TQ.MGMT
Tell me about a time you optimised the wrong thing
source: Tom's own account
At LEO Innovation Lab, we were optimising the onboarding funnel. We hypothesised that increasing notification opt-ins would increase activation.
We got clever: a contextually-triggered opt-in shown at exactly the right moment. We launched a split test, and the conversion rate was amazing... but activation barely moved.
What happened? We'd placed the opt-in late in the funnel where very few users reached it. High conversion rate × tiny audience = marginal impact.
We quickly rolled out a simpler opt-in early in the funnel. Lower conversion rate, but far more users saw it, so net activation was much higher.
I presented this mistake at the next company all-hands. It was well-received. And as a result, the monthly all-hands changed from presenting vanity metrics to mistakes-made and lessons-learnt.
Related
- Ask: what are you like to work with META.COLLEAGUE
- Ask: tell me about a time you failed TQ.FAILURE
Why didn't the innovation lab work?
source: Tom's own account
LEO Pharma could see digital disruption coming to healthcare. Their response was to create an arm's-length innovation lab - better we disrupt ourselves than let a competitor do it.
The logic for keeping it separate made sense: to be truly innovative, you need different thinking, different ways of working. If you stay too close to the mothership, you just replicate what already exists. So they brought in experts from all sorts of fields. A true melting pot.
And it worked - in isolation. LEO Innovation Lab was incredibly agile, with rapid learning cycles and brilliant peers.
But the parent ship continued sailing unchanged. We were too remote. The innovations we created struggled to find a home back in the core business. You can't outsource disruption to a separate unit and graft it back on later. The parent organisation has to change too.
And this informed my approach at Novo.