Healing with Purpose: The Heart and Vision Behind Stephen’s Global Healthcare Impact

• Resisting traditional paths, global access to healthcare became Stephen’s mission.
• Stephen’s leadership is defined by empowering others, as opposed to exercising control over them.
• The maternal health program in Pakistan proved that innovation has the ability to scale, even in neglected regions.
• Today, with immense gratitude, Stephen acknowledges family, faith, and mentors for a vision that unfailingly continues to expand beyond borders.

1. Could you tell us a bit about your childhood and how it shaped the person you are today?

I grew up in an Iraqi Christian household. My mother was one of 12 children to my maternal grandmother, who was still pregnant when she lost her husband. So, she raised all 12 children on her own. I’m accustomed to being around powerful Middle Eastern women, including my mother, who is also a leader. My grandmother delivered thousands of babies. They were in a mixed village with people from different religions, including  Christians, Muslims, and Jews, who all came from different walks of life. But she would still help in delivering the babies. Many times, people didn’t have the money to pay her for her services. So they would give her a basket of fruit or vegetables. I always remembered that my grandmother had such joy in giving and had a servant’s heart. Of course, I ended up going into healthcare, and I delivered babies, too, and also found great joy in giving. I truly believe that giving is receiving. My grandmother never had much materially, but she had a richness that money couldn’t buy. And that was something that left an indelible mark on my heart, my soul, and my spirit.

2. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in your career, and how did you overcome them?

God made me an evangelist at heart. I have loved shaking hands, adoring babies, and meeting people. I always aimed to think big. A lot of times on my journey, I ran into dogmatic people who were not visionary, and they were very content with where they were.  I remember a quote from Martin Luther King that says, ‘faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase’. I always knew that God had big plans for me, but I wasn’t sure what it was. 

When I went to medical school, I thought that I would be in some practice delivering babies and helping children like the other doctors. But when I started down this entrepreneurial path, which led me to become an intrapreneur, many people weren’t very supportive. They didn’t understand why I was taking this direction. Why not just be a traditional doctor? And now it’s funny because many of those people are calling me up for jobs. 

I think the lesson here is that when you chase your passion, you find your purpose. And for me, my passion was to make health care as affordable and accessible to as many people as I could globally. That’s why God made me a steward, a vessel to do this. It was an extension of my father’s, mother’s, and my maternal grandmother’s journey to take it bigger and be bolder. 

I failed a lot on the journey. But I think it motivated me, and every failure set me up for success. I stayed true to who God wanted me to be. I believe that when you provide affordable and accessible health care to people, you can build bridges across the religious, political, and socioeconomic divide. You can bring people together in ways that others can’t. When you give people health, you give them hope. And when you give them hope, you give them everything. So I think that’s what  God wanted me to do. I try my best every day to fulfill my God-given destiny.

3. How would you describe your leadership style, and how has it evolved?

Margaret Mead said that a group of thoughtful, committed people is the only thing that ever changed the world. At the beginning of my journey, I would try to do everything. We didn’t come from money or means, but rather knew how to be resourceful. I was about getting things done. But as you try to do bigger things, you realize that one plus one can equal exponential if you have the right people and alignment of mission, values, and purpose. But it takes time. Everything moves at the speed of trust, and it takes time to build that trust.  

When you’re not transactional and you’re trying to build true partnerships with people, it takes time. I’m not a very patient person, so some of these things took longer than I would have hoped. Still, they turned out to be bigger and better when they did happen. I realized that everything happens in God’s time. I also realized that not only do you have to trust God, but also your purpose and the people. 

I don’t want to be powerful. I wanted to be empowering. It was more important for me to build this group of people together, who were like-minded and aligned, than for me to get something done. Ultimately, having that foundational piece could lead to much bigger things. But it took me a long time to develop patience for that. 

I think having children really helped me. One of the things I learnt from being a father is patience. You understand a lot more about unconditional love, and you understand with your children that sometimes you hate the sin, but you love the sinner. Parenting teaches you to let people be authentically who they are meant to be.  I may see things a certain way, do things a certain way, but you have to let people be who God meant them to be. 

This understanding has allowed me to step back and say, ‘Look, here’s the goal.’ There are several different ways to approach it. I’m going to approach it this way, and then if I have five people, they may approach it five different ways—and that’s okay. They don’t have to do it my way as long as we achieve our objective. It took me a long time to develop the patience, discernment, and to figure out if they could do it. But once I got to that point. I had a circle of trust with good people and good intentions who made great things happen.

4. What first sparked your passion to go into health care? Were there any specific events that inspired you to go into the industry?

In addition to my maternal grandmother, my father also sparked this interest. He was a physician and had the servant along with a leader’s heart. I just saw how much joy and richness they had when they were being healers and helpers, just as God meant them to be. I realized that I was also happier giving and helping. A lot of it came from them, and I think that it’s important to know who you are. 

I truly believe everyone has a God-given divine purpose. Did I ever think we’d be running a global company? No. Did I ever think that we would be where we’re at now? No. But it just shows. I think everyone has greatness in their destiny. It’s a matter of finding it, which takes a lot of hard work. It requires faith because it’s not a straight line. I like to describe J & B as a platform of purpose and possibilities, and we’re just the stewards of the blessings.

5. Did you have a mentor or someone who guided you through your career?

I had many people who mentored me. I needed a lot of help along the way. I called them my guardian angels because God always puts someone in my life at the right moment, and they had a certain perspective, skill set, and lesson that I needed to learn. Right now, there’s a gentleman named Major General Elder Granger. He’s a two-star general, a hematologist, an oncologist and our senior medical advisor. He started Tricare, which has 9.6 million people in the present and is a 50 billion dollar entity in the government. He provides health care to the military and the people of the uniformed services. He has great wisdom and is very empowering.

He’s one of those people who is a teacher,  an enabler, and a leader. And so he’s near and dear to my heart. I’ve learned a lot from him, and there are many other people, but right now I’d say he is my main mentor. I’ve also tried to mentor some folks. Hopefully, I’ll find ways to pay it forward along the way as well.

6. What impact have you seen from the healthcare services that you have shared over the years with the underserved and vulnerable communities?

In one of our projects, we were providing maternal care to over a million women in Pakistan. Many of these women didn’t have access to any prenatal care or postnatal care. They live in very remote rural areas. We developed a model where we would put our telemedicine solution in a remote spot. There was no electricity or internet. We used solar panels for the electricity, used satellites, and developed an innovative model. We would take care of over a million mothers and children in Pakistan for under a million dollars. The NGOs and other working people were spending hundreds of millions of dollars, because they were trying to build infrastructure, but they didn’t have anyone to work there. You know, you can build a hospital, a clinic, but they didn’t have the people to staff it. So we used an innovative approach. 

Accessible health care was our meaning and purpose. That’s our “why”. We put the ‘human’ back in ‘humanity’. We put the ‘care’ back in ‘health care’, and people know you care when you reach your health potential, you also reach your human potential. We did this program, and it was incredible.  Many of the women never had children because they had certain problems in their prenatal journey that should have been taken care of. I specifically remember a woman who had nine miscarriages. By providing this virtual care, she was able to have her first child. It was moving.

I don’t like the word philanthropy because people think it means charity, and I’ve kind of had a mixed bag on the philanthropic efforts out there. I’m more concerned about the impact. How do we move the needle? How do we improve people’s lives? And in our journey, the most impactful investments have been around mothers and children. There’s a lot of data that shows it’s a force multiplier. Investing in women and children in societies is how you move the needle. With our program, I think we made a difference, and I think there are more such opportunities. One needs to think of it as an investment. And my late father, God rest his soul, always used to say, everything’s got to be sustainable and scalable. No margin, no mission. Even with the very small amount of money we had, the project was still sustainable.

7. What advice would you give to younger physicians interested in making an impact through community health?

When you chase your passion, you find your purpose. You have to think big and think bigger with the amount of technology these days. I think you’ve got to be around people who want to make a difference. Who you’re around plays a big role in how you approach life. If you don’t have a spouse or life partner who’s supportive, that’s difficult. If you don’t have supportive friends, that’s difficult. At the end of the day, you have to have passion for whatever you do, because it’s always two steps forward, one step back. If you don’t have that passion or purpose, when things get difficult, many people give up. But when you find something true to yourself, you’re going to continue to fight, and it’s the journey that’s the most beautiful thing. It’s not getting there, it’s the journey, the struggle, the trials, tribulations, and the lessons that are the richness, so even though it’s very difficult at times, I know we’ve lived it. 

If you think you have something that can make the world a better place, go for it. Steve Jobs said innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. Go out there and be a leader, make it happen.

8. What are some hobbies that you like to pursue in your free time?

I love traveling. I’ve learned and grown the most from traveling to different places around the world. Most recently, I’ve spent a lot of time in the Middle East as my family is from Iraq, though I was born in the US.

I love reading, studying, and learning because there’s just so much to know as a voracious learner. I love people, and I think every time I talk to people, I learn something, and I feed off their energy. For me, going to new places, meeting new people, and seeing new things is very energizing. God made me an evangelist at heart. So, fortunately or unfortunately, I get a chance to go to a lot of places and meet a lot of people. There’s a flip side to it because I have young children. So, you know, I always want to balance it because I try to do more and more with the family. They’re 12, 10, and 8, so now we’re doing more things as a family. But I think going out and seeing the world makes me learn so much every time.

9. Is there any particular quote, mantra, or maybe even a book that resonates with you or has guided your approach in life?

There’s a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail,’ which means that take the separate way and blaze your own path. That always resonated with me because everyone’s got their journey. Everyone’s got their path. On my journey, if I had followed where everyone else thought I should go, how I should do it, and who I should be with, I wouldn’t be who I am today. There was nothing wrong with everything that people wanted for me, but it wasn’t what God wanted for me. Be who you are meant to be. And I think it’s very hard to have that self-awareness and define your divine purpose. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else because everyone’s got a different journey

Faith, resilience, and perseverance demonstrate the underlying philosophy of Stephen Shaya’s life. True impact comes from lifting others through your vision. Shaya’s life chronicles service as a source of inspiration, highlighting the integration of passion with purpose, giving a whole new level of redefining lifetime goals.