Launched in May 2020, Intellect today counts 3.5 million users globally, with services available in 30 languages and comprehensive local networks of mental healthcare providers across 60 countries worldwide. Its enterprise solution has been rolled out for multinational companies including Singtel, Shell, Merck, Schroders, as well as institutions like NTU, NUS, and the Singapore government. 

A key driver of Intellect’s global expansion has been its ability to “build the market”, especially in a space that demands varying levels of education depending on the market. Unlocking these opportunities to “build the market” is its Partnerships & Solutions team led by VP Cassandra Loh (Cass). 

We go on call with Cass to learn more about Intellect’s approach to global expansion, taking case studies in Singapore, Japan, and the US. How do they navigate the specific nuances of different markets? How do they prioritize hyperlocalization to deliver a world-class solution? 

We also get a sneak peek behind how Cass’s own career led to a key piece in Intellect’s ongoing global expansion, their strategic partnership with IHH Healthcare. 

Timestamps

(00:05) Highlights;

(01:17) Introduction;

(03:13) Driving Partnerships for Asia’s Leading Mental Health Care Platform;

(07:57) Partnerships in Intellect’s Global Presence: Singapore, Japan, and the US;

(18:21) The Backbone of Intellect’s Global Partnerships Strategy;

(21:57) Bringing Mental Health into Primary Care: Intellect’s First Offline Clinic;

(25:14) Realizing Intellect’s Global Impact;

(27:53) Stay tuned for Part 2;

About our guest

Trained academically in communications, with a strong interest and solid experience in Healthcare and Wellness, Cassandra Loh is an advocate of demystifying healthcare and making healthcare accessible for all. She has been working in the healthcare and wellness space for the last decade. 

As the VP of Partnerships & Solutions at Intellect, she builds and maintains Intellect’s strategic and distribution partnerships regionally, builds Intellect’s regional expansion markets’ growth strategy, oversees Intellect’s consulting and solutioning arm, and oversees Intellect’s chain of clinics. She was Health and Wellness Lead at Cigna Singapore, and before that Manager of Innovation and Growth at Parkway Pantai Limited, under IHH Healthcare. 

She received her Bachelors’ in Communication from the University of Buffalo, her Master’s in Communications Management from Singapore Management University, and her postgraduate diploma in Counseling Psychology from the College of Allied Educators. 

Transcript

Driving Partnerships for Asia’s Leading Mental Health Care Platform

Paulo: And to kick things off, I’m sure, just as I am curious, our listeners will also be curious about how you joined Intellect. What was behind that decision at that point in your career? Maybe what was the conversation like with Theo when you first joined?

Cassandra: So interestingly, I got to know about Intellect when I was working in my previous company. I was actually a client because I was part of the health strategy team in a global insurance company. That was really post-pandemic, so a lot of our corporate clients were looking for mental health care-specific solutions.

My background has always been in physical health. I worked in IHH Healthcare for a good decade, 10 years, and a lot of what I knew was physical health. That started my journey in finding mental health care solutions in Asia, and that’s how I got to know about Intellect.

I really liked what they did; it was still early stage at that time, but even then, I could see the differentiation and the potential Intellect had compared to some of the other solutions, whether traditional or brick-and-mortar.

I was looking at all kinds of solutions. I liked it a lot. We actually onboarded Intellect and used it for some of our clients. At some point, I thought, “Hey, if I’m spending so much time on this solution that I really believe in, is it possible that I could join them and see how I can work together with them?”

So I asked him out for coffee, and he was really expecting a more work-related conversation. I was like, “It’s just a bit more personal. Do you think there’s room for me?” He was so gracious, so kind, and we kind of explored what my interest was, what my expertise and experience were.

Now it’s been a good two and a half years, almost, and yeah, I’m so happy and thankful that I made that decision.

Paulo: I guess Theo must have been thrown off when you approached him with that conversation. It’s quite interesting that you were the one who actually reached out to Intellect to work with them and did all your homework about the mental health care space. It’s a through line with your role here at Intellect being VP for Partnerships and Solutions because your whole journey at Intellect started with a partnership.

So maybe you can share with us what partnerships mean to a business like Intellect and how you would say, coming in, you’ve really changed or evolved that aspect of Intellect as it’s grown.

Cassandra: I think partnerships are a very important aspect for any company, but specifically for something like Intellect, which looks after mental health care in a region that might not be that familiar or ready for the full solution. We rely heavily on our partners to bring awareness to what Intellect does, and we also rely on our partners to tell us what clients are looking for.

At Intellect, we consider partnership in many different strategic areas, including insurers, payers, government, healthcare partners, and education partners. They are the experts in the field, and what we want to do is to have a solution that fills whatever gap they have. 

So, partnership relationships are very important in any organization, but for Intellect, they have been paramount in our growth. Shout out to all our partners—they’ve been wonderful and very supportive.

When I joined, we were developing from scratch the strategic partnerships with the ecosystem, including healthcare providers. With my experience in healthcare, and considering that mental health is part of healthcare, we explored how we could bring that to light and find synergies with physical health partners. We saw so much synergy in what we do together, similarly for education and, of course, with the government.

I think Singapore, as well as governments in other parts of the region, are figuring out how best to bring mental health care support, awareness, and accessibility to the country. We’re happy to be part of that conversation. 

We’re very grateful because a lot of the conversations we’ve had have gone on to support parliamentary discussions. That’s really a testament to the kind of strong partnerships we have.

Partnerships in Intellect’s Global Presence: Singapore, Japan, and the US

Paulo: I think this was huge news earlier at the start of the year with this whole conversation with the Singapore government. Over that time, you’ve also been onboarding a lot of government employees and public servants, right?

Cassandra: Yeah, that was really interesting. It was a very important win for us. Of course, it’s a big headcount, a big employee base. It’s probably the largest employer in Singapore.

 For those who do not know, Intellect is actually covering or providing mental health care to all the public servants in Singapore—everybody that’s employed by the government. 

It’s a multi-year contract as well. But it’s not just because it’s a big employer and a large headcount. More importantly, it shows the confidence that the government has in us and their willingness to work together with us to bring this to the Singapore workforce. To us, that’s really more significant beyond just the deal size.

Paulo: This whole conversation about Singapore leads me into the bigger topic of Intellect being a global business. How do you think this engagement with the Singapore government contributes to Intellect’s efforts to partner with other governments, perhaps to drive mental health care adoption in their countries as well?

Cassandra: I look after some of the markets in the region, including Hong Kong, Vietnam, Japan, and a few more. Everyone is really on this journey together, trying to figure out the best model of care. 

What one market does can have a ripple effect on others. Having a good case study with the Singapore government definitely supports our conversations with other governments.

We don’t just provide care to employees in Singapore; we also support initiatives like the national website for youths, the national forum for youths, and more. We’re also having conversations with governments of different countries, and they want to learn from these case studies. 

But what’s most important and unique to Intellect is that it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. What works in Singapore definitely wouldn’t be a plug-and-play solution in other markets.

We rely heavily on our partnerships with strategic partners in each market to educate us, teach us about the nuances, and address the gaps they’re facing. But definitely, having a good case study supports the use case and boosts confidence in the quality of care we provide.

Paulo: You mentioned that one size can’t fit all and that you really have to cater to what each specific market needs. I wanted to tackle at least two markets in particular where there’s been a lot of news this year from Intellect. One is Japan. 

Regardless of the news, getting into Japan is interesting even from an outsider’s perspective because it doesn’t have the greatest track record, at least that’s how it’s perceived externally.

But Intellect has a team there and has built a presence. What have you learned from entering that market that has contributed to how Intellect approaches other markets as well?

Cassandra: On the contrary, Japan is one of the first markets in Asia that implemented regulations or started speaking about mental well-being, and that’s way before the pandemic. 

Japan is at the forefront of Asia when it comes to awareness of mental well-being, specifically in the workforce. They’ve had many initiatives in place, whether it’s EAPs, stress checks, or in-house doctors for workplaces of a certain size, to ensure the workforce is well taken care of. 

Post-pandemic, they’ve continued to increase these efforts. Japan is an interesting market. The challenge is that because there is already awareness, it’s harder to innovate within a market that is so familiar with EAPs. 

In other Asian markets, sometimes we strike gold because people aren’t as familiar yet. We bring in awareness, case studies, and something new, which excites them—like in Vietnam, where they are ready and eager for fresh and innovative implementations.

In Japan, because they’re so familiar already, the challenge is how we can innovate within the comfort zone they have. It’s been a learning journey for Intellect as we venture into Japan, but the need is definitely high. We understand the workforce in Japan, so we continue to learn, find gaps, and work with partners to ensure that Intellect’s solution is relevant to them. 

Nuances are especially important in Japan. Intellect has its own “Intellect Dimensions,” a 26-question questionnaire that measures various metrics, including employee well-being and productivity. We’re very proud of it. But in Japan, they’re so familiar with stress checks that our 26-questionnaire, no matter how robust it is, isn’t a replacement for a stress check. 

Forcing our way through with our questionnaire isn’t going to work in Japan. Therefore, the product team, with inputs from the Japan team, developed a solution that meets the basic level of care expected by the Japanese population—a stress check.

This is a good example of how we respond to the needs of various markets to ensure our solution is not a one-size-fits-all. Kudos to the local team for giving us valuable feedback so we can continue to improve our product and ensure that while we maintain the Intellect spirit of accessibility and localization, we also account for the nuances and readiness of each market.

Paulo: That brings to mind one of the hallmark graphs on Intellect’s website comparing EAP adoption with Intellect utilization. As you mentioned earlier, for most other markets, it might be clear that EAPs aren’t being taken as seriously, or they’re seen more as a checklist. 

So, Intellect offers an alternative solution that’s more holistic and proactive. But in Japan, where awareness is high, is adoption also high? Is that the case there?

Cassandra: Actually, no. High awareness doesn’t necessarily mean high adoption. High awareness just means high awareness. Higher stigma might also affect adoption. But you bring up an interesting point about the difference between EAPs and what Intellect provides. There’s definitely room for EAPs, whether as a foot in the door or as a minimum level of care. 

I’m encouraged that companies are adopting EAPs to provide support. Intellect offers another option, looking after holistic well-being. This plays a big role in destigmatizing and normalizing mental health care because if everyone is using it in various degrees for different functions, it normalizes the utilization of Intellect. That’s where the value of Intellect comes in. 

Everything being housed together also makes it more accessible, helping people find the care they need when they need it. That’s where Intellect’s benefit lies.

Paulo: I also wanted to talk about another market—the U.S. It’s a market across the Pacific, and for most startups, it’s not a usual market to break into unless you’re a SaaS company. 

But Intellect did break into the market through a big partnership with Accresa, a healthcare provider for many companies there. What is the significance of this partnership, especially since the U.S. already has such a huge mental healthcare industry? Where does Intellect’s service stand among the rest?

Cassandra: We’re so honored to have Accresa as a partner. The U.S. is definitely a more mature market, but when the opportunity came, we saw a gap where the content we’re providing—the localized content and the ability to switch languages for users—is valuable, even in the U.S. In most markets, and of course in the U.S., the workforce is very diverse, so that’s a value add.

We also realized that interest in Intellect has grown beyond just APAC or Asia to a global level. Many large companies in the U.S. have a workforce in Asia, and now they’re curious about what Asia has to offer and how it differs from what they have. 

They wonder if Intellect can support their workforce in the U.S. as well and whether it can provide a solution that serves the entire workforce, localized to individual markets.

Seeing that trend, we’ve put in a lot more effort to ensure that our solution is also localized for the U.S. market.

The Backbone of Intellect’s Global Partnerships Strategy

Paulo: One common thread across everything we’ve talked about so far is localization—being able to localize for different markets. But this obviously requires a lot of resources. 

While partnerships help offload some of this work and allow for collaboration, it still requires a lot of effort on Intellect’s end as well. How do you think about balancing out this localization with the resources that you have and prioritizing which markets to focus on and then spend more time on?

Cassandra: So we rely really heavily on what the market tells us, where the market brings us, we speed up on our localization. We also are realistic as to phasing out what localization really means, what’s the bare minimum required, and then how do we layer that on. 

For sure, our team in terms of the operations team, the network team has definitely grown, and it’s growing in response to the demand. Our workforce now is really global. We have in-house people all over the world right now, and these are really good people that really lighten the load a lot by providing a lot of this context for us. 

And you’re right. A lot of where we go and how we do it is also relying on what partners in the market are telling us. And of course, with the strategic team, we come together and decide on how we prioritize the market.

Paulo: I was also curious to ask you about how you personally, as leading this whole partnerships initiative at Intellect, have grown in the role. Especially coming from that background you mentioned earlier about mostly focusing on physical healthcare, what have you had to let go of in terms of your approach to driving partnerships, and where have you grown in this role?

Cassandra: My role has evolved in the last two and a half years that I’ve been here. When I just joined, I was really focused on industry strategic partners. But then the portfolio grew to look after the brokers, the insurance, and then it grew further to look after other growth solutions. 

Whether it’s our clinics, which I’m sure you want to ask me about later, and also our consultancy services—being able to provide L&D training and workshops for our clients, including holistics—also falls under the partnerships and solutions. So I would say my role has evolved greatly. 

But the spirit is still the same in which we want to provide mental healthcare and an ecosystem for users, fundamentally understanding what the market needs, and commercially looking at how we can create that in a kind of win-win situation: right partner, right payer, right user, right solution, right product. 

Fundamentally, that’s still the backbone of the entire partnerships and solutions team. 

In terms of what I had to let go… I think a lot of my background helped me in this role. The rigor of being in healthcare operations for the eight years I’ve been in healthcare operations, largely before I moved to the corporate venture side of things in IHH Healthcare. 

Operationally, we tend to be very day-to-day focused, especially in healthcare operations. So the challenge for me in this role is, how do I be more strategic? How do I look beyond today, tomorrow? How do I look beyond the local context?

This is my first time actually doing a role that requires so much localization and understanding of nuances, and that really opened my eyes to how people are running things differently for the same outcome. And it just works for them, and it’s more efficient for them. So yeah, I think that’s been great growth for myself, and I really appreciate that.

Paulo: I figure it’s a lot of compromising with how people are working and trying to connect the dots. There’s a lot more stakeholder management rather than enforcing whatever you want.

Bringing Mental Health into Primary Care: Intellect’s First Offline Clinic

Paulo: And you did mention earlier about the clinics, and it’s one of Intellect’s more recent news as of our recording—launching its first flagship offline clinic at Marina One in Singapore. 

I wanted to ask, in the context of this whole conversation about being a global company and localizing, what is the significance of this milestone with regards to Intellect? Will we expect more clinics, maybe in other markets, offline clinics as well?

Cassandra: Short answer, yes, for sure. Being really active in this ecosystem, we definitely see the gap. One of the gaps that we see is a disconnect between psychiatrist care and primary care. And if you ask any developed country, that is a healthcare problem. It’s not just a mental healthcare problem; it’s a healthcare problem where everybody’s just going straight to specialists, going straight into using hospital resources, and there just aren’t enough resources.

With mental health increasing in terms of awareness, we’re going to see the same trajectory where people are going to go to the psychiatrist, right? And it’s going to really drain the resources, and there aren’t that many psychiatrists in most markets to begin with. So now governments are asking, what can we do with primary care?

But then again, what is primary care for mental health? Is it really just GP doctors? Or is it about how we know the gold standard for evidence-based therapy is psychotherapy, behavioral therapy? But people are not used to having that as primary care, at least in this part of the world. So how can we bridge that gap?

That was the problem statement. What we realized we needed to create was still a clinic with a psychotherapist, with our counselor psychologist, but also have GP doctors who are trained in mental health bridge that gap between a psychiatrist and a family physician, for example. And so that’s how the clinic is set up.

The clinic that you’ve mentioned will house our counselors, our psychologists, our case managers, so that we provide that whole team-based care. But on top of that, we will have this clinic be enabled by a general practitioner in the primary care setting, trained in mental health, to be able to bridge that gap, to do triaging, and to provide medication at least at the primary care level.

And that really will ease the resources in the tertiary care setting. Fortunately for us, we have many similar playbooks in other physical health conditions, and so mental health being new to this, we can play a big role in sculpting this entire journey. For sure, it’s not going to just be in Singapore—this is definitely a model that we will want to play out in all the different markets where it’s relevant as well.

Paulo: Yeah, and I’m sure that’s another dimension to your whole partnership scope to think about as well, because I’m sure setting up a clinic in Singapore is very different from setting up a clinic in Vietnam, Japan, and wherever else you guys are at. 

I think it’s exciting because it paints a future where your family physician would eventually, in their list of potential referrals, already also have a mental healthcare team to refer you to—one that you’ve got to meet face-to-face, and not too far from your home, perhaps.

Realizing Intellect’s Global Impact

Paulo: It’s an exciting future to look forward to. Before we wrap up the first part of our conversation, I wanted to ask—under this whole theme of being a global company, Theo has always envisioned Intellect to serve Asia from the very beginning. 

He mentioned that in our podcast back in 2020. But when you first joined, what experience really left the impression on you that Intellect is a global company, creating an impact not just in Singapore, not just in Asia, but really, for humanity—essentially, people across the world?

Cassandra: I think it was when we had our strategic partnership with IHH Healthcare, which, by the way, meant a lot to me because that’s where I gained a lot of my foundation. I spent 10 years there, and now going back as a strategic partner, working with many of the same people but from a different perspective, it meant a lot personally and professionally.

As we were brainstorming on various working models and use cases, it struck me that this aspect of mental health care isn’t much spoken about in the world, and it’s not just relevant for employees, but for patients too.

For example, mothers after they’ve been discharged from the hospital postnatally—there’s the same demand, not just in Singapore, not just in Asia, but everywhere. If IHH Healthcare, such a significant organization, is willing to take this solution and say, “Hey, our patients need it,” then the question becomes: can this be replicated globally?

That was the earliest time I realized we’re not just confined to Singapore, Malaysia, or Asia. We actually have something that could work because the problem statement is the same. We are so good at localizing that this could work in other markets as well.

And then, of course, this brought many requests for proposals or solutions from different parts of the world. As we understood these requests, we realized that we were already covering many global companies present in these markets.

Gradually, I realized that it’s not just about Asia or our current impact—we truly have a solution that can support global needs, and that’s where we want to grow.

Paulo: I think it’s really rooted in very much shared human experiences. You brought up an interesting point about Intellect also serving multinational organizations, which lends itself to serving users in different markets as well.

On that note, thanks so much, Cass, for really painting this picture of how Intellect views itself as a global company serving people all over the world, especially through the lens of strategic partnerships. It’s also really interesting to hear about your full-circle journey—from IHH to Intellect, partnering with IHH, starting with a strategic partnership, and now leading partnerships at Intellect. It’s a great story to share.

If you want to learn more about Intellect, especially more on the solutions part of Cassandra’s role, stay tuned for part two of our conversation. In the meantime, subscribe for more updates on future episodes, and we’ll see you in the next one. Thanks for tuning in!

Watch Part 2: