When systems fail to mirror how work actually happens, people step in to bridge the gap. They build workarounds, rely on memory, chase spreadsheets, and absorb inefficiencies as part of the job. What begins as adaptation slowly becomes friction. Decisions take longer. Errors slip in quietly. Stress becomes routine. Focus shifts away from purpose and toward process. Over time, this invisible labour drains energy from organisations and individuals alike, especially in environments where precision and responsibility matter most.

This is the problem Dr. Wael Bizri set out to solve. Shaped by years in clinical practice and later entrepreneurship, he understood that financial infrastructure should support reality, not distort it.
Dr. Wael Bizri Co-founder & CEO Toothpick, he and his co-founders created a financial operating system designed around how healthcare businesses truly function.

When Care and Systems Intersect?

Dr. Wael Bizri did not enter banking and payments through traditional financial pathways. His thinking was shaped long before fintech became a focal point of innovation, grounded instead in operating rooms, clinics, and deeply human conversations about what happens when systems fail to work together. His earliest exposure to complex systems came through healthcare, where outcomes are never isolated, and every decision creates a ripple effect across patients, professionals, and institutions.

Trained as an oral surgeon, Dr. Wael learned early to think holistically. Clinical practice demanded more than technical excellence. It required awareness of processes, coordination among teams, and long-term sustainability. In medicine, decisions do not exist in silos. Each choice affects the patient, the care team, the clinic, and ultimately the broader healthcare ecosystem. That interconnected mindset became foundational to how he would later approach leadership, entrepreneurship, and financial infrastructure.

As his experience expanded beyond clinical practice into business and entrepreneurship, this systems-oriented way of thinking only deepened. Business management reinforced the same principle from a different vantage point. Operational, financial, and strategic decisions spread across entire organizations, influencing performance, culture, and outcomes. For Dr. Wael Bizri, the parallels between healthcare and business became impossible to ignore.

This dual exposure to medicine and entrepreneurship shaped his understanding of banking not as a product or destination, but as foundational infrastructure. In his view, banking should operate quietly in the background, enabling businesses to function smoothly without demanding constant attention or workarounds. That belief would later become central to the vision behind Toothpick.

The Hidden Cost of Broken Systems

Working in clinical environments made one truth unmistakably clear to Dr. Wael Bizri. The quality of care delivered by healthcare providers is deeply connected to how well clinics operate as businesses. Payments, collections, supplier relationships, staffing, and financial visibility all influence clinical decisions, often more than professionals are willing to acknowledge.

When financial systems are fragmented or inefficient, stress enters the environment. Decisions are delayed. Focus shifts away from patients. Administrative burdens accumulate, pulling clinicians away from their core purpose. Over time, these inefficiencies erode not only operational performance, but also morale and care quality.

Through continuous discussions with his co-founders, Dr. Wael recognized a recurring pattern. Healthcare providers were being forced to adapt their workflows around financial systems that were never designed for their realities. Instead of finance supporting care delivery, care delivery was bending to accommodate finance. Whether examined from a clinical, operational, or technical perspective, the conclusion remained consistent. Financial infrastructure had failed to evolve at the same pace as healthcare delivery.

These early observations were not abstract insights. They were lived experiences that shaped how Dr. Wael would later approach innovation in banking and payments. For him, finance was not about transactions alone. It was about reducing friction so professionals could focus on what truly mattered.

A Shift Driven by Accumulated Realisations

Dr. Wael’s move into fintech was not triggered by a single defining moment. It emerged gradually through a series of aligned realisations that accumulated over time. As he expanded his entrepreneurial work across e-commerce and digital health, conversations with his co-founders consistently returned to the same challenge.

Across industries and geographies, capable businesses with genuine demand were spending an outsized amount of time managing financial processes. Instead of focusing on growth, service quality, or strategic planning, leaders were absorbed by reconciliation, visibility gaps, and administrative complexity. At first, these challenges appeared manageable, even expected. Over time, it became clear they were structural.

Financial systems were fragmented, reactive, and poorly aligned with how modern businesses actually operate. This was not a temporary inefficiency that would resolve itself with scale. It was a design flaw.

That realisation marked a turning point. Rather than accepting financial complexity as an unavoidable cost of doing business, Dr. Wael Bizri and his co-founders began to view it as an opportunity. Fintech became the natural extension of a mindset rooted in simplification, alignment, and operational clarity. Toothpick was born from the conviction that financial infrastructure could and should be redesigned to serve real operational needs, particularly in healthcare.

Letting Go of Execution to Enable Scale

Dr. Wael’s leadership style evolved alongside the growth of the company. In the early stages, execution was everything. Roles were fluid, decisions were fast, and progress was measured in tangible outputs. Coming from a medical background, he was naturally detail-oriented and hands-on. That approach was essential during the formative phase, when speed and direct involvement determined survival.

As the organisation expanded across markets and entered licensed and regulated financial environments, leadership required a different focus. Dr. Wael Bizri learned that his role was no longer to be closest to every detail, but to provide clarity of direction, alignment of priorities, and consistency of values.

Letting go of control proved more challenging than the learning strategy. Yet the company needed to scale beyond any one individual. Over time, leadership became less about execution and more about alignment. Aligning the founding team, leadership, and broader organisation around shared goals became central.

Listening emerged as a core leadership skill. Dr. Wael credits his co-founders with strengthening both decision-making and long-term vision through diverse perspectives and constructive challenge. Leadership, in his experience, became an act of orchestration rather than command.

Designing Innovation Within Real Boundaries

Operating in the Middle East played a significant role in shaping Dr. Wael’s perspective on innovation, risk, and opportunity. The region combines high digital adoption with ambitious healthcare and economic transformation initiatives. At the same time, it is defined by diversity. Regulatory frameworks, healthcare systems, and market dynamics vary significantly across countries and even within individual markets.

This environment reinforced the importance of contextual innovation. From the beginning, Dr. Wael and his co-founders understood that sustainable fintech solutions could not simply be copied and deployed unchanged. They had to be built through collaboration with regulators, banks, healthcare operators, and ecosystem partners.

Listening came first. Understanding constraints preceded design. Regulation was not viewed as an obstacle, but as a framework within which responsible innovation could flourish. This mindset helped build trust early and guided the development of solutions designed for long term relevance rather than short term gains.

Clarity as the Missing Ingredient

Among the many challenges Dr. Wael encountered, one frustration stood out most clearly. Healthcare businesses often lacked real-time financial visibility. Cash flow, performance metrics, and planning insights arrived late and were fragmented across multiple systems. This lack of clarity made confident decision-making difficult and introduced unnecessary stress into already demanding environments.

That frustration directly influenced how Toothpick was built. From the outset, Dr. Wael Bizri and his co-founders agreed that financial tools should prioritise clarity over complexity. Visibility was not a feature, but a requirement. When leaders can see clearly, they lead calmly. That stability benefits organisations, teams, suppliers, and ultimately patients.

Financial clarity, in this sense, became a form of care.

Challenging the Habit of Complexity

Innovation often meets resistance, particularly in regulated and high-impact industries. One of the most persistent challenges Dr. Wael faced was shifting deeply embedded assumptions about complexity. In both healthcare and financial services, complexity is frequently accepted as inevitable.

Dr. Wael never believed complexity was a requirement. He saw it as a habit. Challenging that belief required patience rather than confrontation. Evidence rather than rhetoric. Consistency rather than speed.

Change in regulated environments takes time. Trust is built through reliability and transparency. Over time, as outcomes became visible, skepticism softened. Conversations evolved. Resistance gradually gave way to collaboration and partnership.

The Discipline of Moving Carefully

Building financial products that directly affect people’s money and trust requires careful balance. Speed matters, particularly in competitive markets. Responsibility, however, remains foundational. Dr. Wael and his co-founders discussed this balance frequently at the founding level.

Operating within licensed and regulated environments reinforced discipline. Governance, risk management, and compliance were integrated into product development from the beginning rather than added later. Thoughtful pacing early on created momentum later.

Dr. Wael Bizri holds a firm belief that trust, once lost, costs far more than any delayed launch. Responsibility, in his view, is not a constraint on innovation. It is what makes innovation sustainable.

The Compass Under Pressure

When pressure is highest, Dr. Wael returns to a small set of guiding values. Integrity serves as the constant reference point. Decisions must be explainable not only to customers and partners, but also to regulators and internal teams.

Empathy plays an equally important role. Many users of Toothpick are healthcare professionals working under intense pressure. The responsibility is to support their work rather than introduce additional complexity. Accountability ties everything together. Ownership of outcomes, whether positive or negative, remains essential to building lasting credibility.

Staying Grounded Beyond the Business

Despite operating in an industry defined by constant change, Dr. Wael remains grounded by recognising that work is only one part of life. Family, close relationships, and friendships provide a perspective that no strategy session can replace. These connections anchor him to who he was before titles and companies.

Mentorship has also played a critical role. Learning from individuals who have built, failed, and rebuilt has reinforced patience and humility. His medical training instilled these qualities early. Healthcare teaches composure, careful assessment, and responsible action under pressure. These lessons continue to inform his leadership today.

Building Teams for Sustainable Innovation

Talent and culture play a central role in fintech success, particularly within healthcare. Dr. Wael looks for individuals who balance ambition with responsibility. Ownership, curiosity, sound judgment, and integrity matter deeply.

Culturally, the organisation operates with openness, mutual respect, and constructive challenge. Innovation, inDr. Wael Bizri’s view, does not happen in isolation. What is built externally always reflects the people behind it.

Lessons That Only Setbacks Can Teach

Setbacks have been among Dr. Wael’s most instructive experiences. They remove ego from the room and force honesty. Some of the most meaningful refinements emerged from moments that required slowing down, reassessing assumptions, and adapting course.

These experiences reinforced resilience and patience, qualities essential when building within regulated and high-impact industries. Success alone could never have taught those lessons as clearly.

A Vision for Healthcare Finance at Scale

Looking ahead, Dr. Wael hopes his work will redefine how healthcare ecosystems operate globally. His vision for Toothpick extends beyond payments. He sees it as an intelligent financial backbone connecting manufacturers, suppliers, clinics, practitioners, and patients through a unified platform.

Data and artificial intelligence play a central role in that vision. Used responsibly, they can support better decisions, anticipate demand, optimise supply chains, and build more resilient healthcare businesses.

If Toothpick is remembered, Dr. Wael Bizri hopes it will be as the company that brought alignment and intelligence to healthcare finance worldwide. Success will not be measured by speed alone, but by the ability to help healthcare operate smarter, fairer, and more sustainably.

On a personal level, he hopes to be remembered as a co-founder who built with scale, responsibility, and trust from the very beginning, and as someone who believed that technology, when applied thoughtfully, can reshape entire industries without sacrificing integrity.

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“My vision for Toothpick is to become the intelligent financial backbone that connects the entire healthcare cycle.”

“As an oral surgeon, I was trained to think holistically, not only about individual treatments, but about systems, outcomes, and long-term sustainability. When combined with my background in business and entrepreneurship, this way of thinking only deepened.”

“I hope to be remembered as a co-founder who built with scale, responsibility, and trust in mind from day one, and as someone who believed that technology, applied thoughtfully, can reshape entire industries without losing integrity.”