How tales of James Herriot's work in the Yorkshire Dales inspired Jo Malone to set up VetPartners

From starting out with Saturday and school holiday jobs in pet shops, Jo’s passion, motivation, and determination have helped her career flourish to the point where she now leads one of the largest veterinary groups in Europe.

One of her earliest challenges was for her to decide where to focus her work – on farm animals or small animals. But, as she explains, this quickly became apparent.

“Quite simply, I’ve got a terrible sense of direction,” she jokes. “And so, there was no way I could have been a James Herriot-type character driving out to visit remote farms across the Yorkshire Dales at all times of day and night. I’d hardly have got any work done for being lost!”

Jo got her first taste of veterinary practice life aged 14 when she took up a part-time job at Minister Vets, in York.

Having left to study veterinary medicine at Glasgow University – where she qualified in 1998 – she was fortunate enough to get a job back at Minster Vets.

She secured a post as a senior partner in 2009.

When other partners reached retirement age in 2014, Minster Vets was sold to a private equity firm and Jo set her sights on launching and growing a company based on team member values and outstanding client care.

Her opportunity came in 2015 when she was able to buy back the small animal division from the private equity company – and VetPartners was born.

Led by vets, VetPartners now has 148 veterinary practices, with 7,421 staff in the UK working in nearly 500 sites across the UK and from its headquarters in York.

Following European expansion in 2019, the group also has practices in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Spain and is anticipating further growth throughout 2022.

The group has diversified and now includes pet cremation services, an online retailer, a small animal veterinary nursing school, an equine nursing school, laboratories, and a locum agency.

Because no two practices are the same, VetPartners encourages its practices to embrace their independent spirit, while supporting them by investing in people, facilities, equipment, and latest technology so they provide outstanding care for patients and an excellence service for clients.

Recent investment includes the opening of state-of-the-art veterinary hospitals in Wakefield (Chantry Vets), Cardiff (Valley Veterinary Hospital, Cheshire (Woodcroft Veterinary Hospital) and Kettering (Northlands Veterinary Hospital).

The company invests in the latest hi-tech equipment so practices can provide the best possible care of patients. There are 17 MRI and CT scanners across VetPartners practices.

Jo has an extremely clear ethos for how she wants to run her business.

She explains: “I’ve always focused on developing the teams and people around me, both in practices and the central support team, and strongly believe that’s the key to successful leadership.

“For me, I’d say leadership is about caring about those you lead, considering how you can improve their experience within your workplace and worrying more about developing those you lead than yourself.”

She continues: “We’ve fostered a culture of warmth and belonging, summed up by the company’s motto, ‘We are family.’

“I’m obsessive about how we do things in line with our culture and aim to create a great place to work, where people feel valued, supported, and inspired to enjoy flourishing careers.

“ We don’t allow the word ‘staff’ and have replaced this by colleagues, team members or people, reflecting our caring culture.

“We have a huge focus on mental health and wellbeing; and support colleagues to achieve their career goals by investing heavily in CPD.

“Some 450 vets have come through our thriving graduate programme, which gives new vets the skills and confidence to excel in the profession.

“We also pride ourselves on being a family friendly employer, encouraging a healthy work/life balance and flexible working opportunities.”

In June this year, Jo’s passion for how she leads the business was acknowledged when VetPartners was ranked No 1 for senior leadership in a survey by global recruitment firm

Glassdoor.

The Glassdoor Economic Research team analysed more than 213,000 anonymous employee reviews to compile the list.

The 25 companies on the list were ranked on the input of UK-based employees who voluntarily provided anonymous feedback about their company’s senior leadership, along with insights into their job, work environment and employer over the past year.

As well as being ranked top, VetPartners was also the only healthcare company recognised.

Of the recognition, Jo comments: “We want to be a great place to work and knowing that our employees have rated us as such is great. To think we’re number one in the UK is incredible.

“However, this won’t go to our head as, if anything, it’ll make us work even harder to ensure we continue focusing on improving the workplace for all of our team members.”

So, what does the future hold for VetPartners?

Jo concludes: “While the UK market is now reaching maturity, the wider European market presents compelling growth opportunities and we’re pursuing expansion in key regions of Europe.

“In coming years, there’ll be innovation and investment to keep up with ever evolving client expectations.

“New pet owners are younger, they’re used to do everything online and we’re committed to delivering a great experience to them, both online and in practice.”

“Our digital transformation plans are designed to create a richer experience for clients, whether booking online, seeking out of hours advice, receiving reminders, or buying products online.

She added: “This will enable our teams to focus on delivering great care for their patients.”