Chief Financial Officer

Vets Now operates a pet emergency service across the UK with 58 out-of-hours (OOH) clinics and four Hospitals (which offer 24/7 emergency care).  The company has grown rapidly in recent years, with organic growth rates exceeding 20% pa, by gradually transitioning from a low-growth B2B model to become a more digitally focused D2C OOH business.  On the back of this success, the company was recognised within the Sunday Times Profit Track 100 in 2017 (ranked number 51).

This digital strategy saw the launch of our new Video Vet service in April 2020, which is already seeing several hundred OOH consultations a month, where worried pet owners can book an online consultation before deciding whether to head into one of our emergency clinics.

As such, Vets Now is now the UK’s largest provider of emergency care, treating over 165,000 pets per annum with a turnover of c£80M. Now employing over 1,200 people, it continues to have ambitious growth plans, with projections over the next 2 years see the company growing to over £100M turnover.

In January 2019 Vets Now became part of the IVC Evidensia (IVCE) Group, a market-leading European veterinary group based in the UK which has itself grown rapidly over the last few years, predominantly through acquisition. Vets Now is one of the largest businesses within IVC Group and, by necessity, remains a standalone/ independent business within the Group given that its OOH customer base spans the entire daytime (First Opinion) vet sector.   It therefore requires a wholly separate management team, as well as systems and processes to ensure all client data is carefully ringfenced and managed, in order to maintain the trust and confidence of both its corporate and independent daytime partners.

Following the relocation of its previous CFO, Vets Now are looking to recruit a commercially minded CFO that can help build upon the above success.

• The CFO will be a key member of the executive management team, sitting on the board and reporting to the CEO. This is a true business partnering role, working with the CEO on all commercial and financial issues and actively participating in the formulation, development and delivery of the company’s strategy in line with the organisation’s vision, mission and objectives.
• The successful candidate will be a commercial leader of the business, both internally and externally, with a role extending well beyond the traditional boundaries of Finance. Capable of leading strategically, the CFO will also be willing and able to roll up their sleeves and demonstrate the flexibility, adaptability and drive to excel in a small team driving a fast-growing business. You will extol the values of the business and the benefits it provides to its clients and its people, who are the bedrock of our success.
• The CFO will provide insight and ownership of decisions on where to invest and how improvements can be made to the business, including for example around commercial decisions (e.g. OOH network expansion, launching innovative new services such as video vet), our pricing strategy, operational efficiencies, particularly around staffing costs, and capital investment.
• As the business has grown rapidly in a relatively short period of time, there is a need to continually develop our support functions, as well as efficient and appropriate structures of governance, systems, controls and processes. These will quickly need to be adapted and provide the required management information for the Board and leadership to maximise their decision-making capability; the ability to produce reliable and truly useful MI quickly and in real-time will become increasingly crucial as the business grows.

For further information and detailed conversation please contact Adam Brown via adam@fwbparkbrown.com or by phone 0131 539 7087.

To apply please send your CV to cv@fwbparkbrown.com.