Top Dog
Joined Vistage in 2017
2023 Vistage Legacy Award Winner
It is a cliche, but it’s true: You make a lot of your own luck. I started my entrepreneurship early. In high school, I started a landscaping company that paid for college and for my wife’s engagement ring. After school, I took the more traditional route: business school and then leadership in a big company. But I had this itch to start something myself again.
I was the CEO of a successful health care company, but I saw how the health care market was changing. It was getting harder and harder to grow in a world of health insurance. I knew I wanted a change, and I knew I wanted to get back to starting something myself. I looked to areas without as much payer exposure: dermatology, ophthalmology and veterinary health.
A Toronto Private Equity group owned the largest veterinary consolidator in Canada and wanted to start from scratch in the U.S. It was a perfect fit: I wouldn’t have to bootstrap from dollar one, but I could build a new company.
So, I went from a high-paying job to a “founder” arrangement, without the income and betting a lot on the equity.
Hear more about Tom’s journey and how his values-led approach has fueled explosive growth.
I saw substantial tailwinds to the business: One, was the humanization of pets. People who love their pets spend on their pets. Another win was our business model. We chose an underserved segment, vets who didn’t want to sell their practices completely. We grew AmeriVet from zero to 139 clinics in 32 states and $0 to $1 billion in market cap in five years.
The third early win came from investing in our corporate culture. Vistage helped me with this.
Our Vistage group is made up of entrepreneurs and people who have worked for startups. They were helpful as I made the transition to this new company, and then again, when it was time to sell to a new private equity firm.
The advice my group gave me turned out to be true about timing and alignment with the PE firm. We sold AmeriVet in a $1.6 billion deal, and I stayed on as CEO. I’m not ready to sit on a beach somewhere.
No one has cracked the code on veterinary services; there is still a lot that we can do. I rolled a significant portion of my proceeds back into the company.
I like to bet on myself.
