Q&A: A conversation with Kathryn bell,ceo of the webinar vet

Founded in 2010 by Anthony Chadwick, The                                                                                                Webinar Vet was created to make it more affordable and accessible for vets to complete their CPD, with virtual clinical sessions and training stripping out the need for hours of travel. Fast-forward to today, the business has grown to a team of 25, creating the largest veterinary community with professionals engaging from every corner of the world. From live and interactive webinars and videos to a global podcast, the team offer a range of educational and inspirational content to empower veterinary professionals.

Securing a place on our Main List in the Liverpool City Region for 2024, The Webinar Vet’s CEO, Kathryn Bell, spoke about the company’s expansion into non-clinical veterinary content to lead the change around wellbeing and physical health within the profession. Addressing the industry’s retention issue, Kathryn explained how the business realised an opportunity to create educational content that ultimately helps the sector take better care of our vets.

To dive deeper into how the tech business is driving sustainable change across the veterinary sector, we sat down with Kathryn to ask her more about the work happening at The Webinar Vet and what’s next for the ambitious startup.

TELL US A BIT MORE ABOUT THE WEBINAR VET...

The Webinar Vet is here to empower Veterinary professionals to have extraordinary careers. Alongside our webinar offering clinical and non-clinical training, we also offer ‘Simply Vet’ which helps support recruitment across the industry.

Within the company, we’re passionate about gender equality and through both branches of the business, we provide the education and support to close the gap and strengthen retention across the sector.

 HOW IS YOUR CONTENT LEADING A SHIFT IN ATTITUDE ACROSS THE SECTOR?

We noticed that there were not enough people talking about physical and mental wellbeing within the profession. Take women’s health, for example, 1 in 10 women leave the workplace because of menopause. By creating a voice that educates the sector around the subject, hopefully, we will see a ripple effect of employee support and retention – particularly in this profession, which is filled with so many female team members.

In terms of our podcast, we have an ‘empowering women’ series, which brings stories of women who have succeeded within the veterinary field, offering valuable lessons that others can apply to their careers. Across all of our content, the main theme is encouraging conversation to empower the vets who are looking after our pets. 

WHAT HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST HIGHLIGHT FROM YOUR GROWTH JOURNEY SO FAR?

A really exciting point in the journey was seeing memberships sell globally. We’ve now sold memberships in over 80 countries, which is a huge achievement for us.

However, some of the biggest highlights have come from the feedback we’ve received within the community. Some of the nicest feedback we get is positivity from our community surrounding our women’s health and wellbeing content – and that’s ultimately why we’re on this journey: to create a space that is making the world better for our vets and pets.

 THE ENVIRONMENT WAS A FACTOR IN THE CREATION OF THE WEBINAR VET. HOW DO YOU CONTINUE TO INFLUENCE SUSTAINABILITY ACROSS THE SECTOR? 

Sustainability is a real focus for the team. Driven by Anthony’s passion for supporting the environment, we have found little ways to offset some of our carbon emissions to contribute towards the wider action to care for our planet. This includes planting trees for every live webinar attendee and planting two trees for every membership we sell.

For a few years, we’ve also run ‘The veterinary green discussion forum’, which brings individuals and businesses together to accelerate change and solve environmental issues in the veterinary sector. This year the event took place across June 18th and 19th, as we brought the industry together under the theme of 'creating a circular economy'.  

TELL US MORE ABOUT YOUR WORK TO SUPPORT DE&I ACROSS THE VETERINARY SECTOR...

Our non-clinical support covers a range of stigmas and health issues that affect all veterinary professionals - whatever their age or however they identify. From neurodiversity podcasts covering autism, ADHD and dyslexia to big parenthood campaigns around baby loss and fertility, we try to drive awareness to as many topics as we can.

It was in 2018 that we launched the ‘Mind Matters’ initiative with the Royal Veterinary College, which offered mindfulness courses and sleep series, and since then there’s been such a demand for non-clinical content, and we only expect this to increase as the sector’s resources continue to stretch.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO TAKE THE LEAD IN A TECH BUSINESS? 

I joined The Webinar Vet in 2012 in its start-up phase, and to be honest, it was a risk. At the time people didn’t know what a ‘webinar’ even was, but I loved the concept of the business, and I knew the internet was going to be in our future. Since then, I’ve grown naturally with the business – I joined the board of directors in 2015, and when they asked me to step into the CEO role in 2021, I just decided to go for it and it’s the best decision I’ve ever made.

There are just not enough women on boards and in leadership positions, so it’s been great to work with a company that’s invested in my skills and development to open the doors to these opportunities.

WHAT BENEFITS HAVE YOU SEEN FROM ENTERING TECH CLIMBERS AND MAKING THE LIST?

I was recently asked to speak at Liverpool Fuel, and I don’t think that connection would have been made had it not been for Tech Climbers. We’ve also just started the Gather programme, which again is part of the regional ecosystem. There’s just so much going on in Liverpool that coming to Tech Climbers and being part of the community has opened doors for us and helped us navigate the opportunities in the region.

It’s also really nice to have the winner's assets on the website and in our email signatures – it all adds credibility when speaking to companies and clients.

WHAT'S THE BEST PIECE OF ADVICE OR LEARNING THAT YOU'VE RECEIVED THAT YOU'D PASS ON TO THE NEXT PHASE OF FEMALE LEADERS? 

“Trust your gut” with decisions. Whatever the situation, whether it’s recruiting a new team member or bringing on a partner, if there are any doubts or you have an overwhelming feeling that you should go for something, you just have to trust yourself.

WHAT'S NEXT FOR THE WEBINAR VET?

At the moment, we’re focused on going global. As I mentioned we’ve already started to sell memberships worldwide, but we are working on building international partnerships to drive this further.

As part of this, in the next couple of weeks, we’ll be launching a community base that creates a positive space where vets across the world can connect, share thoughts and support each other, giving our community a reason to keep coming back to the platform.

We’ll also be looking at how we can use more AI to personalise the platform, as we start to use the technology to understand the community and surface content that’s most relevant to them.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE WEBINAR VET 

Discover more about The Webinar Vet's community, courses and mission by heading across to their website. 

DISCOVER THE FULL TECH CLIMBERS LIST IN THE LIVERPOOL CITY REGION 

See which businesses sit alongside The Webinar Vet on the region's Tech Climbers list.