WORK HORSE balance
Chief business officer and company secretary at Equine Register Ltd
How I make it work: My groom, my husband and my mother all muck in and help
The former insurance industry high-flyer discusses her myriad horses, her breeding venture and her latest job at the company which manages the UK’s Central Equine Database
My job…
I’m chief business officer and company secretary at Equine Register which manages the UK’s Central Equine Database (CED) on behalf of the UK government. The company works to create a fully integrated digital platform that protects and supports all horses, owners, riders and industry professionals. I work alongside Stewart Everett, the CEO and co-founder, overseeing the operational units, including legal and compliance, technical, HR, marketing and customer services. I’m also responsible for the company’s corporate governance.
How I got here…
I’ve always been passionate about animal welfare and I became a veterinary nurse. I loved my job, but one day one of the practice clients asked if I would be interested in a role at Jardines, the insurance broker where he worked. I took a six-month sabbatical to help set up a pet insurance business and never returned.
I helped to run the pet insurance department, a job that gave me the opportunity to travel the world and sit on the board. I was subsequently appointed managing director of the UK arm that specialised in niche insurance businesses. Following a series of strategic changes which involved the sale of many of the businesses I had set up and run, I left Jardines to join the London-based consultancy and audit firm Deloitte, where I helped retail companies build insurance programmes.
I went on to set up my own consultancy, growing it and eventually selling it. Along the way, I invested in and ran, with my co-founder, a software business that supported niche insurance products on comparison sites. This is when I first met Stewart Everett, and I was fascinated by his dream of building Equine Register. After exiting the comparison software business and while running a couple of consultancies of my own I provided a sounding board and ongoing support to Stewart until I joined Equine Register formally in April 2021.
My horses…
My first horse was Zetzia, a Russian Don, a rare breed in Britain that is famous for being the traditional Cossack horse. We took part in endurance riding until she suffered a tragic accident in the field aged just 12. This led to me finding my horse of a lifetime, Five Alive (Ellie), a coloured KWPN mare whose sire was the influential Samber. We won m
