Q: Hi Jonathan, can you tell us about your role at Epro?
My role as the Managing Director of Epro means I oversee all aspects of our business. This includes managing the teams involved in product creation, delivery, support, and sales. I also handle customer engagement, commercial and financial aspects, and business governance, which is more important than ever since we are ISO-accredited.
I play a large role in the customer-centric aspects of our business. Fortunately, recent organisational changes have allowed me to delegate some operational responsibilities, allowing me to concentrate more on engaging with the external market. This involves interacting with customers, partners, and relevant boards, including those representing organisations like NHS England. I consolidate these aspects to achieve a balance between product development, delivery, and meeting customer needs.
Q: What would you say is the thing you enjoy most about your job?
There are so many things I love about my role at Epro. First of all, I love the variety of my job. One day, I can be diving into financial planning and looking at the hydraulics that run the business, such as the revenue, the cost base, the accounts etc. The next day, I could be involved in client engagement, talking with executives in the NHS to understand their challenges, discussing how we can help address their issues and ultimately helping them understand how our technology can make a difference to them and give them a better ROI. However, the fact that we really make a difference to trusts and their patients is my favourite part of the job. One of the things we pride ourselves on at Epro is that we enable clinicians to be productive and deliver better patient care. Everything we do is to help the NHS spend its money as efficiently as possible, so we pride ourselves on our ethos, which is very much to do the right thing for the NHS. My job puts me right in the heart of that on many levels.
Q: Did you have any prior experience in healthcare before joining Epro?
Before Epro, I spent the bulk of my career – 21 years in fact – at a big global document management company – Xerox – where I got the opportunity to work around Europe and travel to numerous places across the world. During this period, I had various roles, doing everything from supply chain management to service delivery, account management, and also marketing and sales. It’s fair to say I went right through the whole business. While I was there, healthcare became a big focus for the business and I was lucky enough to be the UK General Manager for Healthcare. During that time I developed a real passion for Health and delivering solutions to help drive efficiency and cost reduction. When I left the business four years ago I had contributed to tripling the size of the Healthcare business.
I then spent some time with a small document management software company as Managing Director heading up a new business within the group. This gave me some great insight into small business and I quickly developed a new passion for small agile businesses. Following an exciting few years there, I got the opportunity to join Epro. The passion the founder shared for the NHS quickly made me realise that becoming Managing Director here would be an immensely exciting challenge. The rest is history, and I can’t believe I have just celebrated my 2nd anniversary here!
Q. What was it about Epro that made you want to get involved?
Epro stood out to me as soon as I walked through the door. This was mainly due to the exceptional team of individuals in the business, who are not only skilled, but also passionate about the company’s mission. Combined with the impact Epro’s products and services can have on trusts, I found the prospect of leading this company very exciting. And my past experiences in healthtech, marketing, and sales made Epro the perfect fit for me.
Q: That’s great! Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing?
Outside of work, most of my time revolves around football and my two young boys. I coach one of my son’s teams, so my weekends are dedicated to watching matches, and Monday evenings involve training sessions. As well as coaching and spending time with my family, I’m also very committed to staying fit. At home, I’ve set up a personal gym where I try to work out whenever I can. I’m also very invested in tracking my steps – in fact, I achieved over 5.6 million steps last year! To keep this up, I go on walks in the evening. There are loads of great routes I can take where I live, so I often take myself off for a walk – it’s a great way to unwind.
Q: Finally, what is one thing you would like readers to know about yourself or Epro that they might not know already?
I want the readers to know that an incredible amount of thought and design goes into our products here at Epro. And I truly believe this sets us apart from our competitors. The functionality of our products is built with clinicians in mind and we prioritise usability for clinicians, understanding its pivotal role in enhancing the overall experience. We ensure our solutions align seamlessly with the needs of healthcare professionals to deliver a user-friendly experience that maximises efficiency and effectiveness.
Everything we do here is designed with the NHS in mind. Some of the other systems out there are A – a lot more expensive, and B – not necessarily designed for the NHS. As taxpayers in the UK, we all want value for money, and there are many British health tech companies that can offer this, which deserve a much bigger share of the market here in the UK.