As someone who describes his job title as emperor penguin it would be fair to say Richard Dixon isn’t afraid to challenge what is considered normal business practice.

It is something which allowed him to identify the niche which Vets Now, the emergency pet care business he founded in 2001, has grown into.

Back then he was a vet providing weekend care for local practices in Glasgow while completing his PhD.

He said: “I realised clients were looking for a really good service and the vets were saying working during the day and during the night [is] killing us.

“There was an opportunity to help both those parties and improve quality of life in the profession.

Even after another record year, revenue of £33.9m and profit of £3.8m, and with a slate of ambitious expansion plans on the drawing board Mr Dixon appears able to remain humble along with retaining a good-natured sense of humour.

Describing his own position he says: “Chairman always sounds a bit too grand. Emperor penguin is my proper title but the bank prefers chairman.”

That is not to say he doesn’t take his responsibilities seriously and he talks with honesty about the burdens which many people leading businesses carry.

He said: “The hardest part of business is the emotional piece in my view. Raising funds or working out a marketing strategy or dealing with HR issues are all important but they are all things you get the right people in and get it done.

“Managing to personally deal with the challenges of leadership and ultimate responsibility in the business, that’s really important.

“There is not a department you phone up to say ‘I’m having a really tough time, can you help me?’.”

Mr Dixon says he has benefited from a number of mentors and freely admits to being happy to bring in people who have skills in areas where he is not an expert.

He also talks warmly about the value of sharing experiences with others at events organised by the likes of Entrepreneurial Scotland.

The coming year is shaping up to be busy with plans to roll-out the model of the 24-hour accident and emergency hospital it runs in the Charing Cross area of Glasgow to other cities.

The first of those is likely to be in Manchester with a second in another English city also planned within the next 12 months along with five more of its smaller our-of-hours clinics.

Earlier this year Mr Dixon brought in Mark Ross, previously at Black & Lizars, as joint managing director to work alongside Fiona Dewar, who was promoted at the same time from her role as head of client and people at Vets Now.

That kind of move in the past has led to speculation the owner may be seeking an exit but according to Mr Dixon that is definitely not the case. He describes the new executive team as “fantastic” and says he couldn’t be more pleased with how the changes have gone.

He said: “I set the business up initially as I thought we could change the quality of care being given. That’s been done but there is still a lot more to do. If it was just about the money then there’s probably easier ways to make money and we wouldn’t have been reinvesting back into the business. “We’ve shown over a long period of time now that this is about delivering something sustainable that gives really good quality of care to pets.”

Asked if he plans to stay to continue to scale the business Mr Dixon was unequivocal and said: “I understand some people build a business just to exit it and that is ok. It is not why I got into business so as things stand I am pretty happy and lucky.”

With 800 staff in Vets Now and more to be added in the coming months Mr Dixon believes maintaining a good culture is key to ensuring further success.

That includes an annual gathering, held in Harrogate this year, offering professional development and training opportunities along with the presentation of internal awards to recognise outstanding performance.

He said: “A lot of business talk about being values driven. I’d like to think we live it pretty well.

“There are four core values in the business – Innovation, caring, releasing potential and responsibility.

“We will use them to try and make business decisions, create the right environment for staff.”

Mr Dixon firmly believes treating people well and giving them interesting work to do impacts positively on the way they interact with clients.

He said: “People want to do a job, make a difference, want to have an impact, feel what they do is important, be listened to [and get] treated fairly.

“So just create that kind of environment and let them crack on and get on with it. We are not going to tell everyone how to do everything.

“Even though by veterinary standards we are quite big there is still a family feel to it.”

Mr Dixon acknowledges that in a fast paced environment things can go wrong although he contends the company has some of the best people in the world when it comes to emergency pet care.

He said: “If your dog or cat has been run over you want to make sure you have the best people attending to it straight away.

“I think what clients hate and I hate it as a consumer is if someone is hiding from you and not being honest.

“In my experience most pet owners are absolutely reasonable as long as you are transparent and honest with them.”