In this interview, we delve into the remarkable story of Michael Lake-Bakaar, the Chief Executive Officer of Evolution Veterinary Specialists, Inc., and his path to success in the field of specialty and emergency veterinary medicine. Join us as Michael shares his experiences, notable accomplishments, leadership style, and the values that have guided him along the way. Discover what sets EVS apart from other practices, how Michael navigated challenges, and his aspirations for the future. Get ready to be inspired by Michael’s journey as a CEO and his relentless pursuit of excellence in the world of veterinary medicine.
Personal Journey as a CEO
Over the years, Michael has honed a vision for what leadership and business success would look like for him. It’s crystal clear now. So is the realization that bringing that vision to life would require him to be at the tip of the spear. Becoming CEO of an organization he’s passionate about in a field that matters to him has unleashed what he knows to be possible.
Significant Accomplishments and Success Stories
When Michael and his wife started Evolution Veterinary Specialists, they set clear, optimistic, and achievable goals. They are highly motivated entrepreneurs, so their goals were ambitious but their belief in what they could accomplish together never wavered. Even so, they couldn’t have imagined how far they’d go so much faster than they imagined. Michael is proud of the fact that despite some tall, unexpected obstacles along the way, they’ve stayed true to their vision and values and built an organization that is already listed in the Inc 5000 fastest-growing privately owned companies. Owning, managing, and working in a startup in partnership with a spouse could challenge even the healthiest of marriages. Through thick and thin, they’ve grown closer together while they led a team that succeeded beyond what even their optimism could envision. In fact, their successful growth allowed them to meet one of their top-line, major goals when this past year they purchased the entire building they occupy, expanding EVS’s footprint to double in size. All this, a full 4 years earlier than they set out to accomplish. Michael is proud of that and can’t wait to see the success stories the next few years will bring.
Leadership Style and Approach
Michael is a leader who is driven by possibility. He believes that with courage and perseverance, there’s not much a high-performing team isn’t capable of. He also recognizes the importance of relationships so, as a leader, he works hard to model the values and behaviors he’d like to see in the team. When they look to him, he wants them to see someone who is willing to get muddy with them, someone who is candid, honest, and transparent, a leader who has big, bold vision but is also unafraid to sit in the messiness of the immediate. Most importantly, he wants them to see a leader who leads with hope, optimism, and a healthy thirst for growth, development, and success shared by all.
Unique Strategies and Initiatives
Specialty and emergency veterinary medicine has become almost entirely consolidated with at least 75% of practices now falling under corporate ownership. EVS is among the few privately owned practices of this type. With recent research suggesting that veterinarians prefer to work in privately owned practices, this alone makes them stand out in the market. What makes them truly unique is that the EVS executive team gets dirty “on the floor” every day. As CEO, Michael is ever present within the hospital, and his wife, the CMO, works full time in the practice. That’s because of their unyielding focus on growth so they can deliver quality care to their patients, their team, and the community. Profit comes second to culture. They are committed to building a workplace that the people of veterinary medicine love to be a part of. One way they do that they are quite proud of is their one-of-a-kind doctor immersion program. Instead of the unfair practices of internship, they choose to immerse practitioners new to emergency medicine in a supportive, learning environment where they can grow as doctors and make a living.
Navigating Challenging Situations
Someone once said among the best ways to learn how to succeed is to experience failure. While they’ve had a great deal of success, much of it has come because they’ve learned from their mistakes. Early on they allowed their personal feelings to usurp the red flags and placed someone in a high-level leadership position in their organization that wasn’t well suited for the role. They also weren’t swift enough to ask when things began taking a turn for the worse, resulting in some serious damage to the business, their culture, even their reputation. Michael is proud of the grit they displayed when they dug deep to repair the damage. It took a lot of mental fortitude – not just from him, but everyone on the team – to overcome this downtime. Working alongside people who were committed to what they could become was instrumental in the turnaround, and fortitude has become a big part of who they are now as a company.
Guiding Values and Principles
Every decision Michael makes is filtered through the question, “what’s best for the business?” That may seem obvious to some, but it’s important to emphasize, he’s willing to give up what’s best for him personally to achieve what’s best for the company. That’s a key guiding principle in his role as CEO. He’s also driven by the Golden Rule. That is, what’s going to impact the most people, the most patients, the most team members in the most enduring ways. He thinks it’s also important to learn to compartmentalize emotions and think rationally and quickly, so he strives to process his feelings before or after important decisions. Finally, efficiency and speed are more important to him than perfection. He’d rather be wrong once and right nine times than spend all day working through the minutia of a single decision and kick several important things down the road.
Staying Informed and Industry Trends
Networking is an essential element in staying on top of industry trends. Connecting with colleagues, peers, and the “boots on the ground” in the profession helps him stay on top of
what’s happening on the front lines. He also finds the industry-specific periodicals insightful, so he dedicates time every month to read the journals that share insights from veterinary medicine’s top minds.
Key Factors for Success
Michael has taken the hard road to get where he is. Sure, he’s learned a lot in formal education, and certainly, being married to a veterinarian helps as well. But he’s also built the path he walked to get here with years working in highly stressful, almost cutthroat environments. This helped him carve and hone a special kind of grit, perseverance, and courage that has served him incredibly well in this current role. Many people would be surprised how complex, unpredictable, and psychologically challenging leading a quickly growing specialty and emergency hospital in veterinary medicine can be. He’s not sure everyone is cut out for a role like his, and he’s grateful for the life lessons that prepared him for this position in this environment at this time in history.
Future Aspirations
Michael is not one to rest on his laurels or find complacency in his entrepreneurial journey. While EVS has grown beyond what they imagined, he sees so much more opportunity to evolve and develop further. He sees them doubling their output in the next 5 years and becoming the standard by which all other organizations are measured in their market. They’ll reimagine what change management and team-delivered healthcare can look like.
Michael’s Reflection
“The success that Evolution Veterinary Specialists, Inc. has achieved is not solely based on my role as CEO. This has been a collective effort. We’re tied together because of our foundational shared love for the animals and the community we care for. That’s what inspired us to build EVS in the first place. It’s what inspires people to join our team and help bring the vision to life. And our success has invigorated the entrepreneurial fire in myself and my wife. We’re creating a new compounding pharmacy to serve our practice and the practices we partner with in the community. There’s even a real estate holdings firm in the works now that we own and manage a large building and facility. The sky’s the limit, and we intend to fly high!”
