S07 E10: From Chickens to Implants, with a business and a family along the way - a conversation with Katie Blake

Dr. Katie Blake is co-founder with her husband Alex of Blake Dental, in the small market town of Witham, Essex, mid-way between Chelmsford and Colchester. Katie has a special interest in dental implants, not only delivering to their own patients but working in other practices, lecturing, training and mentoring. Alex is a former maths teacher, who has become the Business Manager. They have also created a strong senior management team within the practice, through internal development and promotion. In this entertaining conversation, Katie shares with us stories of her childhood, living with entrepreneurial parents, forming her own proto-business as a child (hence the title - you’ll realise), and then volunteering for work experience at a family friend’s nearby dental practice after he suggested to her parents that a career in dentistry would be a good choice. We follow Katie to University, into hospital to become a maxillofacial first-responder to trauma injuries and then into Ownership. She will share the experience of buying their practice, whilst she was heavily pregnant and just before Covid lockdown - yikes - and how they survived and have prospered. You will love this conversation - a no-frills approach to life and a genuinely happy Dental Business Owner and clinician. A lovely couple who prove that the good guys can win!