Vimian brings together four segments united by one purpose: improving animal health. We sat down with Alireza Tajbakhsh, who became CEO in November 2025, to hear about the model that ties the group together, the role of technology, and his ambitions for the years ahead.

You previously led Vimian's Veterinary Services segment. What do you bring with you from that role into leading Vimian as a whole?

For me, leadership comes down to how you bring people together around a shared direction, a journey, something you're setting out to achieve together. How do you build a strong, motivated team that finds that journey exciting? How do you give people the ownership, mandate and accountability to drive it together? You build the team, set the direction, spot the commercial opportunities, and lead by being part of it yourself.

We did that well during my time at Veterinary Services. The team took what had been a Nordic and Northern European purchasing organisation and turned it into a global purchasing and service platform, growing five times larger along the way and welcoming many pioneering, entrepreneurial businesses onto the platform. I don't think you can sustain that kind of growth over time unless you have both the cultural foundations and the commercial relevance in place.

Vimian has four segments. What ties them together, and how do you strike the balance between decentralisation and unity?

Put simply, everyone at Vimian is ultimately working towards the same goal, just in different ways. We share the same customers and the same decision-makers. We also apply the same operating model of decentralised ownership, letting entrepreneurs keep running their businesses. Once you find common ground, commercial opportunities also start to open up in new ways. Much of what we do is about preserving the decentralised model and keeping ownership within the segments, while building the platform that lets people find natural ways to collaborate.

Animal health has long been seen as a market with strong structural tailwinds, but competition has increased. What's behind Vimian's success?

Covid was something of a boost period, but if you look back 15 to 20 years, the animal health industry has grown consistently. Several underlying drivers point to continued growth: the humanisation of pets, more advanced care becoming possible and animals living longer. It's a genuine growth market where Vimian is focused on selected, evidence-based niches where we believe growth is even faster and the market is still fairly fragmented.

Competition aside, AI is a hot topic across every industry, this one included. How do you think technology will help Vimian, and the sector more broadly, to evolve?

We use AI across the business in many ways and apply it at several levels. In our services businesses, the time it takes to go from idea to finished product is now much shorter, our developers spend less time writing code, we're launching more products and finding it easier to connect different services with each other. Commercially, that strengthens what we already do: we analyse a huge amount of data and process a great many supplier agreements. On the product side, we can use it to accelerate R&D for new medicines and implants.

Having a strong pool of developers in the organisation already put us slightly ahead of the curve. Looking at the industry as a whole, this sector has been fairly protected from technological disruption, but that is now shifting. This also opens the door to new entrants building relevant services around these tools. Many of them probably won't last, but some will get it right and grow into something very good.

Vimian is a listed company, with Fidelio as its principal owner. What does Fidelio mean to Vimian?

Having a strong, engaged owner who knows the industry as well as Fidelio does, given how many years they've been involved with Vimian, makes a real difference to decision-making and strategic direction. Having a board and a principal owner who believes in the sector, wants to invest, thinks big and takes a long-term view strengthens our decision-making, our strategic choices, and arguably our ability to move faster than potential competitors.

Looking ahead, what do you see for Vimian over the next three to five years?

I think Vimian has an exciting journey ahead. We have four segments, all performing well but far from finished. There's more to capture in geographic expansion and product development. We operate in niches that remain fragmented, and there's still a great deal of white space in our industry, in the sense that more people are still discovering what today's technology can do to help animals live better lives. I also think more entrepreneurs are looking for a new home to help them reach their full potential, and I believe we offer the right platform for that.