Former NHS Educator of the Year winner Emma Cartlich now uses her teaching skills to run two pet businesses including founding and scaling a training academy.

Emma, from Weston Coyney, runs wedding dog chaperone service Precious Pets Weddings with her husband Adrian alongside Ultra Clean Canines, where she has created a one-of-a-kind training platform and works with colleges around the UK.

She is constantly innovating within both businesses including creating a training arm to Precious Pets Weddings to upskill other people looking to enter the profession rather than seeing them as a threat to her business.

She said: “Everything we do with both businesses is about being professional and ethical.

“I was a teacher and a trainer in colleges and in the NHS where I used to teach doctors and nurses how to use clinical hospital systems and would help GP surgeries to use new clinical IT systems. I spent 14 years in the NHS and before that I worked in colleges and prisons.”

She says it was a natural progression to launch the businesses after her husband trained as a dog groomer.

She was initially still working full-time as Research and Development Training Lead at University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust, leaving her job in 2018 to work full-time on the businesses.

“We never anticipated Ultra Clean Canines becoming such a successful training academy and when we took Precious Pets Weddings to wedding shows we had people queueing around the corner to speak to us.

“I took a risk and left my job with the NHS to get our businesses off the ground. Then the pandemic hit and dog grooming businesses were shutting down, so I had the idea of running emmi®-pet seminars on Zoom and the rest is history.

“Adrian is like the dog whisperer and doesn’t even go on a laptop whereas I’m the entrepreneurial one with a background in IT.”

Emma added: “I get real job satisfaction from what I do. It really can feel like I’m making people’s dreams come true. We do our job because we have a genuine passion for what we do.”

Emma Cartlich has entered the Entrepreneur of the Year category of University of Staffordshire Business Awards.