A bit about Karen

Karen Blatchford is Managing Director of Practice Plan Group, so she’s the person at the helm.

Karen joined us in February 2024 and up till then her 25 years’ experience in the financial services sector had seen her working in senior roles for some of the financial sector’s household names. Practice Plan has a feel you don’t get in most other companies, but we’re happy to say she’s taken to being ‘Practice Planified’ like a duck to water. Social event? Fancy dress treasure hunt? Sponsored walk? Karen’s there!

It’s a good job she suits hats as she has to wear quite a few of them in this role! As well as being lead at Practice Plan, she also heads up Dental, Direct and Intermediary Distribution at Wesleyan Financial Services, our parent company. Even though she has so many responsibilities at work she still finds time to be a trustee of a hospice near where she lives on the South Coast. There must be a lot of plate spinning going on in her house!

A bit about Nigel

Director, Nigel Jones, is the fount of all knowledge concerning the dental industry. He’s been around since Adam was a toddler, never mind a lad! Well, since 1990, anyway.

Having been around for more than three decades, he’s also very well connected. If you can name a dental mover and shaker, chances are he’s moved and shaken with them in his time. Still got it!

Nigel joined Practice Plan in 2008 after having spent four years working in business and relationship development for companies providing healthcare. To misquote Jessie J, helping practices convert from NHS to private practice is not just about the money, money, money for Nigel, it’s about helping dentists achieve a better quality of life. This is something that he still gets a kick out of all these years later.

Nigel is our go-to man about anything to do with the current dental landscape. What he doesn’t know about the dental industry probably isn’t worth knowing. It’s fair to say he’s counted among the dental industry’s heavyweights (metaphorically) which is probably why he has appeared in Dentistry’s Top 50 a number of times.

A bit about Kerrie

Kerrie became Head of Operations for the Practice Plan Group in January 2024, having joined the business in 2005 when she was virtually a child. Well, a fresh-faced new graduate, anyway!

Over her time at Practice Plan, she has been New Business Team Leader, Quality Assurance Team Leader and spent 8 years as Customer Service Manager. So, when it comes to the operational side of the business, Kerrie’s been there, done that and the t-shirt is now a duster!

That’s not all, though as, glutton for punishment that she is, in July 2020 at the height of the pandemic she took on the job of Change and Service Improvement Manager. Here she focussed on continuous improvement, and that’s a value she carries with her into her current position.

As if all that weren’t enough, outside of work, Kerrie is also a Board Trustee at a local primary school. We don’t know how she does it all!

A bit about Gayle

Gayle Collett, our Head of Marketing, became part of the Practice Plan family in 2012. Prior to this, she spent 11 years in various senior marketing roles at Bank of America.

As Head of Marketing, Gayle is plate spinner-in-chief responsible for wrangling a team of 25 creative people working across different disciplines including content production, event management, practice marketing support and graphic design. She also manages the teams responsible for the company’s social media channels and advertising. Not quite herding cats, but you get the idea!

What Gayle doesn’t know about marketing and how to motivate a team to achieve high standards is not worth mentioning. She has a sharp eye for detail that would put an eagle to shame. Just don’t ask her to tell you the plot of any films she’s watched as none of them seem to stick!

However, great boss that she is, what we all love about her most is her sense of fun. There’s never a dull moment when Gayle’s around!

A bit about Matt

Matt Key is our Head of IT and he and his team are responsible for keeping the show on the road.

He, like Kerrie, was a fresh-faced ingénue when he joined us in 2004, having not long since graduated with a degree in Computer Science from the University of Liverpool. He joined the team initially as a software developer and progressed steadily through the ranks to his current dizzy heights in 2016.

Matt’s big passion at work is continuous improvement which means he has been behind any major IT change we’ve had over the last decade. He just wants to make us the most efficient and innovative plan provider out there.

When he’s not at work, he and his wife try to snatch some time together in between sharing parenting duties for their young daughter.

A bit about Rob

Rob Selby is a very busy man.

He is both Head of Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) at our parent company, Wesleyan Financial Services, and Finance Director for Practice Plan. Rob qualified as a Chartered Accountant in his own words ‘way too many years ago’. Strangely enough, juggling is not on his list of spare time activities! However, acting as chief mechanic and cheerleader to his stock car racing son are!

He joined Wesleyan Financial Services in 2021 and became responsible for keeping an eye on Practice Plan’s purse strings in October 2022. Before being welcomed into the Practice Plan and Wesleyan Financial Services fold, Rob spent 13 years at Phoenix Group working his way up to become Head of Statutory Reporting and latterly Head of FP&A.

A bit about Zoe

Zoe is our Head of Sales and is the glamourous matriarch of the field team.

There must be something in the water at Practice Plan as she is yet another member of the senior team who looks far too young to have had a career in dentistry of more than 35 years! She knows all about the support jobs in a practice as she’s done most of them herself. Dental nurse, head receptionist, practice manager, she’s done them all and she’s also a whizz on compliance!

Before joining the Practice Plan family in 2015 as an Area Manager, she flexed her commercial muscles as a dental Group Business Manager keeping a team of around 60 dentists and support staff on the straight and narrow while building up the business. She stepped up to be Head of Sales in 2020 and uses all her skills and experience to help guide our field team in the right direction.

Outside of work, Zoe is a doting grandmother (honest!) and dog mum and, when her knees allow, enjoys running.