Hannah James has been working for Royvon since 2005 and is now a working owner/Director whilst caring for the next generation of Royvon. Hannah’s career started in a very different sector of business. She attended Cardiff University and achieved a 1st in City & Regional Planning BSc and a Diploma in Town & Country Planning. After University she began advising local authorities on various planning areas but took a keen interest in Royvon as it was her husband to be Darren James passion and she lived on site in their hometown of Merthyr Tydfil. The business was at a stage where expansion was needed to a second site so Hannah & Darren spent weekends searching the country for possible sites and locations where Hannahs planning background came in handy. They eventually found a site in Esher Surrey. In 2005 they got married and Darren asked Hannah to move to Surrey with him to help set up the business as her meticulous attention to details and customer service skills would be a great asset. In 2006 they moved to Surrey and Royvon has become as ingrained part of her life as Darren’s. She attended a Business Leadership course in Cardiff University which meant her role has developed from Receptionist to Central Financial & Administration Director. Hannah is now heading up the newly purchased Pals4Pets business which is a petsitting based for London and Surrey.
“ I love working for a small family business……well its not that small anymore as we employ nearly 50 team members. Royvon has evolved alot since the 14 years I have been involved, the journey has been an interesting one, real tough at times but with sheer passion, determination and commitment we have come a long way. We are all here because we love dogs and want each dog and their owners to have a great life when they are with or without them. Our teams ooze their passion for our 4 legged friends each day and I’m honoured to be part of such caring team, no day is the same. I have lived at Royvon (Wales then Surrey) for 14 years now and when you tell people they think your mad and it must be noisy day and night! They are wrong our guests are very good and have fun in the day and sleep at night. I think it would be very strange to be elsewhere and wouldn’t want it any other way I like knowing our guests are happy safe and secure. It does mean we are on call 24/7 like all our managers that live on site but the walk to work is more of a bonus!
My career took a dramatic change from planning to dog care and we had taken on a new site outside of our Welsh comfort zone. I was receptionist, dog groomer, site maintenance and sales person. My role was multi functional for a long time until we were more stable and were able to hire more team members. When I officially became a Director I realised I needed to develop myself to become more of an asset to the business and my strengths were in in finance, strategy and admin so I found myself managing these areas for all locations and taking courses in these subjects.
Each site is different and have different advantages but we pride ourselves in trying to make them as uniform as we can(although we can’t bring the Brecon Beacons to London – Sorry!) We purchased Coventry in 2012 so that we were accessible to more dogs and owners throughout the UK. I look forward to the next chapter of Royvon and seeing our children take a keen interest in all our guest dogs as they do their own pet dog our Alaskan Klee Klai Fleur – they will be the 4th generation of Royvon. Fleur is near 12 years old now and is a regular face round Royvon Surrey, in fact her face is painted on our reception. She is always making friends in play sessions and has a fondness to be a mother to the puppies.
We noticed some changes in our industry and felt we could offer another option to our customers so we recently acquired a pet sitting business that was one of the first pet sitting businesses in London called Pals4Pets. We now cater for pets off all sizes and have all options for when your pet needs looking after’.
Get in touch with us
Contact our friendly team today for more information about our dog training and boarding services at our Esher site. We offer a range of dog training programmes including puppy training and tailor training to your dog’s individual needs.