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Getting to know... John Devitt

We know you as the founder of Recovery4Life and a member of the Entrepreneurs’ Forum, but who is the person behind the title? Tell us a little about what makes you tick

Ok. Originally, I grew up on a council estate in London, in a large Irish immigrant family. We weren’t well off, but we always had home-cooked food and plenty of books, with education always being a priority. Probably the biggest influence on me as I grew up was my mum. A 4‘9” powerhouse, who left school at 14 with no education, raised a family and then went from a part-time cleaner to assistant matron of a large care home within five years.

Looking back, I realise that while I got my education from school and university, I got my work ethic and sense of social justice from my mum.

I am also naturally curious and have been lucky enough to have worked in a number of sectors, including international development, enterprise support, and healthcare. All of which have involved helping people and organisations reach their potential. That’s my real passion.

Did you always want to work in your industry? 

To be honest, I have always been a bit of a butterfly, who gets interested in bright shiny things around me, and so I've never really had a grand plan. By luck or good fortune, I have always been in the right place at the right time, and have been fortunate enough to meet interesting people, doing interesting things. From this, I have learned the importance of looking at things from different perspectives. And the value of kindness and empathy, qualities which are often undervalued.

Although there was no plan to work in this sector, I feel I have hit my stride with the work I do now. Balancing the needs of employees with the commercial reality faced by employers feels like a natural progression. The work we do now at Recovery4Life is challenging but is incredibly rewarding. I wouldn’t change it for the world.

What’s the best bit about your job? And the worst?

As a butterfly, I love the fact that no two days are the same and every case we work on is unique and varied. I am privileged to work with an amazing team, with a depth of experience and clinical skills that continue to surprise and amaze me every day.

Recovery4life is an award-winning specialist occupational health provider that my Business Partners and I established in 2016. Whilst we provide a wide range of traditional occupational health services, we are best known for managing complex cases and specialist treatment programmes for complex mental health, addiction, and brain injury in the workplace. This year, it is our 10-year anniversary, and in all that time, we have yet to come across a case that we couldn’t resolve. Being able to offer at scale specialist services across the UK, across all sectors, is an exciting prospect.

The worst part is having to fill out my expenses form at the end of the month! I hate personal admin, but the grown-ups around me tell me off if I don’t.

What do you consider to be your greatest achievement?

I’m not sure how much I can say regarding some of my biggest personal achievements, as I think I am still covered by the Official Secrets Act - yes, really! However, I think that what we have built at Recovery4Life is genuinely unique and is transforming the Occupational Health landscape. While many providers have moved towards generic, often AI-driven assessments and reports, we have moved in the other direction. We offer a more personalised, collaborative approach to occupational health, and our aim is to make sure that all parties involved can reach a satisfactory resolution.

I am immensely proud of how far we have come in the last 10 years. We started the company with very little money and no external investment/funding. All our growth to date has been entirely organic, and to this day, most of our work still comes to us via referral/word of mouth. Despite not having spent huge sums on dedicated marketing campaigns, we have onboarded companies of all shapes and sizes, from SMEs to household name multinationals.

Today, Recovery4Life offers specialist Occupational Health services across and beyond the UK and is supported with an extensive network of clinical specialists.

How do you relax outside of work? 

To be totally honest, I’m something of a workaholic, but I am also a bit of a nomad who gets itchy feet easily. In other words, I love to travel and often find it difficult to sit still if I’m not working. I love eating out, cooking, and watching old Hammer horror films. It might be nostalgia, but I still think that nothing quite matches up to that 60’s/70’s. Having said that, some more recent films, like the new Nosferatu, are serious contenders…

At home, I love to spend time with a rather large black German Shepherd - who might have been crossed with a grizzly bear, given his size - and take him on long walks on the coast.

To keep me sane, I have practised traditional Chinese Martial Arts for over 26 years, and I have always found it helps me focus and clear my mind. It's hard to think of anything else when someone’s trying to punch you on the nose!

What makes the North East such a great place to live and work? 

Having lived in the North East for over 26 years, there is nowhere else I would rather live. The combination of people, landscape, and especially culture, makes the North East unique.

This directly translates to the North East business community, which, in my experience, is one of the most supportive, friendly and accessible networks in the world. Having worked internationally, I can truly say that without any exaggeration.

The region is also very lucky to have such an active and engaging Chamber of Commerce. We were very proud to recently partner with them, supporting their new 'Ecosystem'. Through it, we have established a new service called the “SafetyNet” programme. It’s aimed at supporting employers with a free specialised consultation service offering expert advice and guidance in relation to any workplace health risk they might be experiencing. Whilst this could be something simple, like advice on standard Health surveillance, it could be more complex, such as how to appropriately handle a situation where an employee accuses the employer of affecting their health.

Tell us something about you we didn’t know… 

Well, while I can’t go into a lot of detail here, I have been fortunate enough to extensively travel around the world, and somehow managed to get involved in a few interesting adventures. I think some of the highlights for me would be getting thrown across a tent by a large baboon whilst travelling in Africa. I’ve been held up at gunpoint three times, been charged at by an elephant…it is hard to imagine the size of them till you have one bearing down on you!

I’ve also trained in traditional Chinese Martial Arts for 26 years, had the privilege of training with one of Bruce Lee’s original students and, recently, studied in China with an 82-year-old Kung Fu master. 

There are quite a few more, but it's probably best to save them for another day!

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Entrepreneurs' Forum .