Ivan Zak | Co-Founder, Serenity Vet
After surviving burnout severe enough to nearly end his life, veterinarian Ivan Zak set out to fix the systems behind it. He bootstrapped SmartFlow and sold it to IDEXX, built the employee-owned group Galaxy Vets, and now co-leads Serenity Vet to tackle veterinary medicine's least-managed cost: labor. A candid conversation on burnout, ownership, private equity, and operational discipline.
Ivan Zak, DVM, MBA, Founder of Galaxy Vets, Co-Founder of Serenity Vet
When Ivan Zak hit rock bottom, he thought the problem was himself. Years spent working emergency shifts as a relief veterinarian had left him exhausted, burned out, and questioning whether he could continue. What he eventually discovered was that the crisis wasn’t personal, it was systemic. That realization would shape the next decade of his career.
Today, Zak is one of the most influential operators in veterinary medicine. He bootstrapped SmartFlow from a frustrating workflow problem inside emergency hospitals and eventually sold it to IDEXX. He launched Galaxy Vets to test whether employee ownership could create healthier workplaces. And now, through Serenity Vet, he’s tackling one of the profession’s most persistent challenges: labor efficiency. In this conversation, Zak reflects on burnout, entrepreneurship, private equity, employee ownership, and why operational excellence, not acquisitions, may ultimately determine the future of veterinary medicine.
You survived burnout severe enough to attempt suicide, then turned it into a career mission. What made you run toward the problem instead of stepping back?
Finding a purpose and fully engaging in it.
Burnout can take away your joy. The things you used to love, even outside work, don’t feel fun anymore. For me, what helped was finding new happiness, a bigger goal that would excite me. That became looking for management solutions to burnout, and more specifically, solving inefficiencies in veterinary hospitals that were draining. I became curious about how to fix those systems, and that curiosity and sense of purpose gave me the energy to move forward.
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