Director of Real Estate

Director of Real Estate

Denver, Colorado

At Western Veterinary Partners, we believe people are our greatest asset. We are a people-centric veterinary support organization focused on supporting veterinary practices and the professionals who care for pets and their families every day.

We are seeking a Director of Real Estate to join our growing corporate team. This role offers the opportunity to make a meaningful impact while collaborating with a supportive, mission-driven organization that values integrity, growth, and relationships.

Western Veterinary Partners (WVP) is a veterinary service organization that supports hundreds of animal hospitals across the United States. WVP works with practices to provide best-in-class, non-clinical business support services that enable clinical teams to focus on delivering exceptional patient care. WVP is a high-growth organization focused on improving our current practices and growing rapidly into new markets through partnership with independent veterinary practices.

Reporting to the VP of Strategy and Business Operations, the Director of Real Estate will lead our real estate function across 350 veterinary hospital locations. This individual will shape the strategy and execution of all real estate functions, including capital projects, site selection, facilities management, and leasing activities. The position will be a highly visible leader in the organization, interacting with the WVP leadership team regularly. This individual will have the ability to build a team of high-caliber professionals to build an industry-leading function serving our hospital partners and corporate team.

While primarily focused on acquisitions and our existing portfolio of assets, WVP is also undertaking a new strategic focus on building de novo locations. This role will have the opportunity to define our de novo strategy and build the infrastructure from the ground up to become a major value contributor to the organization.

The ideal candidate brings a strong blend of deep real estate knowledge, analytical rigor, and strategic vision, with the ability to structure the department, set ambitious goals, lead a team, and execute with rigor across a multi-site, high-growth environment.

This is a hybrid role with a minimum of 3 days in office per week in central Denver. Domestic travel required as needed to support real estate activities (30% or less).

Key Responsibilities

• Departmental Architecture & Strategy: Develop the Real Estate function at Western Veterinary Partners, including hiring a small team of real estate professionals and implementing the systems and processes to take WVP's real estate capabilities to a highly functioning service
• Capital Growth Projects: Oversee the prioritization, project scoping, investment underwriting, budgeting, and project execution of $15-30M of annual real estate growth projects, including expansions, new build outs, facility refreshes, and other major capital projects. Select preferred vendors across all aspects of project execution to create strong accountability and execution
• Site Selection: Serve as key partner to develop new and relocation sites for our hospital partners. Develop corporate standards for facility locations, footprint, cost, signage, access, etc. Create a standard real estate pack that outlines key selection criteria and outlines the trade-offs among potential locations in a market.
• Facilities Management: Create a world-class facilities management function, leveraging our national scale to create centralized facilities services with vendors and internal teams. Create an improved experience for hospital team members through reduced facility management cost and improved delivery.
• Lease Administration: Manage the portfolio of leases across all WVP locations, including new lease negotiation and execution, renewals, and terminations. Work with local, regional, and national brokers to evaluate leases and recommend renewal or relocation decisions. Standardize our leases over time to preferred corporate terms.
• De novo model: Architect the de novo model to create a standardized, repeatable de novo real estate strategy for new hospitals across the United States. Spearhead the execution of 5-10 de novo openings per year in coordination with operations, marketing, procurement, legal, and other internal teams.
• Team leadership: Direct the day-to-day activities of a team of real estate and project management professionals, providing guidance and mentorship.
• Other duties as assigned

Qualifications & Experience

• 20+ years of progressive leadership in real estate and/or facilities roles at a multi-site retail or multi-site services company. Veterinary or healthcare services highly preferred.
• Direct experience with real estate site selection proposals and/or working directly with brokers to source facilities
• Direct experience managing lease portfolios, renewal cycles, landlord/tenant matters, terminations, and disputes
• Direct experience managing and approving capital projects, setting budgets, monitoring execution, and working with general contractors or facilities teams
• Experience or familiarity with facilities management, facility services vendor selection, and an internal service model
• Financial modeling skills with the ability to create budgets, cash flow analyses, ROI analyses, and comparisons across a variety of real estate scenarios
• Deep experience and connections within the real estate field; direct national broker experience or relationships highly preferred
• Familiarity with an acquisition-focused model and de novo planning experience preferred
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to distill complex insights for diverse audiences
• Highly organized, detail-oriented, and adaptable in a fast-paced, evolving environment

This role is not open to receiving agency candidates and any contingent submissions will not be honored.