Client Value Story
Independence Pet Holdings: Building Leadership and Care-Led Change Across a Growing Portfolio
Helping people and culture momentum move across a growing pet insurance and services portfolio.
Entry Way
2025: From acquisition-shaped growth to shared leadership language, People Team capability, and care-led organization transitions.
One Portfolio, Many Moments of Change
Independence Pet Holdings had been moving through a meaningful period of business growth and organizational movement, while continuing to explore the strategy and leadership conditions needed for its next chapter.
Acquisition activity, leadership movement, operating company complexity, and evolving people priorities were all present at the same time.
Underneath the daily work, IPH was holding a bigger question: how does a multi-brand enterprise keep growing — through acquisitions, across geographies — while staying coherent about leadership and careful about what makes each operating company its own?
Nikoleta & Associates was invited to support IPH across connected bodies of work, helping explore this question through strategy, leadership, and people priorities.
The partnership began with Project EPIC, the enterprise leadership capability work. Through two Listening & Engagement rounds with ExCo and senior leaders, EPIC took shape as a shared view of what leadership looks like at IPH and inside each operating company.
From there, the work expanded into PetPlace, where IPH’s People leadership asked Nikoleta & Associates to support an organization transition that needed to land with the same care and clarity that defines how IPH leads. And in Canada, PTZ Insurance became a third thread — HR subject matter depth offered to a team in a moment of growth.
The arc is one of readiness. IPH was doing the work in front of it, and also building a way to meet what comes next: shared language, clearer roles, deeper People Team capability, and care held through change.
The Work Can Be Organized Into Three Areas
Enterprise Leadership Capability
The partnership opened with Project EPIC — Elevating Performance, Integrating Capabilities: building a shared view of what leadership looks like at IPH and inside each operating company.
Through two Listening & Engagement rounds with just under 50 leaders, the work shaped a practical capability base for growth, learning, succession, and leadership alignment.
Care-Led Org Transition
PetPlace asked for a transition handled with clarity, care, and consistency.
The work moved through our Anchor, Impact + Implement frame — grounding in business case and financials, working through legal, people, and operational impact, then carrying transitions through to new reporting lines and a stable footing.
What was learned carried forward into how IPH approaches future transitions.
Canadian HR Depth + Capability Build
IPH asked for added depth on the Canadian side — subject matter support across Total Rewards, severance guideline design, career transition setup, and HR Business Partnering.
Alongside this, training and coaching for the Toronto-based HR Manager carried the Go-Forward Restructure Process into how the People Team works day-to-day.
Engagement Samples
Key Moments of Value Creation
Project EPIC: Enterprise Leadership Capability
Thematic Analysis
Wave One and Two Listening & Engagement Series sessions produced a rich dataset of leader perspectives. Nikoleta & Associates curated and analyzed that input — surfacing the themes and talent signals that became the foundation for the capability framework.
- 22+ hours of leader conversation curated across Waves One and Two (11 ExCo + 36 senior leaders, 43 sessions)
- Five Primary Themes (90%+ consensus) and Five Broader Themes (60–89% consensus) — top theme at 92%
- Talent signals connecting themes to near and mid-term priorities: shallow pipeline, skilling, retention, leader transitions, inclusion
Leadership Playbacks
Individual, team, operating company, persona, and level-based views helped leaders see patterns in how leadership is experienced. These assets made the work tangible and easier to bring into leader conversations and team routines.
- Talent Book personas across executive and senior leaders, including how each leader holds leadership
- OpCo level-based views by role — CEO, VP, Director, Senior Manager, Manager — across operating companies
- Talent Planning Signals dashboard surfacing 12 talent and leadership priorities with consensus scores
Capability Framework + Socialization
With themes and signals in hand, Nikoleta & Associates translated the listening into a pragmatic leadership capability base aligned to IPH strategy, culture, and values. Socialization across ExCo, the People Team, and senior leaders built shared understanding ahead of the Phase One rollout.
- Four-part frame: Mindset & Beliefs, Behaviors & Presence, Capabilities & Focus Areas, Talent Priorities
- Leadership Capability Framework SOP linking to performance, succession, L&D, talent acquisition, and onboarding
- ExCo internalization, People Team sessions, and operating company plans set up the phased rollout
Care-Led Organization Transition
Anchor, Impact + Implement
We leveraged our Anchor, Impact + Implement framework — A.I.I. — for the PetPlace work, holding business context, people considerations, communication, readiness, manager preparation, and stabilization in one coherent approach. The same frame carried through each subsequent stream of work.
- Three-module workback plan — Anchor (financials + business case), Impact (analysis + planning), Implement (transitions + stabilize)
- IPH Guiding Principles applied throughout — Respectful Team Member Experience, IPH Leader, Values-Led Exits, Clarity with Care, Local Employment
- Decisional unit and by-person reviews across legal, financial, performance, skills, and personal context
PetPlace Transition Support
Nikoleta & Associates partnered with People leaders and business collaborators to support a clear, respectful team member experience — covering transition planning, manager enablement, communication materials, career transition design, and leadership coaching through delivery.
- Manager enablement frame with FAQ document and Transition Conversation Guide
- Severance calculations, transition services, and by-person planning for 19 team members in the US and Canada
- Town Hall materials and one-on-one coaching for People leaders through delivery
Go-Forward Process
Learning from the transition period was brought forward into a repeatable go-forward process. The People Team gained a clearer way to prepare, align, communicate, support leaders, and reflect after future organization shifts.
- Go-Forward Standard — a care-based guideline for future organization transitions
- Core Team Debrief, learnings playback, and People Team Booster Sessions
Canadian HR Depth + Capability Build
People Team Enablement
The early work centered on supporting the People Team through acquisition-shaped growth. Nikoleta & Associates helped frame how the function could strengthen credibility, clarify roles, and show up as a consistent business partner across a complex portfolio.
- People Team capability sessions and Booster Sessions to lift People Partner readiness
- Coaching for People Partners through acquisition activity, role moves, and integration
- Canadian HR subject matter capacity covering Total Rewards, severance, and career transition setup
From Conversation to Capability
The integration work considered how leaders and teams receive context, build shared purpose, and move together. The focus was not only message development, but the relational conditions that help people understand and participate in change.
- Transparency & Communication theme set with “what we’re hearing” playbacks for senior leadership
- Town Hall framing, key messages, and shared operating practices for care-led change
- Communication plans, sequencing, and key partner playbacks across program waves
Leadership Alignment
Nikoleta & Associates supported the organization in bringing leadership, structure, role clarity, and ways of working into a more shared view, with IPH culture and values held as a companion to business growth.
- Four OpCo Leadership Alignment & Perspectives reports
- Activation routes covering strategic vision, capacity, cross-functional integration, and community
