Ross Tomkins: From Physiotherapy to Portfolio; How One Healthcare Entrepreneur Built a 30-Deal Legacy on the Simple Principle of Winning Together
From Clinician to Acquisition Entrepreneur — A Career Built on Seeing the Whole System
Ross Tomkins did not begin his career in boardrooms or balance sheets. He began it in physiotherapy hands-on, clinical, and deeply human working directly with people trying to rebuild their bodies and reclaim their lives. That foundation never left him. It shows up today in every business decision he makes at Balmoral Partners, the specialist healthcare holding company he founded, in the simple and consistent truth that he is drawn to businesses where the outcome is someone’s health, not just a line on a profit and loss statement.
The shift from clinician to acquisition entrepreneur was not arbitrary. It came from a gap Ross Tomkins kept seeing with uncomfortable clarity: brilliant healthcare operators who were exceptional at delivering care and completely unequipped to build, scale, or exit a business properly. That gap became his career. Nearly 30 acquisitions, exits, and investments later, he has built Balmoral Partners into a respected healthcare holding company, and founded Elysian Health Clinics and Alphagenix alongside it a portfolio that reflects both his commercial ambition and his enduring belief that healthcare businesses deserve to be built with the same care their founders put into clinical practice.
What has shaped Ross Tomkins most deeply, however, is not the deal count. It is nearly two decades of intentional family travel and time spent with traditional healers and clinical psychologists studying psychedelic medicine. Both, he says, taught him the same lesson: sustainable performance in a business or a body comes from treating the whole system, not just the symptom. It is a philosophy that runs through everything he builds.
Leadership Rooted in Being the Best Version of Yourself Every Single Day
When Ross Tomkins is asked what motivates him to lead every day, his answer is disarmingly personal. Not the deals. Not the numbers. Not the target of reaching 500 million pounds of revenue under management by 2030. What gets him out of bed is the commitment to being the best version of himself every day, not a perfect version, but the best one available. The best husband. The best father. The best businessman. The best friend.
For Ross, Balmoral is where that commitment shows up professionally. Leading a team, backing acquirers, and building something genuinely worth being proud of, he believes, only works if the person at the top holds themselves to that standard first. It is a form of leadership that begins inward and expresses itself outward and it is a principle that has quietly shaped the culture of every business within the Balmoral portfolio.
Nearly 30 Deals, a 90 Percent Success Rate, and a Portfolio Built on Win-Win Outcomes
The number that Ross Tomkins is most proud of is not the deal count, and it is not the success rate though approaching 30 deals with a 90 percent success rate across the portfolio is a remarkable achievement by any measure. What makes him most proud is how those deals were done: with genuine care for the legacy of departing owners, with real attention to the wellbeing of their staff through the transition, and with a consistent focus on creating win-win outcomes for every stakeholder involved patients, clients, supply chain partners, and investors alike.
That portfolio today is broad and deliberately constructed. It spans Normedica, the group’s medical supplies and pharmaceuticals business; GT Vision, its medical device company; and Alphagenix, its men’s health and longevity business. It also includes Advanced Health Group the Topco behind three acquisitions in the mobility space with five sites across Scotland alongside Beacon Homecare Services, Prestige Care Homes, and VTM, the group’s electronics company. Ross has also backed two earlier-stage ventures that sit close to his heart: Resurgence, an online fitness platform for the over-50s co-founded with a view to acquiring gyms, and 28X, an extraordinary app in the women’s health space. The group’s goal is clear and ambitious: 500 million pounds of revenue under management by 2030. Ross Tomkins’ conviction is equally clear get the win-win right at every stage, and the numbers tend to follow.
Mindful Walking, Morning Texts, and the Leadership Habits That Actually Work
Ross Tomkins has two daily habits that he credits with much of his clarity, creativity, and emotional resilience as a leader and neither of them involves a productivity app or a morning routine borrowed from a bestselling book.
The first is mindful walking. Not walking with a podcast playing or music in his ears, but simply going for a walk and observing the world around him just Ross and his thoughts. It is a practice he has followed for many years, and it is where, he says, he gets genuinely creative. Some of the clearest strategic thinking happens not in meetings or at desks, but in the quiet movement of a walk with no agenda attached to it.
The second habit is texting his business partners good morning. It sounds small, and that is precisely the point. Ross Tomkins describes the psychological value of this practice with the precision of someone who has thought about it carefully. Consistent small contact strengthens connection in a way that occasional intense conversations rarely do. It helps with emotional regulation putting a frustration or a win into words makes it easier to process. It reduces the particular isolation that comes with senior leadership, where you can be surrounded by people and still have very few you can speak to with complete openness. It gives you a safety valve the ability to say “this is going badly” without having to maintain the confident exterior you show everywhere else. And it provides perspective, because someone who knows you well can spot when you are catastrophising, overexcited about an opportunity, or repeating an old pattern. In business, Ross believes, that kind of grounded perspective is extremely valuable.
Airlifted Off Denali — What a Health Crisis Teaches You About Gratitude and Resilience
Not every challenge Ross Tomkins has faced has been a business one. Some have been far more fundamental. He speaks candidly about being airlifted off Denali, in Alaska, after experiencing serious breathing difficulties at altitude. What followed was a long and demanding medical journey: hundreds of tests, a surgery that did not fully resolve the problem, and treatment sought across the UK, the United States, India, Mexico, the UAE, and Panama. He is, by his own account, still not at 100 percent.
And yet, the way Ross Tomkins speaks about this experience is defined not by difficulty, but by gratitude. He feels genuinely fortunate to have had access to the range of treatment options available to him, and to the people who helped him access them. He is acutely aware that this kind of access is not something everyone has and he does not take it for granted. That awareness sits quietly alongside everything else he has built: a reminder that health is the foundation upon which everything else rests, and that the opportunity to pursue it seriously should never be taken lightly.
The Two Pieces of Advice That Could Change Your Business Trajectory
To those starting out in healthcare, M&A, or entrepreneurship today, Ross Tomkins offers two pieces of advice that are direct, experience-tested, and worth taking seriously.
The first is to bring mentors into your life as early as possible. Ross Tomkins introduced mentors into his own life around 15 years ago and that, he says, is when his business and his life began to accelerate in a meaningful way. He wishes he had started 15 years earlier. But the principle, he notes, is the same as planting a tree: the best time was years ago, and the second-best time is now. For anyone looking for a mentor, his invitation is open reach out to him directly on LinkedIn.
The second piece of advice is more counterintuitive, and more powerful for it: buy a business rather than start one. It is faster, and it is often far less risky than most people assume. For those who are earlier in that journey still building the foundation before their first acquisition Ross Tomkins created the Ascend Network, a private community designed specifically for that stage of the entrepreneurial path.
An Open Invitation to Partners, Founders, and Future Acquirers
Ross Tomkins closes with the same spirit that runs through everything he has built at Balmoral: an open door and a genuine welcome. If you are an investor, family office, healthcare operator, or strategic partner interested in what Balmoral is building the deals being backed, the portfolio’s direction, and its trajectory toward 500 million pounds under management by 2030 he welcomes the conversation. The same applies to founders and business owners thinking seriously about an exit, who want to understand what a considered, legacy-respecting acquisition actually looks like from the other side of the table.
Because for Ross Tomkins, that is ultimately what all of this comes back to: outcomes that are worth being proud of, for every person involved. From the first physiotherapy patient he worked with decades ago to the healthcare businesses he backs and builds today, the measure of success has never changed. It has only grown larger.
