Your Loughborough Story

Can you tell us about your memories of Loughborough Grammar School?

Great friendships, adventures and a lot of home work!  Some of my fondest memories at the school are playing 5 a side in the sports hall during PE, running to the absolute max and blowing off some steam.  The school trips were also highlights like the Hadrian’s Wall trip and skiing in Austria

How has your time at Loughborough Grammar School influenced your life and career?

I learned how to learn which has helped a lot over the years.

What do you wish you had known when you were in Sixth Form?

Probably quite a lot!

When all the teachers tell you that you should do x hours of homework a day, they are right!  If you can get into that cadence of work, it will really help.

Are you still in touch with your school friends or teachers today?

I’m in touch with some of my school friends, and the OLA dinners are a great way to see many of them.

How are you involved with the school today?

Through the OLA dinners.

What would you say to encourage alumni who are considering getting involved with the alumni community today?

You have a shared secondary education experience at LGS and one of the things I enjoy is hearing about the broad range of life experiences the others in my year have had.

How would you describe LGS in three words?

Quad. Formative. Challenging.

Alumni Career Wisdom

Could you provide an outline of your job role?

I founded our ‘Escape to the country’ style business 10 years ago and after building it up over many years in parallel to my day job, I went full time on it a few years ago.  I am owner, Director, fish farmer, farm worker, sales person, order management, ecommerce, marketing and IT.  Basically, between my wife and I we cover everything that the business needs to be successful.

We run an ornamental fish farm producing high quality koi carp.  So many of the koi sold in the UK are imported and I wanted to offer an equivalent high quality product, without the air miles and produced locally.  The next stage is to go carbon neutral, or preferably negative.

I love the variety, and also the problem solving.  We have to be nimble and decisive and get decisions right more of the time than not to keep our share of the market.  The hours are ridiculous particularly in the main season , which runs from mid March through to the end of October, we will work literally from when we get out of bed through to when we turn in at night.  Despite that, it’s incredibly satisfying to have that breadth of responsibility and control, the opportunity to make a difference each day and to experience very closely the impact of our decisions.  And then we have the off season to recover!

What are your career highlights?

Prior to the fish farming, there was a stint in my time at PwC where I led a team in Government sector consulting.  I ended up enjoying that sector the most out of the range of industries I worked in there.  The work I did in that period was some of the best I’ve done and some of it broke new ground which was personally satisfying.  There were a few projects I still reflect on now where we made a huge difference to citizens’ life chances and health.

On the fish farming side of things, some of the koi carp we produced won major awards which was thought to be impossible to replicate outside of Japan, the home of koi carp.  Our success made the international koi press.  It was satisfying seeing it written up in a few foreign language trade publications.

What is one piece of advice that you would give to current pupils thinking about studying the same degree course?

The course I took was interesting, but I suggest checking very carefully what the degree you are interested in entails and that the learning tasks you’ll be doing are things you enjoy.

What advice for success would you give to current pupils and graduates?

I’ve had a good run, which I am thankful for.  But, bear in mind that occasionally, things go wrong.  It’s inevitable at some point.  Thinking back to my time at LGS, I had a good run through much of my Sixth Form years both at school and outside of it, and got used to successes.  Then, I overstretched myself and hit a big snag and I found that tricky to deal with.  I wish I’d have known better about how to leverage the positives at the time and that going through those things is a key part of growth and development.  Be kind to yourself when you hit a snag.

What ambitions would you still like to realise?

I would like to experience living in another country.  And, I would like to sail around the UK.  Neither are on the immediate horizon because right now, I can’t sail and my business is UK based and I have a lot of work to do in developing the business further before taking on anything else. But, those ambitions are still there.

Anything else you’d like to add. Any additional hobbies and achievements to note?

I did a stint of Jury service a few years ago which was really interesting.  There has been no other experience in my life when I’ve spent time with a group of people that was a more genuine cross section of our local society.