Incorporating Rural Business Skills

The Team

     Lucy Jones

     Managing Director

• BA(Hons) Oxon Agricultural and Forest Sciences

• MSc (Oxon) Forestry and Land Management

• Member of Institute of Agricultural Management

• Member of Institute of Chartered Foresters

• In consultancy since 1984

• Wide range of experience in rural planning and diversification

• Practical experience of her own diversified livestock enterprise

• FBAS deliverer

• REFS accredited

• SFEDI accredited

• Experienced expert witness

Lucy has a BA (Hons) in Agriculture and Forest Sciences and an MSc in Forestry and Land Management.  She is a founder member of the Institute of Agricultural Management and she has been a full member of the Institute of Chartered Foresters since 1987.

She has been in consultancy since 1984 and has advised on a wide range of issues from farm diversification to the environmental impact of motorways and windfarms.  Her own hands on experience of running a producer:processor livestock enterprise means that she understands what it is like on the inside of the farm gate as well moving beyond it with the creation and marketing of a new brand.

Lucy is an accredited Farm Business Advice Scheme deliverer, who is also accredited to deliver the Rural Enterprise Facilitation Scheme in Objective 2 areas of the South West.  She has been approved by the Small Firms Enterprise Development Initiative as a business advisor.

Lucy has the reputation of ‘thinking outside the box’.  Highly entrepreneurial and totally committed to helping stimulate the rural economy, she will ‘go the extra mile’ to ensure that a client has the support that is needed to find an appropriate way forward for their farm business.

She was been on the board of a Local Enterprise Trust in Scotland for five years and helped to mentor many new start up businesses in the tourism and farming sectors.   At this time she also helped to facilitate a range of practical and innovative courses for farmers through her work with the Agricultural Training Board.

Lucy takes the view that a personal approach is essential to give the best possible advice to farm businesses.  People’s own aspirations and preferences have as much bearing on the future of a business as the hard facts and figures.  She strongly believes that the people involved in each farm business are the experts and that her job is to help brainstorm new ideas or act as a sounding board for ideas which have already been formulated.  

Nick Keppel-Palmer

Senior Associate

• BA(Hons) German and Philosophy

• Talented marketing and business strategist

• Former head of strategic planning at VW (UK)

• Experienced in rural as well as urban businesses

• Fluent in German

• Training and facilitation expert

Nick is a sales and marketing expert with a background in developing business skills for a range of clients. He has designed large scale workshop programmes that encourage participants to learn and spark off each other, building lasting relationships that endure long after the end of the training.

Nick has first hand knowledge and experience of farm diversification issues in the SW.  He has carried out a wide range of feasibility studies and has moved diversification proposals forward into detailed business plans.  Nick’s plans have assisted with rural grant applications and the raising of finance from other sources.

Nick was previously in charge of training and development at VW, where he created a highly successful management school to coach VW dealers in sales, marketing and business skills.  His primary role was in developing and delivering the Volkswagen brand strategy.

Nick combines a hard-nosed business outlook with a deep understanding of people, organisations and brands. He is superb at spotting untapped potential and real business opportunities and he uses consumer insight to develop winning business strategies. 

“Nick has an ability to get the best out of people and challenge them in their roles. He is never happy with the status quo and is always challenging the company and its people to improve and move forward”         Anonymous, 360 Feedback

“Nick is the best market analyst this company has ever had”      

John Abbott, Marketing Director, Volkswagen UK

     Celia Barker

     Associate

• Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
• Management Consultant since 1988
• Extensive consultancy experience with food retailers, service industries and family businesses
• Developed and has run a successful independent business for over 10 years
• Wide experience in helping businesses achieve results
• Extensive training and development experience

An associate of Rural Enterprise Consultancy Ltd. since 2003, Celia has advised on business, recruitment and employment issues for rural clients and provides specialist advice on tourism enterprises particularly in relation to accommodation and catering.

Celia is a consulting and human resource specialist with a background in helping businesses achieve results through defining and clarifying their business aims and structuring their businesses to realize these.    She has extensive experience in working with the hospitality sector ranging from the small family run business to the international hotel sector.  She has personal experience in starting up and developing a successful small business and also advises others on  start ups.

With extensive experience in training and facilitation,  Celia's consulting style is to work with people to help them decide the way forward via a blend of original thinking, pragmatic planning, design and implementation.  She is an accredited RBS facilitator for the ‘Marketing for profit’ programme.

Specialist Consultants

We work with a range of associate consultants to offer a full environmental assessment capability in the following areas: ecology, landscape, traffic, noise, pollution, hydrogeology, archaeology and socio-economic impacts.