Founder and leader of her charted accountancy business, Past president of the Liverpool society of chartered accountants, only the fifth female president in 140 years. 

A keen runner on track to complete the 6 world major marathons. 

Jan went to the local grammar school where a large majority of the students went to university. No-one in her family had been to university before, so wasn’t really something she had considered and didn’t have any core interests that she wanted to explore at that stage and admits she didn’t really excel in Maths. Jan made the decision to decline the place offered to her at university, much to her parents’ dismay. 

As a consequence of this decision, living at home with her parents, they said she needed to get a job. She saw an advert in the local paper advertising for local accounting technicians and went along to the interview. The interviewer was a chartered accountant, he said she had good O and A levels, despite not necessarily being relevant to accountancy, and again suggested that she attended university. After declaring that she didn’t want to go to university he found her a placement at a local firm and 33 years she hasn’t looked back, despite originally planning to give it just six months and see how its goes. 

The common misconception about accountancy is that you need to be good at maths, and that’s just not the case! In Jan’s opinion, being good at maths doesn’t necessarily make you a good accountant, accountancy is about numbers, not maths, in fact the further along your career, the more you fulfil an advisory role. 

The story of Rural Pod Media starts with a dairy farmers son exploring opportunities off the farm while intwining his passion of land management, people, and the environment. 

Ben shares how Rural Pod Media came to be, the inspirations that led him to establish the business, while also confessing it’s still in its infancy, which means not saying no to any opportunities, while simultaneously enjoying an exciting growth phase, really establishing themselves in the sector. 

Rural pod media hosts two podcasts in house, but also offers full production services to other podcasts in the rural sector. 

As the son of a dairy farmer Ben grew up with the reality of farming, which is that economically it’s a very difficult world to be in, sharing his fathers stress. Farming was never really a route that was specifically encouraged by his parents, while it remained an option, Ben was able to consider opportunities outside of the farming. 

Ben’s passion for the environment and land management has remained intangible throughout his life. One of Ben’s first ventures was a brewing business which he started shortly after leaving school, he admits he’s always been a bit of a “wheeler dealer” and made a lot of mistakes in his first business. 

The brewing business started on Ben’s kitchen table, he went on a two-day course, not just the concept but the recipe. He then teamed up with a local microbrewery, started trading at a couple of pubs and events and it went from there. It was through this business Ben learnt the fundamentals like creating a P&L and cashflow forecast, as well as having a lot of fun. In hindsight Ben says he should have kept it going but it was the right time to move on from that one.

After he completed his degree at Bristol University Ben began working for Essex Wildlife Trust, following several years of volunteering in the conservation sector and spending a lot of time working on various other farms too. Ben realised through these experiences that one his core interests is people and relationships, how people interact, what they want, what they need, which fundamentally inspired his interest in media. Ben started with writing on a freelance basis around 10 years ago for various countryside press, which he still does some of today. 

Podcasting started for Ben back in 2016, the industry had been present for around 10 years, but was still minuscule in the grand scheme of things, but for ben it was a really useful way of recording conversations when he was visiting farms to share with his conservation colleagues, and this was particularly integral to bring some cohesion between conservation and farming where there was previously more conflict and podcasting was a great way to link the two sides together, which is where the meet the farmer podcast began, which is still running today having run 210 episodes and this was fundamentally where Ben gained the experience and inspiration for Rural Pod Media. 

Then came the fitness and wellbeing company started in 2019. The idea was to take the idea of mud runs but make it available to all ages, all year round. They had some very good years but also presented a lot of learning around the tourism sector, B2C and customer service. Ben left the business last year to focus his attention on Rural Pod Media.

Skipping ahead to 2020, it was the year of podcasting. Ben was working on his family farm when he was approached by two previous business partners to set up “Tribe Outdoor”, the wellbeing company, but at the same time was also approached by a couple of businesses looking to grow their messaging without being able to go out and visit people, so podcasting became a bespoke solution to awareness in the rural sector. Ben is a big believer that fun is one of the pillars of business, and he was really enjoying producing the podcast which made him think more specifically about the scope of the opportunity. 

The brand itself, Rural Pod Media was launched earlier this year, 2023, after having been in the making for around 12 months. Ben is currently using freelancers, but he is hoping to convert Rural Pod Media to a limited company later in the year, and growing from there. 

Ben said it’s been a mixed journey, but fundamentally its his interest in people that have really driven him. He adds that his experience in farming taught him to be efficient in reactive problem-solving and made him more resilient to challenges, but also instilled a firm work ethic.

Rural Pod Media focuses on the rural sector with Ben’s experience and passion in the sector. Ben finds the resilience of rural communities fascinating, the complexity and difference from the rest of society whilst being fundamental to it.