Meet the Team

A friendly team that merges business knowledge, innovative thinking and agricultural experience.

Team

Sarah Carr

Head of Business Innovation and Growth

Sarah’s role as Head of Business Innovation and Growth at the RAU involves heading up both Farm491 and the Cirencester Growth Hub. In addition to strategy development, she also focuses on building out partnerships and commercial initiatives to help grow the start-up ecosystem at the RAU. With a background and interest in AgriTech, Sarah works to promote the adoption of new technologies in food production and help build out the UK’s AgriTech ecosystem. In addition, she sits on various committees such as GFirst LEP’s Agri Food and Rural business group, where she assists in the development and implementation of county-wide strategies.

Sarah has also mentored early-stage AgriTech start-ups through programmes such as Thrive by SVG Ventures and is a regular Entrepreneur in Residence on EIT Food’s Seedbed programme.

Contact Sarah at sarah.carr@rau.ac.uk

Verity Payne

Operations and Events Manager

Verity manages Farm491’s three incubation and innovation sites covering co-working, offices and workshops. Her role covers bringing in new members to use the offices and co-working space, building the on-site agri-tech community and ensuring the general smooth running of the facilities. She is also responsible for the on-site events, working with members to exhibit at trade shows and leads on sponsorship opportunities. This has included leading the Agri-Innovation Den in collaboration with BASF and Farmer’s Guardian for 2018 and 2019, and oversight on Farm491’s inaugural agri-tech showcase – a two day event aimed at farmers with over 100 attendees.

Verity is a two-time graduate of the Royal Agricultural University with an undergraduate degree in Equine Science and post-graduate degree in Business Management. After graduating, Verity worked in property at Savills, and has been at Farm491 since it was founded in 2016. She has been a critical part of the team performing almost every role and seen it grow from just a handful of members to the international reach it has today.

Contact Verity at verity.payne@rau.ac.uk

Business Advisors

Stephanie Mathern

Business Advisor

Stephanie is passionate about creating change to make farming practices more healthy and sustainable. She is particularly interested in innovative technologies that can help farmers improve soil and animal health which in turn leads to healthier humans and achieves sustainability in the food supply chain.

After a 20 year career in investment banking, she began investing in start-ups and small businesses in various industries from eco-friendly shoes to wine. In 2019 she launched AgVenturesUK to focus solely on agriculture and aquaculture innovation. Her ambition here is to help launch and support businesses that will make a substantive impact on sustainable farming.

Stephanie has held several board positions in her investments, where she learned about the many challenges founders can face when taking a business from an idea to a sustainable profitable business. From this experience, she strongly values fostering open communication, building the right team and establishing ethical practices throughout an organisation.

If you are a Farm491 member, please contact Sarah to book in time with Stephanie: sarah.carr@rau.ac.uk

Christopher Horne

Business Advisor

Chris is an entrepreneurial agribusiness operator with a great network and huge local and international experience. He is greatly excited by the unfolding AG4.0 revolution and what it can bring to the industry in performance, efficiency and sustainability. Some of Chris’s experience to date includes being Director of Environmental Crop Solutions, an investment and advisory firm focused on agritech innovations in crop science, and Co-founder & Director of Research Engine: market research and insights for agribusiness. Chris recently spent two years on contract supporting the UK governments Department of International Trade Agri-Tech Team where he helped attract overseas companies and investors to the UK and helped UK companies to export around the world.

Particular business competence areas include business strategy & planning, marketing, market analysis and market research, branding and communications, business development, project management, including new product development and bringing complimentary parties together in partnerships. Chris’s main interests in the AgriFood Tech industry lie within crop science (from crop protection, nutrition and agronomy, through to genetics and breeding), vertical farming, the soil microbiome, robotics and plat-based foods.

If you are a Farm491 member, please contact Sarah to book in time with Chris: sarah.carr@rau.ac.uk

James Waltham

Business Advisor

James is an expert in the fresh produce industry with over 20 years in the horticultural sector. A farmer’s son from Dorset he originally trained as an agronomist but over the last 20 years has worked for a number of large, international fresh produce businesses, most recently as Managing Director of Haygrove (Growing) Ltd and as Commercial Director for a South African fruit business supplying UK, EU, ME & FE markets. James also advises a number of AgriTech businesses, such as LettUs Grow and CRM AgriCommodities. He has operated at main board level for the last 15 years, and is currently Chairman at Xihelm Ltd.

James has joined Farm491 as a Business Advisor to provide strategic advice to our members, particularly around commercial and business strategy, as well as general management advice. He is passionate about people and enabling them to exceed their own expectations.

If you are a Farm491 member, please contact Sarah to book in time with James: sarah.carr@rau.ac.uk

Amy Fry

Business Coach

With nearly 20 years’ experience in the Dairy Industry, Amy has managed the sales and routes to market of dairy ingredients into both the manufacturing and retail sectors.

More recently Amy is now a TCA qualified Business Coach and specialises in supporting SMEs and start up business owners to set strategic objectives, navigate change, manage ideas and overcome challenges which may be getting in the way of business growth.

With a proven track record in building long term relationships with customers in her Commercial role with Meadow Foods, Amy looks forward to engaging, empowering and encouraging those who are starting out with their exciting ventures or simply need support to move from where they are now to where they want to be in the future.

If you are a Farm491 member, please contact Sarah to book in time with Amy: sarah.carr@rau.ac.uk

Rod Horrocks

Business Advisor

Rod has worked with Farm491 for over 4 years, co-delivering their ERDF funded programme to help start-ups build a robust, innovative business plan. He is an experienced Change Management and Transformation leader with strong people and change management skills. He is able to engage at all levels of an organisation up to main board level, to develop joint vision and buy-in. Rod also develops internal change management skills to make the change sustainable. He is a qualified coach and has applied this skill successfully at all organisational levels.

Rod is excited to be assisting Farm491 members, utilising his key skills of innovation education and facilitation, programme/project management, change management, organisational design, business process modelling, communications, IS/IT management and executive coaching.

If you are a Farm491 member, please contact Sarah to book in time with Rod: sarah.carr@rau.ac.uk

Ben Jones

Business Advisor

Ben is the co-founder of both Graze and Tails, and has joined Farm491 to provide business support to our members. Ben has extensive experience working in subscription-based food businesses; through raising seed capital, to start-up, to scale-up and to acquisition. Specialties of Ben’s include innovation, NPD, ops fulfilment and workplace culture. His expertise includes business strategy, marketing/PR, sales, e-commerce and branding. On working with Farm491, Ben said “I’m really excited about encouraging Farm491 members to grow their ideas and to help support their important work”.

If you are a Farm491 member, please contact Sarah to book in time with Ben: Sarah.Carr@rau.ac.uk

David Farley

Business Advisor

A highly experienced and commercially astute agri-business professional – David is passionate about food and farming. Having worked at senior levels across all areas of the fresh produce supply-chain – literally from field to fork with businesses such as Del Monte & Greenvale AP, David has been operating as an independent consultant for the last 5 years. In this capacity, he has delivered a number of commercial & business change projects for clients such as Cawood Scientific and Puffin Produce.

Having recently rebranded to AgriEnable – Delivering change for food & farming clients, he sees the current need for more sustainable, secure and transparent food production systems as a massive opportunity. People and technology will be central to this change; and David is committed to aligning them with strategy – empowering food & farming businesses to maximise their potential.

David has worked with a number of agri-tech clients recently, where his experience, knowledge and network have combined to add value through fresh insight and perspective. Delighted to be joining Farm491’s advisory team, David is looking forward to engaging with the membership on their commercial, operational and people challenges and strategies.

If you are a Farm491 member, please contact Sarah to book in time with David: sarah.carr@rau.ac.uk

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