KITE - Key Persons
×Ainsley has been a Consultant since 1995, working with dairy, livestock and food businesses. He specialises in reviews, business planning and the preparation of budgets and cashflows. Ainsley manages a program for dairy farmers supplying a major retailer, supporting them to excel in animal health, welfare and business efficiency and is registered by Farming Connect in Wales, with an excellent track record in grant applications.
×Amy graduated from Harper Adams University in 2022 with a First Class BSc (Hons) degree in Agriculture with Animal Science. Amy has worked within the ruminant nutrition industry and has a broad background in livestock production through employment on multiple dairy units throughout the UK and New Zealand alongside involvement in family sheep and suckler enterprises. Amy is based in Yorkshire and works as a Graduate Consultant across the North. Her main interests lie in ruminant nutrition and the technical aspects of dairy production.
×Andrew has worked as a dairy farm consultant since 1992 in Shropshire and Cheshire. His area of expertise is dairy business and technical consultancy; helping a wide range of dairy farms develop efficient, profitable businesses
×Becki has extensive experience in delivering leadership & people management advice and training to business leaders and their teams in the areas of: people management and motivation, communication and influencing, self-awareness and change management. Becki graduated in 2008 with a First Class BSc (Hons) in Applied Animal Science, she has managed sales teams in previous roles and continues to undertake further professional development in; LEAN organisation management, advanced facilitation, negotiation and leadership and management techniques. Becki is based in Yorkshire and works across the North delivering Leadership & People Management consultancy alongside running discussion groups and working on a number of projects.
×Ben became a consultant in 1996, covering East Anglia, the South East and Lincolnshire. He is responsible for delivering business and technical advice to many of the region's leading mixed farms. Areas of expertise include the management of dairy herds on a variety of production systems with a focus on profitability, nutrition, herd health and fertility, business strategy, financial management. Ben currently works with farmers, agribusinesses, processors and retailers.
×Chloe joined Kite in 2016 following on from employment in both robotic and conventional dairy businesses. Chloe works with farmers in Eastern counties, providing business and technical support. Her particular interests lie in budgeting, heifer rearing, and farm team management. She works closely with multiple National discussion groups and retailer aligned contracts.
×Chris began his consultancy career in West Wales before moving to the Midlands. He now works over a wide radius across the country with many different dairy and mixed businesses. Chris' areas of expertise include; business management, business strategy and planning, nutrition, herd health and herd management. His wide-ranging client base includes dairy farming businesses, specialist benchmarking groups, processors and retailers. Promoting sustainability, resilience and future proofing businesses.
×David has recently left his position as Senior Dairy Consultant with SRUC to join Kite and has extensive experience in providing technical and business consultancy to dairy businesses across Scotland. David also works closely with milk processors, particularly cheese makers, to improve cheese yields and factory efficiencies. David's motto is "from parlour to palate".
×David began working as a consultant in 1985 and currently works across the UK with some international experience. David's areas of expertise include dairy business strategy, herd management and nutrition consultancy with high performance herds, financial management and milk marketing and he works throughout the dairy supply chain with dairy farmers, farmer groups, milk processors and retailers.
×Edward has more than 20 years experience in dairy consultancy and works with a wide range of dairy businesses across the south of England and Wales. Edward's areas of expertise include dairy herd management, business management, cost of production analysis and strategic planning. He works across the industry with dairy farmers, processors and retailers as clients.
×Eliot graduated from Harper Adams in 2017 with a BSc Honours degree in Agriculture, before working for a farm management company, managing several large-scale dairy businesses and estates across Scotland and Southwest England. Eliot is based in Cumbria, working alongside other members of the North team. His interests include business management and planning, ruminant nutrition and technical consultancy.
× Emma graduated from Harper Adams University in 2019 with a degree in Agri-Business. Since graduating she has been working as an agricultural consultant and joined the Kite team in 2022. Her main areas of interest are farm business management and environmental consultancy. Emma is based in Wiltshire and works across the South West and West Midlands.
Job Titles:
- Founding Partner of Kite Consulting
×Ewan is a founding partner of Kite Consulting. He has more than 30 year's consultancy experience and is recognised within the industry through work with the RABDF, British Grassland Institutes and OMSCO. His specific areas of expertise are farm business management, strategic planning and technical consultancy. Ewan was co-author of the Kite's ground-breaking Carbon Footprint tool widely used across the industry from McDonalds to Arla as part of their corporate sustainability activities.
×Hayley has joined Kite as the Head of Sustainability with significant experience in this area. Hayley holds an Honours Degree in Geography, a Masters Degree in rural policy and has worked for over fifteen years in the food and farming sector. Hayley started her career in agriculture as a chief policy adviser at the NFU, where she worked for over ten years leading the trade association's lobbying, policy and strategy work in the dairy and horticulture sectors, the Environmental Plan for Dairy Farming steering group and co-authoring the UK Dairy Roadmap. Most recently, Hayley became the youngest appointed non-executive board member of the AHDB and on leaving there, started her own agri-policy consultancy business, focusing largely on providing sustainability advice to farmers and food businesses. In August 2022 Hayley was ministerially appointed to the board of the Food Standards Agency.
Helen, who spent several years as an agronomist before becoming a sustainability consultant, has a particular interest in soils and the part they play in efficient milk production. Helen is BASIS & FACTS qualified and a member of the BASIS Environmental Advisers Register and the NFU Net Zero Steering Group. She is heavily involved with the home dairy and arable farms in Cumbria and joins Kite as a member of the Sustainability Team, based in the north of England, working across the UK.
×Jess has worked as a Kite consultant since 2017, having a broad range of experience in the dairy and grassland sector. Now based in the Midlands and working nationally, Jess's main area of work is business consultancy, helping dairy farms with budgeting, monitoring, business development plans and financial restructuring plans, to develop efficient, profitable businesses.
×John's areas of expertise include strategic planning, marketing, supply chain management and change management. He works with some of the UK's leading farmers as well as major food and dairy processors and retailers.
×Joss is a ruminant nutritionist working across the North of England and SW Scotland. He works predominantly with large scale dairy businesses along with an ever increasing number of robotic herds. Joss likes to focus on all technical areas within a business to ensure the most economical Kg's of fat and protein possible.
×Kaia joined Kite in 2019 after graduating from The University of Nottingham with a degree in Agricultural Sciences. She spent a year working as an Assistant Manager on a robotic unit before returning to Kite in 2022. Kaia is based in Cheltenham and is a member of the South West team with a particular interest in business management and gaining value from farm data.
×Kate qualified from the University of Cambridge in 2014 and worked as a farm animal vet in Kent and Lancashire. Kate joined Kite in 2019 and is based in Cheshire. She works as a technical specialist utilising her veterinary skillset to support farm clients with dairy and youngstock nutrition, herd health management and forage planning, as well as running several discussion groups. Her main interests are in mastitis/SCC, responsible use of antibiotic use on farms, nutrition, calf health and nutrition, fertility and genetics.
×Maimie graduated from Newcastle University in 2015 with a BSc Agriculture with Hons in Animal Science. Previously working in Devon and Scotland within in the Ruminant feed industry, she is now based in the South West of England with Kite as a technical consultant. She also completed a MSc in Agriculture Professional Practice in 2020 from the University of Glasgow. Her main interests lie in nutrition and improving technical efficiencies on farm.
×Lucy graduated from Newcastle University in 2019 with an Honour's degree in Food Business Management & Marketing, before working for a global dairy cooperative as part of their agricultural team. She has also spent time account managing different retailers with focus on their dairy suppliers. Lucy's interests include facilitated group work with farmers and processors across the UK. She is also part of the Kite People Team assisting with people management and recruitment.
×Marcus graduated from Harper Adams in 2015 with a BSc (Hons) in Agriculture with Animal Science after growing up on a mixed arable and dairy farm. He then pursued a career in farm management and brings his extensive practical experience combined with technical knowledge to help farms improve business performance across the South West. Marcus has a particular interest in nutrition for high yielding systems, herd development through targeted use of genetics as well as staff recruitment and management.
×Mark began working as a consultant in 1996 and has wide knowledge of the agricultural industry. Mark has been instrumental in developing Advance Sourcing, which he manages. Mark's specialist skills lie in commodity sourcing; group buying; project management; database development and logistics whilst he also works with large dairy and agribusinesses across the UK.
×Mike has worked in the dairy industry for the majority of his career and currently provides high level strategic planning and technical advice to agribusinesses across the South and South West of England. Mike's areas of expertise include nutrition, herd management and strategic planning issues relating to large scale dairy systems.
×Neil has over 30 years of consultancy experience, specialising in the dairy sector across Wales and the Midlands. Neil's areas of expertise include business management, strategic planning, dairy nutrition and technical consultancy. Neil provides advice to farmers, milk processors and the agricultural supply trade. Neil also manages the delivery of a number of larger scale projects within Kite.
×Ros specialises in the dairy sector and works across Northern England and Southern Scotland. Ros' expertise includes management consultancy, strategy and business planning, herd management and dairy nutrition. Ros works with a wide range of dairy farms and the supply industry, and also has skills in project and process management
×Deleted: Rose graduated from Bristol Veterinary School in 2004 and worked as a farm animal Vet in Derbyshire for 16 years working predominantly with Dairy farmers. Rose holds a Diploma in Bovine Reproduction and a Certificate in Veterinary Business Management. Her main areas of interest are fertility, data analysis and genetics.
×Tanya has worked in East Anglia as a dairy business consultant for almost 20 years. Tanya currently works with a range of agribusiness mainly in East Anglia, but also in Jersey. She manages the East Midlands sub-team and chairs the Nutrition Network. Her areas of expertise are in nutritional and technical consultancy she also undertakes farm business and financial management for a number of her clients.
×Tim has more than 30 years experience as a specialist farm animal nutritionist and works across the Midlands, North of England and Wales as well collaborating on nutrition research in the UK, Europe and the USA. Tim's areas of expertise include specialist dairy nutrition, solving health, fertility and production problems, manipulating milk quality, modelling carbon footprint of livestock, legal work, buying group work and the evaluation of feeds.
×Born into a dairy farming family in North Devon, Andy's love of cows and farming was formed from an early age. Having graduated from Nottingham University in 1990 he moved into dairy consultancy with ADAS before later establishing a successful retail business. In 2013, together with John Allen, Andy played a key role in the business planning and establishment of a new, partial green eld dairy unit for 500 cows on his family's farm, which had traditionally operated as a beef and sheep enterprise. Andy joined Kite in 2016 as a part-time consultant, covering the South West.
×Tony has spent most of his working life in the dairy industry, both with his own farm and also in consultancy. He joined Kite in 2008. Tony's areas of expertise include most aspects of cattle management. His main role with Kite is the facilitation of dairy and beef knowledge transfer and benchmarking groups covering much of the UK, mainly in conjunction with a range of dairy and beef processors and retailers.
×Paul has worked with Kite since 2009 and has a wide range of knowledge and management experience across the agriculture industry particularly within the dairy sector. Paul is a very experienced trainer and facilitator and works on numerous training projects, he is involved in planning and delivering development programmes for farm business managers and has considerable experience of managing and building teams. He is also currently involved in carbon reduction and sustainability programmes and works across the industry with farmers, processors, and retailers.
×Vicky joined Kite in summer 2017 from NMR. Having graduated from Hartpury College in 2009 with a degree in Dairy Herd Management, Vicky has had roles on all sides of the dairy farming fence. Based in Frome, Somerset, Vicky combines her nutrition and genetic expertise alongside data analysis skills to help farms improve their technical performance, with a particular focus on robotic dairy herds. She also leads on developing Kite's data strategy from farm to corporate clients, which fits well with her personal interest in farm benchmarking, as she's currently studying this subject part-time for a PhD with Reading University