{"id":2069,"date":"2026-05-21T12:03:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T11:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/?p=2069"},"modified":"2026-05-21T12:03:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T11:03:28","slug":"parade-profile-matthew-stephenson-mba-1994","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/2026\/05\/21\/parade-profile-matthew-stephenson-mba-1994\/","title":{"rendered":"Parade Profile: Matthew Stephenson (MBA 1994)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew Stephenson swapped his brogues for cowboy boots in 2016 when he left his corporate job for farm life.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>
<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>
<\/span>Ten years on, Wild West Cider and Wine<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>is<\/span>\u00a0thriving, but the journey\u00a0<\/span>wasn't<\/span>\u00a0without its hiccups \u2013 like losing their first 3,200 vines to an unforgiving spring frost.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>
<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>
<\/span><\/strong>Read on to find out how MBA\u00a0<\/span>grad<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0Matthew's time at Bath gave him the confidence to try new things.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why did you choose to study at Bath?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I was already working as a\u00a0management\u00a0consultant at one of the big accounting firms and\u00a0I wanted to do an MBA\u00a0that I could\u00a0combine with work.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Being based in Bristol and knowing the reputation of Bath\u00a0meant that I was able to study at a renowned university whilst juggling\u00a0my career\u00a0and family life.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Can you tell us about your experience of studying here? Any favourite memories, or places to go on campus and in the city<\/span><\/b>?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Studying at Bath broadened my horizons and the subject areas on my\u00a0course were\u00a0very interesting. I can still remember some my professors as they made a lasting impact, for example Iain Mangham who wrote Organisations as Theatre, about the power plays and politics in large organisations,\u00a0which was fascinating.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I enjoyed that the MBA enabled us to work with others in our cohort,\u00a0and I remember doing some great projects with others on my course. As I lived in Bristol and had a young family,\u00a0I\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0able to get\u00a0out and about\u00a0much on campus or in the\u00a0city,\u00a0sadly.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Describe your career journey since graduating. What is a typical day like in your current role?\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I was\u00a0in the\u00a0early\u00a0to\u00a0mid-part\u00a0of my career as a management consultant when I did my MBA at Bath. Once I finished, I became a partner in Deloitte\u00a0and stayed there\u00a0for 11 years. After that,\u00a0I left and set up my own independent consulting business, where I\u00a0worked with\u00a0several\u00a0tech start-ups. I then thought I was retiring... but instead of that, I now get up every day and put on my cowboy\"\"<\/a> boots and cowboy hat and make cider.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Just before the pandemic,\u00a0I set up Wild West Cider & Wine with my son-in-law,\u00a0and we now sell award-winning cider and wine. We also run tours and tastings at our\u00a0vineyard and\u00a0have\u00a0an\u00a0event space.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A typical day is...chaotic!\u00a0It involves juggling cider making, bookkeeping, marketing and everything\u00a0else\u00a0involved in running\u00a0a\u00a0small business.\u00a0I could be picking apples in our orchards in the morning, co-hosting courses held on the farm, meeting with restaurants to discuss wholesale, then running a tour in\u00a0the\u00a0afternoon.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Farming is quite the change from consulting.\u00a0What led you to make the move?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We realised we had the opportunity to do something special:\u00a0putting some love back into the land and restoring it to how it was many years ago. This\u00a0essentially meant\u00a0no intensive grazing,\u00a0establishing\u00a0new woodland and hedgerows and creating wildlife corridors, repairing dry stone walls, looking after the\u00a0land\u00a0and not using harmful pesticides.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Alongside this was an opportunity to indulge a long-standing\u00a0dream: creating a drinks brand.\u00a0By\u00a0taking care of the farm and the land, we have created natural, low-intervention\u00a0and\u00a0organic\u00a0cider and wine.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What do you enjoy most about your career? Has anything surprised you?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I have enjoyed a very varied career. What I enjoy most in my current role is Friday afternoons when we taste our new blends and work out what we are going to call them.\u00a0What surprised me is just how tough it is to start a small business and the range of challenges you\u00a0have to\u00a0deal with daily.\u00a0No two days are the same.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How did your studies help to develop you?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My studies helped me build my career. My course\u00a0broadened\u00a0my perspectives, gave me more\u00a0resilience\u00a0and removed any feelings of anxiety I might have had around subjects I\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0know so much about. As a result of the course,\u00a0I was always happy to read around a subject and build it into my portfolio of skills.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What advice would you give to prospective students thinking about studying your course at Bath?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Combining\u00a0an MBA,\u00a0a challenging career\u00a0and\u00a0raising\u00a0small children\u00a0was a huge undertaking,\u00a0but it was\u00a0absolutely worth it.\u00a0I would advise anyone in\u00a0a similar situation\u00a0thinking about studying an MBA at Bath to create\u00a0a strong support\u00a0network and go for it.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matthew Stephenson swapped his brogues for cowboy boots in 2016 when he left his corporate job for farm life.\u00a0\u00a0Ten years on, Wild West Cider and Wine\u00a0is\u00a0thriving, but the journey\u00a0wasn't\u00a0without its hiccups \u2013 like losing their first 3,200 vines to an...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2002,"featured_media":2070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[119,133,120],"tags":[5,136,76],"class_list":["post-2069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parade-profiles","category-postgraduate","category-school-of-management","tag-alumni","tag-mba","tag-school-of-management"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2026\/05\/Parade-profile-header-45.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}