Despite coming from a long line of tanners, John initially sought to be a journalist. However, he quickly realised it wasn’t for him and took his father’s offer of a job in the tannery that his family owned. After working on the shop floor for a year, he decided that this would be his career. He did his training in leather manufacture in Northampton and worked in a tannery in Turin, before returning to the family tannery where he is now managing director.

As Managing Director and owner of the tannery, he takes responsibility for raw material sourcing, supervising the factory, technical support and product sales. This is a challenging and stimulating role as he never sure what will happen from one day to the next. The variation in the raw material is a particular challenge but whatever is received has to be dealt with.

Unsurprisingly, John is constantly engaged with his job and is very proud of it and of being involved in manufacturing, which he feels is becoming valued again. He enjoys being involved with a primary industry processing a by-product of the meat industry into ‘Something that can be quite wonderful’.

His advice to anyone seeking a career in the industry would be to work in tanneries to get a feel for the industry and go to college to get the right technical qualifications.  John believes that the industry can offer a career for life and says, ‘Leather will always be in demand. People like it and will pay a premium for it’.