Jo Speed Coaching logo Jo Speed
Coaching · Facilitation · Succession · CowSignals®

The farming industry is full of people who know their cows inside out. Fewer know how to have the conversations that change things.

I'm Jo Speed — and that's where I come in.

Thirty years in agriculture. A career built on people, animals and the human side of farming. I work with farmers, farm business owners and rural professionals who are ready to think differently — about their business, their team, their family, or what comes next.

Book a free first conversation More about Jo
Jo Speed smiling at a barn doorway on her farm in County Durham
Nuffield Farming ScholarCowSignals® Master Trainer since 2011
A tractor cultivating an arable field on the family farm
30 yrsin UK & international agriculture
2011CowSignals® Master Trainer
Co-founderof the Succession Alliance
2008Nuffield Farming Scholar
Jo Speed in a barn, leaning on a straw bale Jo Speed at the farmhouse door with her two Labradors
Farming & agriculture expertise

Thirty years at the intersection of agriculture and people

Jo Speed has spent thirty years working at the intersection of agriculture and people — on farms, in boardrooms, at kitchen tables and in rooms full of farmers who needed someone to help them think more clearly.

Her career began the hard way — a pre-college year in Wales, Askham Bryan College, relief milking in New Zealand and three years managing a 1,000-cow herd in Portugal, where she qualified as a foot trimmer and first became passionate about lameness. She came back to do her degree at Harper Adams as a mature student, and the rest followed.

A Nuffield Farming Scholar, she led the development of the DairyCo Mobility Scoring system — still in widespread use across the UK and internationally — and co-created the Register of Mobility Scorers (RoMS), a national quality assurance framework for lameness assessment. She spent thirteen years at AHDB Dairy as a Senior Technical Officer and Team Leader, helping to build the knowledge transfer infrastructure that UK dairy farming now takes for granted.

She gets farming. She gets you.

  • CowSignals® Master Trainer since 2011
  • Qualified life coach & NLP Practitioner (ANLP member)
  • PG Certificate in Psychology, University of Sunderland (2013)
  • Specialist in farming family mediation & succession facilitation
  • Co-founder of the Succession Alliance
  • Northern Regional Chair, Nuffield Farming — over a decade
  • Co-chair, 2026 Nuffield Farming Conference, Leeds
  • Farming Community Network volunteer for 15 years
My story

I didn't grow up on a farm. I got here anyway.

I grew up in Sheffield, with no family connection to agriculture — and a complete determination to get into it anyway.

I left after sixth form, spent a year on a farm in Wales, studied at Askham Bryan College, did a placement year on a 300-cow unit, relief milked in New Zealand and spent three years as assistant herd manager on a 1,000-cow herd in Portugal, where I qualified as a foot trimmer. I came back and did my degree at Harper Adams as a mature student. The academic built on the practical, not the other way around.

My Nuffield Farming Scholarship in 2008 — researching lameness and cow handling globally — was the moment everything shifted. Not just because of what I learned about cows, but because of what I learned about the people caring for them. The data on lameness was available. The knowledge was out there. But farm after farm was still struggling — and the differentiating factor, time and again, was people.

That observation sent me on a parallel journey of personal development that I have been on ever since — a PG Certificate in Psychology from the University of Sunderland, specialist training in family meeting facilitation and succession planning, a Certificate and Diploma in Life Coaching, and an NLP Diploma and Practitioner qualification with full ANLP membership. All self-funded. All alongside a full-time career.

Following seven years with Kite Consulting, I set up my own practice in 2023. It brings together everything I have learned — about cows, about people, and about what happens when you put the two together.

Jo Speed on her farm with sheep grazing in the field behind
How I can help

Focussed on farming. Focused on people.

One-to-one coaching, facilitation for groups and boards, and succession support for farming families — grounded in three decades of working farms, not theory.

One-to-one

Coaching

Farming is one of the most demanding ways to spend a life. The hours are long, the margins are tight, the weather doesn't care and the market doesn't either. And underneath all of that — the decisions, the family dynamics, the question of what you actually want — there is often no one to talk it through with.

That is what coaching is for. I work one-to-one with farmers, farm business owners and rural professionals on the things that keep them awake at night — big decisions, difficult relationships, succession, burnout, what comes next. Sessions are online, which means wherever you are in the country, however busy the farm, proper support is accessible.

You don't have to be in crisis to benefit from coaching. You just have to be ready to think differently.

The first conversation is free — get in touch →

Groups · Boards · Teams

Facilitation

I have been facilitating since 2002 — farmer discussion groups, supply chain meetings, board level discussions, industry steering groups, family succession conversations and everything in between. It is the skill that has underpinned everything in my career.

Good facilitation is invisible. The right questions at the right moment. A room where everyone feels heard. Decisions that stick because the people who need to own them were part of making them.

I work with farmer groups of all sizes, supply chain organisations, agri-businesses and farming families — bringing the same rigour and care to a kitchen table conversation as to a boardroom.

Need someone who knows how to run a room? Let's talk →

Farming families

Succession & Mediation

Succession is the conversation that farming families put off for too long — until it becomes urgent, or painful, or both. When it goes wrong, it can damage relationships that have taken generations to build. When it goes right, it is one of the most powerful things a family can do together.

I have been working with farming families on succession for over a decade — combining facilitation, coaching and mediation to create a space where difficult conversations can happen safely and productively. I help families find common ground, understand each other's perspectives and build a plan that works for everyone — not just the business.

Co-founder of the Succession Alliance — a not-for-profit dedicated to making sure farming families across the UK have access to the right support at the right time. CLA members can access Succession Alliance services at a preferential rate through our partnership.

Succession meetings take place online and face to face, depending on what works best for your family.

Start the conversation your family has been putting off →

CowSignals® Master Trainer since 2011

Cows & people, aligned

Cows are not difficult. They are misunderstood.

CowSignals® is a training approach based on understanding how cows see, hear, smell, taste and experience the world around them — and how that understanding changes everything about the way people work with their animals. Calmer cows. Safer handling. Better welfare. Lower stress for the handler as well as the herd.

I have been a CowSignals® Master Trainer since 2011. Training covers:

  • Cow behaviour, and how cattle perceive the world around them
  • Stress-free handling and flight zones
  • The four S's to avoid
  • Building a working environment that is better for both the cow and the person caring for her

Training is delivered on farm, in small group settings or for larger supply chain audiences — to farm teams, vet technicians, farmers and processors. If you have a team that works with cattle — or a farm that has been through a difficult experience and needs to rebuild its handling culture — get in touch.

Bring CowSignals® to your team
Dairy cows standing in a cubicle shed, seen from ground level
Farm life

She also farms.

Jo and her husband are tenant farmers in the north east of England, farming around 900 acres of arable and running a small flock of Lleyn sheep, a livery yard and a holiday let.

Home is shared with her seventeen-year-old son, the horses, two Labradors and an ever-growing collection of rescue hens.

It means the advice never comes from a distance. The weather, the paperwork, the tenancy, the juggle — she lives it too.

Jo Speed laughing while holding one of her rescue hens
No obligation · No hard sell

Ready to have a conversation?

Whether you are thinking about coaching, looking for a facilitator, want to talk about succession or would like to bring CowSignals® training to your team or supply group — the first step is a conversation.

The first call is free. Tell me a little about your situation and we'll take it from there.

Email jo.speed@yahoo.com
Phone 07900 502860
Based in County Durham — working UK-wide
Book your free first conversation

Office hours 09:00–17:00, Monday to Friday. Coaching sessions online UK-wide; succession meetings online or face to face.

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