Who is James Martin?
I left school at 14. No qualifications. Couldn’t read properly. Still can’t.
What I could do was spot patterns, read people, and solve problems. Everything I’ve built comes from that.
By 18, I hired a PA- not to fix my dyslexia, but to work around it. She filtered the noise so I could focus on decisions. That’s when it clicked: you don’t need to do everything yourself. You need systems that match how you think.
I started mowing lawns for beer money. That became a landscaping business, then a tree surgery company. When I saw a photo of a tree-moving machine in the US, I tracked down the manufacturer, flew to Illinois with a blurry printout, and brought the first one back to England.
That business- Ruskins Tree Moving - became the UK leader in large-scale tree transplanting. I sold it, bought it back when it was run into the ground, and sold it again.
Since then, I’ve:
Built a £30M+ commercial property portfolio from scratch
Developed True Loves, a historic estate transformed into 36 homes
Owned and operated businesses across trades, events, venues, and development
Built teams that last- some people have been with me 30+ years
Never held the keys to my companies - my people run them, I support them
Filled my boardroom with dyslexic, ADHD, and divergent thinkers- because that’s where the edge is
It wasn’t always clean. As a teenager, I nearly got pulled into crime. I got lucky. Someone saw something in me and gave me a shot. That stayed with me - and so did the drive to build something better.
Today, I own Baddow Park House, one of the country’s leading wedding venues. It’s also home to the Baddow Park Mastermind- a private group for founders who want to scale up, slow down, or rethink everything.
No fluff. No hustle nonsense. Just serious strategy, real conversations, and damn good food in a place that clears your head.
