From scholarship boy to top of his field
Ben Lucas (RPS 1996 – 2001) came to Rydal Penrhos on a fully-funded day place, now he is partner and Head of Asset and Wealth Management Consulting at KPMG and the founder of the global health and fitness app Magic Mountain.
When he first joined the school, Ben was ‘young and hungry, driven and ambitious, but lacking direction.’
He was interested in business and economics, and was encouraged in this interest by excellent teachers, like Mike Farnell and John Matthews. Ben was not a typical student, says Mr. Farnell, as he was extraordinarily focused and unusually engaged with his studies.
This focus paid dividends, as Ben left Rydal Penrhos to attend the University of York in 2002.
There, he read Economics and Finance. He maintains ties with the university and recently spoke at the York Consulting Conference.
After university, Ben began to rapidly climb the corporate ladder and saw steady success: from graduate to manager, from manager to director, from director to partner.
Ben says that ‘Rydal Penrhos helped to elevate my understanding of what I was capable of and set me on a course that would take me to the top of a world I didn't even know existed.'
In those years, Ben met and married his wife, Beth, a one-time Norland Nanny.
Their wedding took place in a beautiful, local venue: Caer Rhun Hall. They have three beautiful children, all boys.
Throughout his professional and educational career, Ben has been very interested in fitness: exercise, ‘daily, and without apology,’ is the biggest non-negotiable of his working life.
In 2020, Ben rowed the length of the Thames for Go Beyond, a charity that gives children and young people breaks that last a lifetime raising more than £10,000 in the process.
‘I will turn down meetings if it clashes with the time I've set aside for movement,’ Ben wrote in a viral Linkedin post, ‘It's just how I keep my head clear ... I cannot stress this enough – you don't need permission from anyone to protect your own health and wellbeing.’
To this end, he founded Magic Mountain in 2019. Magic mountain is a social fitness app designed to make exercise a rewarding, communal event. Users form a team with their friends, set weekly habit goals and then log their progress towards that goal.
This makes your regular exercise routine a team-based challenge, with all of the competition and camaraderie that implies.
The goal of the app is the cultivation of healthier habits in its users: instant feedback and instant rewards leading to long-term change.
Reflecting on his time at Rydal Penrhos, Ben said ‘There is no doubt in my mind that achieving a funded place at Rydal changed the course of my life.’ And we are very glad to have contributed, even in a small way, to his phenomenal success.