A SCHOOL BUS JOURNEY TO LAST A LIFETIME

Nathan Owen and Zoe Ward (both OW 1991) first met in September 1989, after Zoe joined Lower Sixth from St Dominic’s Convent in Stone, riding the School bus from Stafford. They began dating a year later and Nathan was quickly able to convert Zoe from being a fan of the Red Devils to a shared passion for the Old Gold.

Their relationship withstood the test of Zoe, as House Captain of Attwood, seeking to drive higher performance from Nathan in House events, as well as several hundred miles of physical separation at university where Zoe studied Biology at York and Nathan studied Economics and Politics at Bristol.

Nathan joined Deloitte (at the time, Touche Ross) in Birmingham and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1994, while Zoe worked for the Ministry of Agriculture as a mad cow detective during the BSE era. At the end of 1999, Nathan was offered the opportunity within Deloitte to work in Paris; specialising in mergers and acquisitions (M&A). He became a partner in the firm several years later, working extensively for public company clients such as L’Oreal, Renault-Nissan, St. Gobain and

VINCI groups on their overseas M&A projects, putting to good use all those lessons in French and Business German - albeit with a Wolverhampton accent. Nathan and Zoe quickly adapted to French life (and plumbing) and got married in 2004, in French, with a reception held in a beautiful château near to their second home in Normandy, on the eve of the 60th Anniversary of D-Day. Richard Keeling (OW 1991) looked spiffing as best man and many friends and family brought the best of the British wedding traditions to the Normandy countryside. Further to one overseas transaction, Nathan was asked to become Chief Financial Officer of LAZ Parking, one of America’s largest parking operators. In December 2009, together with their daughters Isabelle and Charlotte who were born in Paris in 2006 and 2009, they relocated to Farmington, Connecticut. They remain there to this day, enjoying frequent visits to a ski and golf retreat in Vermont and a vacation rental in Orlando to help cope with the

New England winters as annual snowfall is typically six feet or more.

Thirty-three years on from first meeting on the Leon’s bus, their love for each other, for the Old Gold (fortunately all games are streamed live) and for Balti, remains undimmed.