Election of Trustees

I am a commercial specialist with over 23 years of experience in the sales and sponsorship sector. I have worked with a broad range of clients across the culture, entertainment, environmental, local government, sports & member sectors on start-up ideas through to the execution and sale of large- scale sponsorship opportunities (£5,000 - £5,000,000).  I am also Chair of the National Parks Partnerships (an entity set up to explore partnership working for the 15 UK National Parks). In this capacity I have helped to create a sustainable commercial strategy, identified prospects and generated introductions, recruited talent and helped NPP to evolve their commercial structure. This includes the development of the award-winning Revere project, which delivers large-scale private investment into nature. Partners include Santander, Estee Lauder and BMW. I am also a consultant to Forestry England and co-founder of the Women in Sponsorship networking group (a group set up and designed to support the professional development of women working within the sector). In March 2023 I was awarded an inaugural ESA Fellowship in recognition of my outstanding contribution to the sponsorship sector.

A lifelong lover of nature and the outdoors, I am keen to bring my experiences to the Essex Wildlife Trust and feel I can add value in supporting the strategic goals of the trust specifically in relation to inspiring and acquiring new members, and supporting the trusts work in the emerging financial ecosystems of “green finance”. I hope to be an active and supportive member of the board.

Since I was a boy I’ve loved nature, but now more than ever I realise that i  have to do everything i can to try and protect and grow nature. This means that on a personal basis, I’ve tried very hard to work towards net zero and biodiversity improvements in at home, in my business, in my volunteering, in my writing and in my charity donations.

Since joining Essex Wildlife Trust as a trustee I’ve helped Andrew Impey make Essex a better place for nature to thrive, encouraged improved, greener use of our funds and amplified our ability to tell people about it. 

I have lived in Essex all my life and I am married to Gary with 2 daughters and 4 small grand children. More than ever, the natural habitat and wildlife in Essex mean so much to me, and it is wonderful to share these experiences with my family.

My career working in third sector organisations spans 30 years, spending nearly 20 years at the NSPCC. During that time I held a number of management roles, focused on leading teams to generate revenue in order to maintain and develop services for some of society’s most vulnerable members.

My last role at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children – Head of Regional Appeals - included delivering the charity’s Full Stop campaign of the late 1990s across the South East of England. A groundbreaking campaign at the time, raising £250 million, more than any other UK fundraising appeal in history.

I was invited by Chickenshed Theatre Company to create their fundraising strategy and took up the role of Director of Fundraising & Marketing. During this time, I created and delivered new initiatives and products that produced a more sustainable and robust platform for growth.

I joined the international medical charity Mercy Ships in 2010 as UK Campaigns Director. I continued to play an active role in pioneering work making a difference to many lives across the globe.

In October 2019 I joined MIND as CEO of the Havering, Barking & Dagenham Service working to support people of all ages in their journey to recovery from mental health distress. As the leading mental health charity in these Boroughs, Havering MIND provides advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem, through service delivery, raising awareness and promoting understanding in the community.

I have undergone training to be a Court Child Witness Support and an Appropriate Adult supporting vulnerable young adults through the judicial system. I am also a volunteer ChildLine Counsellor and a Board Member of the Oral Health Foundation.

After schooling in Devon and the US and then university in Bristol, I qualified as a chartered accountant and then held various financial services roles in London, Johannesburg, Buckinghamshire and Luxembourg. In 1998, I moved to Essex to work in a retail financial services outsourcing company and spent the rest of my career there in various senior positions, working in Brentwood, Basildon and Chelmsford. 

Since retiring, I have supported a variety of charities either through Board involvement or through other volunteering. I am a volunteer warden on part of the Trust's Danbury Ridge nature reserves and support my wife’s work at the Wilderness Foundation. I have also been Chair of Hearing Help Essex and of the Chelmsford Local Group of Essex Wildlife Trust and a treasurer of Maldon Citizens Advice, the Rural Community Council of Essex and of various local village organisations. I was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Essex in 2024. Outside this, my interests are golf, cricket, conservation and Southern Africa.

I’ve had a long and varied career in global financial services, encompassing leadership and trustee roles in the banking and insurance industries as well as regulatory consulting for several G-SIB banks and co-founding an international trade finance business, for which I remain a risk consultant.  In 2020, I decided to leave industry and pursue my interest in sustainability by completing an MSc in Environmental Technology at Imperial College, London. I then used these newly acquired skills, together with my finance knowledge, at the Science Based Targets initiative where I oversaw the development of the first Net-Zero Standard for Financial Institutions.

My family has lived in Essex for several generations and I have seen first-hand the huge development that has gone on here and its effect on the wildlife and biodiversity of this beautiful and varied landscape. As such, the importance of organisations such as Essex Wildlife Trust in supporting the natural environment in Essex cannot be overstated. I hope I can bring my experience of business and my developing knowledge of the environment to aid the work of the Trust and allow wildlife in Essex to sustain and flourish.