Fauna & Flora International Council

Andrew Sykes

Chairman

Andrew Sykes has worked in the financial services industry since 1978, and was a director of Schroders plc from 1998 to 2004, with responsibility latterly for private banking and alternative investments (property, private equity and hedge funds). He is now a non-executive director of a number of public and private companies in the fields of banking, insurance and fund management. In addition to these commercial activities, he supports or works with several charities in addition to FFI, focusing principally on the environment and conservation, including the BBC Wildlife Fund.

Andrew was elected to FFI's Council in 2005 and served as Treasurer prior to becoming Chairman in 2007. He also chairs a number of Council sub-committees, including the Executive Committee.

Professor Nigel Leader-Williams

Co vice-chair

Professor Nigel Leader-Williams is Director of Conservation Leadership at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Churchill College. Having originally trained as a veterinary surgeon, Nigel then went on to specialise in applied ecology, conservation biology and conservation policy, with a focus on large mammals that conflict with human interests. Before taking up his current post at Cambridge, Nigel was Director of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent. Professor Leader-Williams has worked closely with IUCN on a variety of issues and is a member of their Africa Rhino Specialist Group. His most recent publication Trade-offs in conservation: deciding what to save was co-edited with Professor Bill Adams and Dr Bob Smith.

Nigel previously served two terms of office from 1998 to 2006, and was re-elected to Council in 2008. On his re-election for a further term in 2012 he became co vice-chair and joined the Executive Committee.

Charles Whitbread

Co vice-chair

Charles Whitbread is the great grandson of Samuel Whitbread MP, one of the founder members of FFI and Charles previously lived and worked on a private nature reserve in South Africa. His family have a long-term interest in nature conservation and Charles was a member of FFI's former Founders' Circle.

Charles was elected to Council in 2005 and re-elected in 2009, becoming co vice-chair and joining the Executive Committee in 2012. He also serves as a member of the Nominations and Remuneration Committees.

Philip Prettejohn

Treasurer

Philip Prettejohn is senior partner of Rawlinson & Hunter chartered accountants and of Rawlins & Hunter International. He joined the firm in 1968, qualified with it and became a partner in 1978. Philip specialises in international tax planning for individuals and substantial family trusts. Philip is a Fellow of the ICAEW and a member of STEP.

He was elected to FFI's Council in 2006, becoming Treasurer and joining the Executive Committee in 2007.

Virginia Drabbe-Seemann

Council member

A former American life-science journalist turned banker, Virginia lived in The Netherlands for 18 years and now makes Switzerland her home. She travels widely and has visited on FFI business in Mexico and South Africa. She is currently a consultant, using her varied career in science, writing, finance, and cultural organizations. Virginia is a trustee on The Solti Foundation in Brussels , Belgium and The Textile Research Center in Leiden, The Netherlands.

Virginia joined FFI's Council in 2005 and was re-elected in 2009.

Stephen Georgiadis

Council member

Stephen Georgiadis was born in Kenya and educated at Ampleforth and Oxford, where he obtained a degree in Jurisprudence from Brasenose College. He began his professional career in investment banking with Hill Samuel & Co. and subsequently joined Apax Partners, the private equity group. He was part of the management team that developed Altium, the mid-market investment banking group, from an early-stage business (initially as part of Apax Partners) through to a third-party sale. Altium was subsequently re-acquired by its management team in an MBO and has since grown to become a leading pan-European investment banking and stockbroking group serving mid-market companies.

He has always retained a strong interest in natural history with a particular affinity for tropical butterflies

Stephen was elected to Council in November 2010 and currently serves on the Audit Committee.

Professor Brendan Godley

Council member

Professor Brendan Godley is Professor of Conservation Science at the University of Exeter. He is an internationally recognised expert on marine turtles and a conservation biologist with wide ranging interests in biodiversity conservation. His past research has largely focused on the study of marine vertebrates but more recently has involved invasive species, artisanal fisheries and the impacts of renewable energy facilities. Professor Godley is a member of the Ecology and Conservation research group at the University of Exeter's Cornwall Campus and jointly co-ordinates the Marine Turtle Research Group.

He has served on the Board of Directors of the NGO seaturtle.org for more than 10 years, is currently a member of the Darwin Initiative's Expert Committee and sits on the editorial boards of a number of journals, including FFI's Oryx. In 2012 he was awarded ZSL's Marsh Award for Marine and Freshwater Conservation.

Professor Godley was elected to Council in 2012.

Charlotte Grezo

Council member

Charlotte Grezo has been Group Director, Corporate Responsibility Strategy at Centrica since September 2009. Reporting to their General Counsel and Company Secretary, and working closely with the CEO, the Centrica Executive Committee and the Chair of the CR Committee, her remit is to shape and lead the company's CR agenda.

Throughout her career Charlotte's focus has been on sustainability strategy and policies & performance in major multinationals. She established and led sustainability teams at BP, Vodafone and Lehman Brothers.

Charlotte has wide experience at Board and Executive Committee level and a global network of contacts in NGO's, government organisations and multinational companies. She is a member of the BBC Sustainability Advisory Group, a Trustee of BGCI (Botanic Gardens Conservation International) and is an FFI life member.

Charlotte was elected to Council in November 2011 and currently serves on the Audit Committee.

Professor E.J. Milner-Gulland

Council member

E.J. Milner-Gulland is Professor of Conservation Science, at Imperial College London (ICCS) where her research is at the interface between ecology and human behaviour. This is motivated both by the challenge of understanding the dynamics of ecological and social systems and by the desire to ensure that interventions to conserve biodiversity are effective and robust to uncertainty.

A particular ongoing research interest of the ICCS group is the ecology and conservation of the saiga antelope, together with the effects of changes in the rural economy on land degradation in Kazakhstan, and on broader issues of conservation in Central Asia, including red listing.

Professor Milner-Gulland is also a trustee of the Saiga Conservation Alliance, the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and serves as a Vice President of the World Pheasant Association. She is a member of the IUCN Sustainable Use and Antelope Specialist Groups and serves on the editorial boards of a number of conservation publications including FFI's Oryx: the International Journal of Conservation, the Journal of Applied Ecology and Saiga News.

Diana has been affiliated with FFI since 1997, was elected to Council in 2005 and re-elected in 2009.

Sir Gareth Rhys Williams

Council member

Sir Gareth Rhys Williams originally trained as an engineer and spent his early career in automotive operations with Lucas before moving into general management after his MBA. He ran a number of businesses for Rexam (Bowater at that time) before being appointed Director of Central Europe for BPB plc. In 2001 he took over Vitec Group plc, the supplier of products and services to the worldwide entertainment and photographic industries and in late 2008 he was recruited to run Capital Safety Group Ltd.

He has recently stepped down from the role of CEO, Charter International, the welding and industrial fans group. Married with three young children Sir Gareth lives in London. He enjoys travel and all aspects of the natural world and has been an attendee at FFI's Conservation Circle events. Sir Gareth's grandfather, the 1st Baronet, Sir Rhys Rhys-Williams was present at the very first meeting of the Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire in 1903 and went on to serve for a number of years as the Honorary Secretary of the Society.

Sir Gareth was elected to Council in 2012.

Professor Callum Roberts

Council member

Professor Callum Roberts is a marine conservation biologist in the Environment Department at the University of York. Currently, his research focuses on human impacts on marine ecosystems. While his interests in marine conservation have blossomed over the years, his field research remains firmly rooted on coral reefs.

Professor Roberts is the author of The Unnatural History of the Sea, Shearwater Books, (2007) and also serves on the Board of Seaweb, a communications-based non-profit organisation that uses social marketing techniques to advance ocean conservation.

Callum joined the FFI Council in 2006 and was re-elected for a second term in 2010.

Edward van Cutsem

Council member

Edward van Cutsem is Managing Director, BlackRock Family Office Partners, an American multinational investment management corporation and the world's largest asset manager. Since 1996 he has also been a Director of ECOspray, which is committed to the advancement of ethical and sustainable food production through the scientific development of naturally based products and decision support systems. Edward is involved with work at the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya and supports the Tusk Trust, whilst his wife, Lady Tamara Grosvenor is interested in orangutan conservation. The van Cutsems reside in Norfolk and joined FFI's Conservation Circle in 2010.

Edward was elected to Council in 2012.

Diana van de Kamp

Council member

Diana van de Kamp was educated in the US at William and Mary University where she received a BA in Philosophy and Political Science. She worked for a US Senator in Washington focusing on environmental legislation, specifically the passage of the Alaskan Wilderness Act. She then continued her studies in Philosophy at King's College London, prior to starting her professional career in New York with Kreab Gavin Anderson, an investor relations and strategic communications firm. She then joined Institutional Investor/Euromoney in New York and moved to be Director of Sales in the London office focusing on developing membership participation in Europe and Asia for the European Institute of Institutional Investors and the global Institute of Infrastructure Finance.

She is the Founder and Director of WildInvest which is a UK and US wildlife conservation charity. WildInvest utilises its members expertise and funds to donate to early stage conservation projects led by locally based scientists who work in their native countries to save endangered species. She is also a Trustee of the Awana Catchment Trust on Great Barrier Island, New Zealand.

Diana has been affiliated with FFI since 1997, was elected to Council in 2005 and re-elected in 2009.

Dr Bhaskar Vira

Council member

Dr Bhaskar Vira is a Senior Lecturer in the Geography Department at the University of Cambridge, specialising in environmental and development economics and a Fellow of Fitzwilliam College. His research interests centre on the changing economic dynamics of development and on political ecology, where the theme of governance of natural resources focuses on forests, wildlife and landuse change and the social context for biodiversity conservation, especially in India. The theme of incentives for natural resource use and management deals with emerging discourses around the concept of ecosystem services, and how this overlaps with poverty and human well-being, as well as values for biodiversity conservation. Research into the policy process in this sphere has included work as a Coordinating Lead Author with the Responses Working Group of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the UK National Ecosystem Assessment.

Dr Vira is also engaged in collaborative work with colleagues in the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, with projects including trade-offs in the context of ecosystem services; how policy to address biodiversity loss can learn from the climate change experience; ecosystem-based adaptation strategies; and the development and use of toolkits to assess ecosystem services at site level.

Dr Vira was elected to Council in 2012.

John Wotton

Council member

John Wotton joined the international legal practice, which is now Allen & Overy LLP, in 1976 and became a partner in 1984. He headed the Antitrust Practice in London and the International Public Procurement group. He specialised in UK, EC and international competition and trade law, energy and water regulation and broadcasting and communications law. John retired at the end of 2012 after serving the firm for 37 years as an articled clerk, assistant solicitor, partner and consultant.

John was President of the Law Society of England & Wales in 2011-12, after holding a number of other positions in the Society and now chairs the Society's Education & Training Committee. He is a Panel Member of the Competition Commission, a member of the Co-operation & Competition Panel for NHS-funded Services and of the Court of the City of London Solicitors' Company.

He was elected to FFI's Council in 2006, re-elected in 2011 and currently chairs the Audit Committee.