How we are run

Ann was born and educated in West Cornwall. After a degree in history at Oxford University, she moved to London, qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 1982. She spent most of her career in the City of London, specializing in investment business. She latterly worked for a succession of financial services regulators, where she was responsible for developing and implementing policy for marketing, conduct of business, financial adequacy and compensation, at both national and European level. Ann and her husband John moved from London in 1998 looking for somewhere nice to live, and found Rutland. Ann ran her own consultancy business for several years and started volunteering at Rutland Water. In 2002 she became a member of Trust Council and Honorary Treasurer, holding this role until standing down in Nov 2021, when she was appointed Chair of LRWT.

Outside of her many and varied Trustee and and volunteer activities, Ann was for a number of years Chair of East Midlands Environment Link, a grouping of environmental NGOs monitoring the impact of government policy at a regional level. She was Chair of the Rutland Natural History Society for ten years. Ann has always had an interest in natural history and finds it very satisfying that her business and policy skills can be used in helping protect the natural world. She has travelled extensively, usually looking at wildlife on the way, and has a particular fondness for Northwestern USA, central Europe, Southern Africa, pachyderms (not often found in Rutland), and all small cuddly animals.

Bob moved to Leicestershire in 1984 to take up a job as a Probation Officer with Leicestershire & Rutland Probation Service, with whom he still works, now as an Assistant Chief Executive Officer. He has also been Chair of the Governing Bodies if two different schools. Bob has always been a keen amateur naturalist, a love for which he got from his father. His teenage son is a very keen and knowledgeable naturalist, particularly regarding birds, and many days and weekends are spent by them birdwatching around the country or locally. Whilst not claiming any specialist or professional conservation or environmental knowledge, Bob hopes to bring his knowledge of strategic planning, staff management and budgeting to his role on the Trust Council. In addition, having lived and worked in the city of Leicester for many years, he is particularly keen to broaden the demographic of those engaged in the work of the Trust to those living in urban areas without ready access to the natural world.

Andy is a proud Yorkshire man but moved to Leicestershire in 1986 to come to the University of Loughborough, where he has lived ever since. His degree was in Accounting and Financial Management and then working as an auditor he qualified as a chartered accountant before moving into industry.

He worked at a Nottingham based biopharmaceutical company for over 25 years, latterly as Chief Financial Officer but has recently retired. Andy likes watching many sports particularly cricket and tennis and was a long-term member of a local amateur theatre group.  He is a keen gardener and walker enjoying nature by being in the middle of it and has been a member of LRWT for around 20 years. Now that he has available time, he is looking to take part in some practical volunteering with the Trust as well as joining council where he hopes his financial and management skills will prove useful. 

Andy has been a trustee of three other charities. He was trustee for a development charity working in water provision in Africa that his brother started seeing it grow from start-up to over £2million income in around 8 years and has been treasurer and trustee for his local church and the charity overseeing a grouping of 12 local churches.

Anthony Biddle has been a member of Trust Council for over 30 years. He is a Chartered Biologist and was, until his retirement in 2013, Technical Director of a private vegetable research organisation. As a plant pathologist, he has specialised in crop protection and as a keen naturalist, has an appreciation of the need to integrate wildlife conservation with profitable agricultural production. He is Chairman of the Rutland Group of the LRWT and is very 3 much involved in the organisation of local events for Rutland members.

Andrew is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, having originally qualified as a rural practice surveyor, and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He is also a Chartered Environmentalist and Chartered Geographer and Certified Facility Manager. Andrew has spent his career as a civil servant working for the Ministry of Defence in a senior management position. He has a MA from Kings College, London having earlier studied at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester and at the Joint Services Command and Staff College. 6 Andrew’s main skills and interests are in strategic real estate management, operational planning, sustainable development and conservation. He is a life member of Falklands Conservation, The Royal Scottish Geographical Society and the Royal Agricultural Society of England and an annual member of numerous organisations including the British Trust for Ornithology, the National Trust, the Country Landowners Association, the South Georgia Association and various other sporting and special interest societies. As well as being a trustee of LRWT he is a member of RSWT's Audit and Resources Committee, a local committee member for the CLA, Honorary Secretary of the Shackleton Scholarship Fund and Executive Secretary of the United Kingdom Falkland Islands Trust.

Helen grew up in Hertfordshire and then studied Biology at University in York and a PhD in Animal Behaviour at Reading University. She moved to Leicestershire in 1988 to work for Mars (then Pedigree Petfoods) initially as an animal behaviourists studying wild bird feeding and developing a range of toys for dogs and cats. Her career at Mars moved to market research and then marketing and in 2008 she moved into the charity sector as a Director for the Woodland Trust. Helen now runs her own consultancy business supporting organisations that do good with strategy, audience insight, marketing and fundraising. She has worked with a number of environmental and conservation charities including The Wildlife Trusts, Earthwatch and the Soil Association, as well as a range of smaller regional charities from London to Sheffield. Helen’s love of wildlife was kindled by long walks with her Gran who was a mine of folklore and plant names. She is heritage warden for her village, a trustee for its community park and desperately tries to encourage her daughters to recognise plants. She’s keen to inspire more people to appreciate wildlife and to value it as part of their daily lives.

Peter lives in Anstey with his wife, Alison and is a father of two girls. Having moved to Anstey in 1979 he worked for Leicestershire County Council in various roles, including as Head of Environmental Management, until his recent retirement. With the County Council he was fortunate to be involved with various environmental programmes including land reclamation in the Leicestershire and South Derbyshire coalfield, National Forest, Country Parks and Rights of Way service, and Climate Change initiatives. Peter is a keen birdwatcher, having formed an interest in Norfolk and Cyprus in the 1960's and is ViceChairman of the Leicestershire and Rutland Ornithological Society (LROS) and is President of the Leicestershire and Rutland Ramblers. Peter is an Ambassador for the National Forest and a Board Member of the National Forest Charitable Trust. He enjoys volunteering at Beacon Hill and Watermead country parks and with LROS.

Matt was born and raised in the Cotswolds before moving to Loughborough to join the University as an undergraduate Geography student in 2015. After graduating in 2018, he went on to complete a Masters in Environmental Monitoring and Management at Loughborough. As both an undergraduate and postgraduate student, his research specialised in freshwater ecology, in particular the impact of anthropogenic processes on macroinvertebrate community structures. Upon completion of his Masters, Matt served for two years at Loughborough Students’ Union as a sabbatical officer: first as the Executive Officer responsible for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion, and latterly as President of the Union. In both these capacities he served as an Executive Trustee of the Students’ Union, and also as a lay member of Loughborough University’s Council during his term as President.

In September 2021 he started on Loughborough University’s Graduate Management Trainee Scheme: a fast-track programme for management and leadership in Higher Education. Outside of work, Matt volunteers with East Midlands Ambulance Service as a Community First Responder, attending 999 calls in the local area. He also enjoys walking, long-distance running, and photography.

Silviu is a qualified vet with a PhD in Animal Ecology and working as Senior Researcher at the University of Cambridge. Before that he worked as Head of Conservation at Froglife for five years (2011-2016) and remains a trustee there. He is broadly interested in understanding the effects of anthropogenic changes on biodiversity and improving evidence-based solutions for counteracting negative effects at population or landscape scale. His main areas of work have been on:

(1) road impacts (mortality, fragmentation,  isolation, pollution) and evidence-based mitigation solutions for amphibian and small and medium-sized mammals. This includes movement patterns and using road-based surveys for large-scale monitoring

(2) harnessing the power of citizen science in long-term datasets for biodiversity monitoring, including for emerging diseases

(3) how landscape management shapes the outcome of plant-animal interactions such as grazing and species distribution in relation to lagomorphs.

His current work at Conservation Evidence includes the update for the Bird Conservation book as well as editing the annual What Works In Conservation volume. Some of his research work has been featured widely in the media: 

Wildlife and livestock a risk factor in future pandemics, say studies | Infectious diseases | The Guardian

Abigail has lived in Lutterworth, Leicestershire all her life. She is currently studying an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science with the Open University, and is passionate about nature and environmental sustainability.

Before University she was home-schooled, which meant a unique opportunity to experience more outdoor learning and develop a love for the UK’s native wildlife. Since 2020 Abigail has been a Young Adult Ambassador for Warwickshire Wildlife Trust, which involves learning about nature and campaigning to help save it. She also volunteers for a food waste charity called FareShare.

When she’s finished her studies, Abigail would like to get a job in the green economy, helping nature’s recovery and reducing our carbon emissions to net zero. At the moment she works as a tennis coach, having being a keen tennis player for many years, and is passionate about encouraging equal female participation in sports and other under-represented fields. This is her first experience of being a trustee.  

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