Sir Crispin Tickell GCMG KCVO (President)
Sir Crispin has been a TREE AID patron since 1993, and took over from John Fletcher as President in March 2007. He is the Director of the Policy Foresight Programme at the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization at Oxford University. His main interests are in the field of the environment and international affairs and in 1977 he published a seminal text ‘Climatic Change and World
Affairs’. Most of his career was in the Diplomatic Service, including a spell as Permanent Secretary to the Overseas Development Agency (1984-87) at the height of the famine in Ethiopia. He has also been President of the Royal Geographical Society (1990-93); Chairman of the Board of the Climate Institute of Washington DC (1990-2002); Convenor of the Government Panel on Sustainable Development (1994-2000); and Inaugural Senior Visiting Fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment (2002-03).
Sophie Churchill (Chair since 2011)
Sophie Churchill is the Chief Executive of the National Forest Company, which is changing the landscape of 200 square miles in the Midlands through reafforestation and the creation of other habitats. She has been, and continues to be, very much involved in the processes of change, liaising with local partners and the Company’s lead Department, Defra.
Previously Sophie was Chief Executive of RegenWM, the centre of excellence for regeneration for the West Midlands, and Director of a strategic partnership for Birmingham.
She has always combined paid work with voluntary commitments, having chaired a school governing body and a voluntary organisation working with people with alcohol and homelessness problems. She has a PhD based on the lives of adults with learning disabilities in long stay hospitals and has fostered a teenager with special needs.
John Wenger (Vice Chair)
After working for a heavy electrical engineering company, John spent 22 years with the Beecham Group where he progressed to become Finance Director of Beecham Pharmaceuticals Europe Division. Before retiring in 2004 he was Finance and Resources Director of Treloar Trust for 6 years. He is a past Chair of the Royal Association for Deaf people (RAD) and is currently a trustee of two charities (Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice and a children’s charity working in Manila). He is a lay director of the Fundraising Standards Board.
Hugh Arthur (Treasurer since 2011)
Hugh has been working for more than thirty years in finance andbusiness. He has lived and worked in Paris, Istanbul, Madrid andLondon and travelled extensively in Europe, the Middle East and Africawhilst with the food company, Kraft and the agricultural commoditytrader, Bunge. He qualified as an accountant with PwC. He has recentlyundertaken volunteer assignments with WaterAid and VSO in fundraisingand financial planning and is now working in finance for Save The Children International.
Paul Anticoni (Trustee since 2003)
Paul has recently taken up the post of Chief Executive with World Jewish Relief, the leading humanitarian and development agency that represents the UK’s Jewish community. Prior to this appointment he was with the British Red Cross in London for 12 years, moving from management of East Africa operations to Head of the International Aid Department, where he managed their international disaster response operations, long term programming and strategic relationships with institutional donors. Paul had previously worked with Concern Worldwide and Marie Stopes International in East Africa, South East Asia and the Balkans.
Paulette Cohen (Trustee since 2003)
Paulette has worked in the not-for-profit sector for nearly 20 years, in the fields of communications and leadership. She was Head of Publicity for VSO, and Communications Director for Save the Children, when she also chaired the International Save the Children Alliance Global Communications Group. She was Deputy Chief Executive of the Windsor Leadership Trust until September 2010, and is now Associate Director (Global Community Investment) at Barclays Bank. She is a Non-Executive Board member of BTCV.
Richard Puddephatt (Trustee since 1999)
Richard spent his entire career in Sales and Marketing in the consumer goods field for companies including Cadbury Schweppes, Lyons Tetley and Allied Domecq from where he retired in 2004. He was responsible for the marketing of major brands such as Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Chocolate, Tetley Tea and Allied’s major international Scotch Whisky brand, Ballantines. His final area of responsibility involved the coordination of a worldwide strategy to deal with the problem of counterfeit liquor products.
John Rhodes (Trustee since 2006)
John Rhodes studied law at Jesus College, Cambridge before joining Macfarlanes, a City firm of solicitors, in 1968. He specialised in trust and estate planning for both UK and international families, serving as a partner and then Head of the Private Client Department before leaving the firm in 1968. He continues to practice law at Stonehage Law Ltd in London. He is trustee of a range of charities, including Tree Aid. His first experience of Africa was as a VSO volunteer in Nigeria in 1962-3. He has managed his own small woodland since 1977.
Simon Toomer (Trustee since 2011)
Originally trained in environmental biology and forestry, Simon Toomer has worked as a practical forester, woodlands advisor and arboriculturalist in both the private and public sectors. He has worked at The National Arboretum, Westonbirt since 2000 and in his role as Director is responsible for overseeing the management and development of one of the finest tree collections in the World. Simon has travelled in many parts of Europe, North America, Asia and Africa in pursuit of trees and is the author of two books. He is a professional member of the Arboricultural Association and an examiner for the Royal Forestry Society’s Professional Diploma in Arboriculture.
Mariska Van der Linden (Trustee since 2011)
Mariska is the policy and programme manager for all things business and markets related at Forestry Commission England. She advises government departments and Ministers as well as delivering policy on the ground. Previous positions include working on policy, research and evaluation at Enterprise UK, the NGO behind national and global campaigns to promote entrepreneurship, lobbying government of behalf of business at the CBI, and tackling trafficking in human beings at the International Labour Organisation. Mariska has travelled extensively, including a spell working in Delhi and volunteering in Nepal.
