Background

I am the Executive Director of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, based in the University of Cambridge Judge Business School.

I started my conservation career studying horticulture and plant taxonomy and developed a love for island endemic plants, later doing a PhD on the conservation management of threatened plants at the University of Reading. Whilst at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew I developed a set of international plant and habitat conservation partnerships with a focus on East Africa and oceanic islands. I have kept my deep interest in tropical conservation through working with the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hawaii, the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens and Florida International University in Miami, the Mohamed Bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund and the conservation network of the Eastern Africa Plant Red List Authority.  Having worked on the extinction frontline in places like Hawaii, I am deeply committed to the restoration of biodiversity and I am happiest working in the hybrid zones between culture, science, policy, business and conservation delivery. One of my priorities is working with the next generation of conservation practitioners, they are proving to be cross-disciplinary, agile and bold!