Our people

Rich joined the Trust in April 2019 after spending most of his career working in the university sector in various roles including research, organisational development, and marketing and communications.

As CEO, he leads the Trust with the Strategic Leadership Team and is accountable to the Board of Trustees to deliver the Trust’s mission to protect wildlife and inspire a lifelong love of nature.

Previously, as Director of Engagement, he led the Engagement directorate which focuses on widening access to nature and encouraging the people of Essex to take action for wildlife and wild places.

Rich grew up in rural Essex. He studied environmental science and business at college. His bachelor’s degree was in ancient history and his master’s degree was in literature, specifically psychogeography and nature writing. He is also a trained coach and a proud trustee of Froglife.

Jez is the Trust’s Director of Conservation, having joined the Trust in February 2022 from the Epping Forest charity of the City of London Corporation. Jez worked as Epping Forest’s Head of Conservation for 27 years, re-establishing conservation grazing and pioneering the UK’s first fenceless grazing system. This work helped restore hundreds of hectares of internationally-protected wood-pasture habitat on the heavily-visited urban London-Essex border and became an exemplar, which many other conservation sites around the UK have followed.

Jez has worked for most of his career in wildlife conservation in Essex, and is thrilled to have joined the Trust, with its dynamic community of staff, members and volunteers and its history of campaigning for the better protection of Essex’s amazing habitats. In his early years he was an Assistant Regional Officer for English Nature (Natural England’s predecessor body) in mid-Essex and, for two years, chaired the Blackwater Estuary Management Plan Working Group (1993 – 1995). He also was part of a team that carried out the first coastal realignment scheme in Essex at Northey Island. So, Jez is delighted to be involved again on the Essex Coast at a time when its conservation, in the face of sea-level rise, has become even more pressing.

Jez holds a PhD in evolutionary biology and is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM). He also acts as an advisor to the Forestry Commission on its East England Forestry & Woodlands Advisory Committee and is Chair of the UK Wood-Pasture & Parkland Network (WPPN).

Sam is the Trust’s Director of Resources.  She joined the Trust in September 2020 moving from Hertfordshire where she had worked for more than 30 years almost exclusively in Third Sector organisations.  Having relocated during lock-down, Sam is enjoying life in Essex, and feels very much at home.

Sam has a breadth of experience in leadership and management, having held roles in senior management including as Principal Officer, and strategic HR positions.  A Chartered member of CIPD, she specialises in Strategic HRM, change management/transformation, culture, and reward.  A qualified workplace mediator, Sam is also a trained (therapeutic) counsellor, and coach, a Mental Health First Aider, and a Wellbeing Champion.

A lover of outdoor life, Sam is a keen walker and cyclist – both road and static (indoor) - but is happiest when by (or in!) a river or woodland, with camera in hand.   When not outdoors in nature, she relaxes through music and reading.

Born in Ireland, on the banks of the River Boyne (famous for its salmon), Sam loves Irish/Celtic mythology and particularly appreciates the oral tradition of great storytelling.

Ben is the Trust’s Director of Operations, joining us in November 2024.

With a broad experience base, he has worked across the commercial and not for profit sector; working for a US Fortune 500 company, early-stage startups, medium sized charities and national governing bodies of sport. He has held senior management roles in sports development, software sales and business development; and commercial and operational development in charities. All organisations that shared a golden thread of improving and enriching life opportunities for people, as well as building a wide commercial skillset.

Ben comes from Middlesbrough in the North East of England, where he was lucky to spend a great deal of time in the beautiful countryside and coastline that North Yorkshire is blessed with. This is where his passion for social justice and a deep understanding of the value of accessing life affirming experiences was born. Ben has a Sport and Exercise Science degree from Loughborough University.

When not at work he can be found at various locations across Essex, including the beautiful Wrabness, fossil hunting with his family on the Naze and Harwich, or taking a rowing boat at Dedham or Flatford Mill.