Robin St. Clair Jones (Chair)
Robin has spent most of his working life working in the events industry, staging conferences, product launches and roadshows for many blue-chip clients. As an event producer Robin has worked with people as diverse as Buzz Aldrin, who signed some books for his children, and Margaret Thatcher. In recent years he has been working for companies in the SME sector as a consultant and mentor, helping them to gain grants, funding from angel investors, and win various industry awards. Robin was also Chair of Judges for the annual Brighton College Entrepreneurial Competition for ten years, which he found inspiring and invigorating. Robin has spent most of his life living in the Sussex countryside with his wife and two children and has worked with various environmental groups to help mitigate overdevelopment and maintain wildlife corridors. His hobbies include astronomy, photography, gardening, films, and a love of gadgets.
Beth Morgan (Vice Chair)
Beth first fell in love with Ashdown Forest as a teenager, when most weekends were spent exploring the Forest on foot or on horseback. She lives with her husband and dog close to the Forest and continues to visit on an almost daily basis. She is passionate about ensuring the long-term future of the Forest as a place of increasing importance for nature and biodiversity, as well as a place for visitors to enjoy. A researcher, writer and presenter, Beth has spent most of her career as an industry analyst and advisor to global supply chain leaders, specialising in sustainability and talent management practices. In 2019, she launched a global member-based community and advisory practice focused on improving Diversity, Equity & Inclusion across the supply chain profession. Beth has a degree in Management & German from the University of Leeds and an MSc in Information Systems from the London School of Economics. She is a member of the RSPB, Compassion in World Farming, and the Friends of Ashdown Forest. In her spare time, she enjoys being out in nature, often with her binoculars and camera.
Jonathan Mills (Treasurer)
Jonathan has lived in East Sussex for five years, currently living in Groombridge from where he enjoys frequent trips to Ashdown Forest to clear the mind and stretch the legs. Jonathan graduated from Bristol University with a degree in Economics and subsequently qualified as a Chartered Accountant with the advisory firm KPMG. He has accumulated 20 years in senior finance roles within a number of international advisors and large multinational corporations but in recent years he has increased his focus on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues, having run a growing electric bike business and more recently as Chief Financial Officer for a United Nations-backed non-profit organisation that promotes sustainable investment. Jonathan is a keen swimmer and can often be found wild swimming in lakes and reservoirs across East Sussex which he does to clear the mind (and often his body of heat).
Kathryn Aalto
Kathryn is a writer, historian, teacher, and designer focused on the natural world. For the past twenty-five years, her creative practice has fused nature and culture: teaching the literature of nature and place; designing artful and sustainable gardens; and writing about the natural world. She lectures in writing at universities and travels widely as a keynote speaker throughout North America and the UK. She is the author of three books including The New York Times bestseller, The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh: A Walk Through the Forest that Inspired the Hundred Acre Wood (2015) and Writing Wild: Women Poets, Ramblers, and Mavericks Who Shape How We See the Natural World (2020). She is particularly concerned with children’s access to the natural world. Before leaping across the pond in 2007, she restored a salmon spawning stream and created habitat for nesting bald eagles with her family on their farm. A native Californian, she loves mudlarking on the River Thames, walking public footpaths, and attempting to harvest tomatoes by the Fourth of July in her valiant greenhouse.
Rosalyn St. Pierre
Rosalyn St. Pierre was nominated to the Board of Conservators in 2005 where she currently serves as Vice Chair, in which capacity she acts as a link between that board and The Ashdown Forest Foundation board of trustees. Prior to joining the Conservators of Ashdown Forest, she led a ‘self-funding’ university department which specialised in delivering post graduate courses for teachers in emerging economies and has worked with ministries of education in Central Asia, South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. She was a trustee for many years on the Hornby Educational Trust. She is also an author of school textbooks. As Chair of the Programmes Committee at Ashdown Forest, she supported the introduction of the grazing programmes, the development of education programmes to offer support to schools and children to understand the importance the importance of the flora and fauna. She is also a member of the Ouse and Adur Rivers Trust.
Emma Taylor
Emma has spent her career developing sustainable income streams for non-profits. From monkeys to monks, and now the military, Emma has worked for a wide range of charities. Currently Head of Corporate Partnerships at SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity, Emma works with companies who strategically support the military community to achieve their Environmenal, Social and Governance (ESG) objectives. Emma previously spent many years at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), and it was here that her passion for nature was cultivated. She is committed to helping beautiful, natural spaces financially thrive to ensure they can continue to inspire future generations. Emma’s hobbies include reading, interior design, cooking and exploring the countryside with her two boys and mini schnauzer, Nelly.
Ffion Thomas
Ffion Thomas was nominated to the Board of Conservators in 2021 and is currently Chair of the Ashdown Forest Financial and Regulatory Committee. She has over twenty years’ experience working in risk management and financial regulation, and having undertaken an MSc in Sustainable Food and Natural Resources she is currently studying for a PhD, researching the effects of soil health on the tree disease ash dieback. Ffion grew up on the beautiful island of Anglesey in North Wales which gave her a great love of wide, open landscapes and nature, and she felt very at home when she moved to live close to Ashdown Forest some 15 years ago. This also gave her the opportunity to get involved with many local initiatives to support nature and wildlife, including as one of the founders of Friends of the River Medway, as a volunteer non-executive director at the local biodynamic community supported Tablehurst farm and as a Conservator of Ashdown Forest.
