I'm an ecologist and environmental manager who has worked within The Wildlife Trust federation for nearly all of my 35 year career - as a volunteer, trustee and paid member of staff, and in conservation, education, communication, business development, policy and leadership roles in variious parts of the UK.  This included 8 years running campaigns and public policy work at the Scottish WT and 10 years as CEO of Sheffield WT.  I have been in The Wildlife Trusts' central team at RSWT since 2011 and led the development of The Wildlife Trusts' collective strategy from 2013 to 2020.  As Head of Science & Research, I now have responsibility for developing the federation's collective thinking on and understanding of a wide spectrum of issues of long term significance to the federation, and developing relationships with academics and expert researchers to address them.  I'm currently helping the Data, Research & Evidence Community of Practice to develop and implement a federation-wide framework intended to strengthen how Wildlife Trusts work together on generating, sharing and using data and evidence more effectively, prioritising our research and evidence needs and working together and with others to commission and deliver research that addresses them.