I am Chief Executive of MOBIE – Ministry of Building Innovation and Education – a charity that engages, educates and inspires young people in home design to help transform home building into a clean, low carbon, precision engineered and efficient industry.

I visited New Zealand in 1998 to study its new environmental planning system – the Resource Management Act 1991. I investigated how this radical change in planning was working seven years after implementation. I also came away with a fresh perspective on environmental practice based on the New Zealand approach to nature conservation and the control of invasive species.

Since my Fellowship I have worked at the RSPB, Environment Agency, Planning Inspectorate and now MOBIE. I am a member of the General Assembly of the Royal Town Planning Institute and I was a trustee and Vice-chair of the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust for nine years. I was a member of Sir John Lawton's panel that produced the Review of England's Wildlife Sites and Ecological Networks (2010).

My Fellowship gave me a fresh perspective on UK planning and conservation that I continue to draw upon, as well as a love of New Zealand, its natural history and its people.